ABDC winner proves too quick for the Brits

The second-most powerful model in HSV’s 2017 line-up and its ute offshoot are headed to ol’ Blighty.

In the same week motoring.com.au crowned the HSV GTSR W1 the winner of its annual Australia’s Best Driver’s Car award, Vauxhall has confirmed the W1’s junior siblings, the GTSR sedan and GTSR Maloo, will be exported to England from this month.

Fifteen HSV GTSR sedans will touch down in the UK, along with another five Maloo LSA utes. The 435kW/740Nm monsters are set to be re-branded as Vauxhall VXR8 GTS-Rs and Vauxhall Maloo LSAs, scoring the same 6.2-litre supercharged V8.

The very first GTS-R sedan will depart HSV’s Clayton premises in Victoria this week, before being air-freighted to the UK in time for an unveiling and demonstration drives at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on June 29-July 2.

“We’ve already received 11 GTS-R orders and two Maloo LSA orders, but people ordering cars from today can expect delivery in March ’18,” Vauxhall UK spokesman Simon Hucknall told motoring.com.au.

Vauxhall considered the flagship W1 for the UK market, but it seems Australia’s most powerful car proved too quick – in the sense that supplies had already been exhausted. Only 300 W1s were produced for the Australian market, limited by stock of the car’s now-extinct 474kW/815Nm LS9 V8 engine.

Instead, the Vauxhall models will be identical mechanically to our HSV GTSR and HSV GTSR Maloo, featuring a limited-slip differential, torque vectoring, six-piston brakes and 20-inch forged alloy wheels.

UK-specification cars will also include carbon fibre vents, a rear spoiler with a carbon fibre upper plane and lashings of Alcantara on the steering wheel, seats and gear lever. These items are borrowed straight from the W1, or are optional on the GTSR in Australia.

The sedan and ute will mark the most powerful Vauxhall-plated vehicles ever created, and also loom as the last V8-engined models in Vauxhall's UK line-up.

“Correct,” Hucknall said. “The (previous most powerful Vauxhall models) have been the Bathurst S from 2009 - a supercharged LS3-based car created by Walkinshaws in the UK - and the outgoing GTS with 576hp (430kW). Before the Monaro and VXR8 editions, the most powerful Vauxhall would have been the Lotus Carlton model with 376bhp (280kW).”

The GTS-R will retail for BMW M3/Mercedes-AMG C63 S money in the UK, at $£74,500 on the road. With the AUD exchange rate in mind, that makes our Aussie-spec models considerably cheaper at $109,490 (plus on-road costs) for the manual GTSR variant.

The Maloo will retail at £63,745 – slightly more than the V6 Jaguar F-Type in the Mother Land. Not bad for the fastest ute in the world.

The UK export program will be heralded by a ‘Spitfire Green’ GTS-R completing the iconic hill climb at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Expect the GTS-R to complete about a half-dozen runs up the hill between June 29 and July 2.

“They’re genuinely iconic and the perfect antidote to the oh-so predictable German performance saloons on sale in the UK,” Hucknall said of the GTS-R and GTS-R Maloo.

“They perhaps don’t have the Teutonic polish that some buyers expect in this class, but our buyers warm to their honesty of character, along with fine dynamics, practicality and durability. Rarity, too.

“The VXR8 models (and previous Monaro) have also been a powerful flag-bearer for our VXR range, and from a PR perspective, helped Vauxhall gain traction in media that wouldn’t always consider featuring our cars.”

The export program comes weeks after Holden finalised the last versions of the Australian-based Commodore models for the US market.