Vauxhall VXR8 GTS-R

All Aussie car production has now ceased, and with it goes the Holden Commodore base for the VXR8. The 587bhp GTS-R is an awesome send-off.

- Antony Ingram

THE HOLDEN COMMODORE IS no more. The Australian plant producing it churned out its last car in October, and with it closed the book on Australian automobile production. Not one single manufacturer now builds its wares in the Antipodean nation.

The cold reality is that the rest of the world will shed few tears over this decision. Australia’s factories primarily served a Galapagos-like market whose products only really made sense within the continent’s confines, and ‘world cars’ produced at lower labour rates make more unique, lower-volume models economically undesirable.

The exception has always been the Commodore and its derivatives. While never a particularly strong seller overseas, whether in the United States as the Chevrolet SS or in the UK under the Vauxhall banner, it’s nevertheless always bustled with a blue-collar honesty and bang-per-buck value that Europe’s premium manufacturers have never quite matched. At £74,500 for the run-out VXR8 GTS-R, perhaps the value aspect is no longer true, but on paper this is the most extreme and probably one of the most appealing VXR8s yet.

Behind the snarling grille sits the familiar General Motors LSA V8 – all 6.2 supercharged litres of it – found elsewhere in the Cadillac CTS-V and Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Tyres will squeal with more than just terror given its 587bhp and 546lb ft outputs – the former up by 11bhp for the R – all directed through a refreshingly simple six-speed manual transmission. Anachronistic perhaps, but a layer of interaction denied in anything you might consider a rival.