Holden Monaro ‘Project Marilyn'

Information

Holden Monroe ‘Project Marilyn’

The Holden Monroe ‘Project Marilyn’ was a design mule made by TWR in England and Edscha in Germany that was commissioned by Holden managing director Peter Hanenberger and engineering boss Tony Hyde. It was made at a cost of $1.75 million to show the feasibility of a convertible Monroe model and was shown a year after it was completed at the 2004 Melbourne International Motor Show. The Holden brand shared many models with General Motors, with the Monroe being one of the most popular. General Motors rebadged the Monroe into the Pontiac GTO in the United States, with a big demand for a convertible version. During the development of ‘Project Marilyn’ there was no convertible Monroe in production with no plans for one in the next generation meaning there was no convertible Pontiac GTO.

Due to the fact that the ‘Project Marilyn’ was made with the Pontiac rebadging in mind the car was made in left hand drive. The directions for the design was to cut the roof off of a Holden Monroe and keep as much of the original Monroe as possible. Holden allowed some journalists to drive the car and they said that it felt kind of like a gimmick. During an interview with Mike Simcoe, GM Executive Director, he said 'If it had been at all possible and made economic sense, General Motors would have taken it for sure.'. The main issues that stopped the project from going forward was the aging vehicle platform, and the price to produce altered parts for a model that was getting updated soon.

The parts that were changed were a strengthened a-pillar, new rear quarter body inner panels, a double skin rear seat bulkhead, and a new trunk lid. Due to having no roof there were reinforcements made to the underbody and mountings for a bolt on cruciform structure. The door was changed to take a frameless glass design, a rigid tonneau cover with pop off panels for roll over hoops, and individual rear seats. This was all nice but the real show piece was the fully insulated black cloth convertible roof with a six bow folding system. This was all done by the press of one button that dropped the glass, opened the rear tonneau cover, stowed it, and covered it up in what Holden called a 'competitive cycle time .