Untouched HSV Walkinshaw could rewrite Holden auction records

Every so often a car turns up that makes the Aussie collector scene collectively drop its sausage sandwich. This is one of them: a 1988 HSV Commodore VL SS Group A Walkinshaw, chassis 082, with 20km on the odometer and the factory plastic still on the seats and accessories.

It's being offered by Adelaide classic dealer Richmonds via expressions of interest, closing midday on September 30.

No price guide has been issued, which in collector-car circles is code for 'we have no idea either, but bring your chequebook'.

The provenance here is the good stuff. Chassis 082 left Holden on April 14, 1988, was stamped complete by HSV on July 11 that year, and was allocated to Charlie McCarron's Canowindra Motors, a country Holden and HSV dealership in rural New South Wales that later became a museum before closing in 2016.

It sat there, unsold and unwrapped, until 1991, when a Bridgestone employee from South Australia heard about it through industry mates, recognised exactly what it was, and drove east with a trailer to collect it.

Street Machine reports he paid $36,000 cash, against a $45,000 recommended retail price when new – a tidy bit of haggling, to put it mildly.

Because it was trailered straight off the showroom floor, the dealership never bothered fitting Walkinshaw's aero bits. Those fibreglass pieces are still in their original packaging. So is most of the interior. Apart from a fresh battery — the original comes with the car — everything is as it left the factory, right down to date-stamped Bridgestone tyres.

The car was started and idled to temperature in the early years, then preserved by turning the engine over by hand, and it has since been recommissioned with fresh fuel.

It starts, runs and idles, with video to prove it. Its only real outing was a handful of shows in the early-to-mid 1990s, including the 1993 Street Machine Show, complete with period photos of Miss Street Machine.

The paperwork is equally absurd: factory release form, dealership inspection report, original dealer registration certificate, original NSW plates, the sales contract and even the finance documentation. It has stayed in one family from new and is only being sold following the recent passing of its custodian.

So, the question everyone's asking – what's it really worth?

The published record for a VL SS Group A Walkinshaw is $380,000, set by chassis 333 back in 2018. That same car was later advertised at $575,000, and in 2021 another example was listed at north of $1 million, though no sale price was ever made public.

More recent results are more sobering.

In June this year, chassis 285 sold at auction for $209,000 with 45,764km showing. Another Walkinshaw with 122,679km failed to sell in July.

Low-kilometre cars are where the action is: chassis 304 is currently advertised at $330,000 with 15,685km, and asking prices on carsales for tidy Group As range from around $220,000 to $355,000.

But this SS Group A chassis 082 sits in a different universe.

Nothing with 20km has ever come to market, and the one-owner history, untouched aero kit and complete paper trail make it about as close to a factory-fresh 1988 Walkinshaw as anyone will ever see.

Our tip is that it comfortably clears the $380,000 record and lands somewhere in the $500,000 to $600,000 bracket, with genuine upside if two determined collectors decide they simply must have it.

For context, HSV's road-car high-water mark is the $1.05 million paid for a GTSR W1 Maloo. 

Whoever buys it inherits a wonderful dilemma, too.

Do you finally bolt the side skirts on and drive the thing? Or do you keep the plastic on and let the dust settle for another 30 years? For roughly half a million dollars, we suspect the answer is a very careful nothing at all.

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