Peter Hanenberger
Encyclopedia
Peter Hanenberger is a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

-born automotive specialist who worked for General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

 (GM). He is most remembered for being the chairman and managing director of Australian GM subsidiary, Holden
Holden
GM Holden Ltd is an automaker that operates in Australia, based in Port Melbourne, Victoria. The company was founded in 1856 as a saddlery manufacturer. In 1908 it moved into the automotive field, before becoming a subsidiary of the U.S.-based General Motors in 1931...

.

Beginnings

Peter spent most of his early career working for GM's Opel
Opel
Adam Opel AG, generally shortened to Opel, is a German automobile company founded by Adam Opel in 1862. Opel has been building automobiles since 1899, and became an Aktiengesellschaft in 1929...

 division in Germany as a vehicle tester and suspension engineer. In 1976 Hanenberger was approached by GM-Holden Australia to assist with suspension work on their vehicles, and with notice of a month from Opel, he was transferred there. During that year he assisted Holden with a new suspension tuning update for their cars, entitled RTS ("Radial Tuned Suspension"). Applied firstly to the Holden Sunbird, then to all other Holdens (and the Vauxhall Chevette
Vauxhall Chevette
The Chevette was a supermini model of car manufactured by Vauxhall in the UK from 1975 to 1984. It was Vauxhall's version of the family of small "T-Cars" from Vauxhall's parent General Motors ; the family included the Opel Kadett in Germany, the Isuzu Gemini in Japan, the Holden Gemini in...

 in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

), it transformed the overall handling dynamics of the entire Holden range for the better in Australian road conditions.

Well liked by the people at Holden for his genial and professional manner, Hanenberger left Australia to return to Opel in the early 1980s becoming GM vice president and group executive of the Opel Technical Development Centre in Ruesselsheim, Germany.

Holden

In 1999 it was announced that Peter was to be the new chairman and managing director of Holden. On assignment with Holden in the 1970s, Hanenberger had assisted Holden engineers with their "European look" design briefs, and upon his return in 1999, he implemented quality control and improved production engineering principles.

After discovering that the prototype Holden Monaro
Holden Monaro
The Holden Monaro is an automobile that was produced by GM Holden Ltd, an Australian subsidiary of General Motors, between 1968 and 1977 and between 2001 and 2005...

 had been built by a group of enthusiastic and dedicated Holden engineers in their free time, Hanenberger encouraged the development of the prototype into production-readiness, and sought out export markets to guarantee the car's production. Hanenberger also consolidated the maker's exports programmes of its VT Commodore
Holden VT Commodore
The Holden VT Commodore, Berlina, and Calais are the tenth iteration of the Holden Commodore, a full-size car built by Holden, the Australian subsidiary of General Motors...

/WH Statesman/Caprice platform, and the cars quickly became favorites in the Middle East, winning numerous motoring press awards. In 2003 he announced that he would retire, after spending about 45 years with GM.

Retirement

Hanenberger retired to his home town of Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...

. As a farewell gift from Holden, they made him a once only special Holden Monaro. It is left hand drive
Driving on the left or right
The terms right-hand traffic and left-hand traffic refer to regulations requiring all bidirectional traffic to keep either to the right or the left side of the road, respectively. This is so fundamental to traffic flow that it is sometimes referred to as the rule of the road. This basic rule eases...

 (for Europe), with a special Pontiac GTO
Pontiac GTO
The Pontiac GTO is an automobile built by Pontiac Division of General Motors in the United States from 1964 to 1974, and by GM subsidiary Holden in Australia from 2004 to 2006. It is considered an innovative, and now classic muscle car of the 1960s and 1970s...

 LS1 V8 engine
V8 engine
A V8 engine is a V engine with eight cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of four cylinders, in most cases set at a right angle to each other but sometimes at a narrower angle, with all eight pistons driving a common crankshaft....

. There is no word on where or what he is currently doing, it is assumed he is nestled in Wiesbaden, Germany.

External links

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