DanTheMan

Well I was thinking about something different, I passed two P1's and another STi5-R LTD on the 10 min drive to the Vauxhall garage, so common as mud these scoobies.

Unlike the 300 official Monaro imports per year, as per a previous post split (250 CV8/50 VXR).

Anyway saw it in the flesh, this one was blue - very nice, big imposing rear end but the front is slightly dull, however the VXR has more cooling holes and looks more menacing. 18" rims as standard look cool, 296mm vented disks look like they will do the job.

Pop the bonnet (on gas struts - nice touch) and WOW a massive V8 lump, no fiddly poxy wires/tubes/pipes just a HUGE V8 lump and enough room around it to stow a couple of immigrants on a day trip to france. Rev it up and it sounds as good as any Scoob, rocks the car from side to side - power - nice !

So get inside, wow leather seats - electrically adjustable as you do (probably the first thing to go wrong), suede door trim, big steering wheel covered with buttons, as is the dashboard, however there are ally pedals, ally handbrake and what looks like carbon fibre dash surrounds, oh and some trick cup holders so all looks nice so far. Very flash digital readouts - probably tells you the time in 200 languages, speedo can switch between MPH & KPH, 6 CD player looks easy enough to use and VERY loud (260 watt apparently), even adjusts volume for road noise.

Drop it into 1st, nice slick 6 speed box, heavy clutch but not noticable after two mins. Engage traction control (salesman says its too damp) Just give it a bit of gas and its off like a rocket, its like having a turbo cut in at 750rpm, all the way to the redline (oops) then second which takes you past 60 and third is way into 3 figures - hells teeth thats right we are already past the legal limit (private test road) so its back off the gas and coast a bit, notice the mpg is 40+ on the digital readout. Then boot it again and watch the mpg drop to 3.5mpg....scary - just like a scoob.

Power out of a few roundabouts, traction control cutting in just a bit so no chance to test the LSD, slower cars in front make you dab the brakes, nice firm feel (ABS too - apparently) then power past them realising that the 160+ top speed is an all to near possibility if you don't keep a watchfull eye on the speedo. Ride is very firm - you feel the bumps just like a Scoob, body roll is minimal, however it does seem somewhat executive untill you plant your right foot again, petrol tank probably empties in 30 seconds and you warp back up to milennium falcon speeds. It never seems strained at all, its such lazy power and unbelievable torque - 465Nm if you believe the brochure and I believe it infact you can almost imagine the torque peeling the rubber tyres from the rims. 5th & 6th gears seem great to get the mpg back into double figures, 3rd & 4th seem the most fun on motorways to overtake in microseconds, you don't have to change down.

There is a sports exhaust on it's way and its not loud enough without it (used to full decat) but thats just my opinion, however you can hear the V8 roar when you are making progress.

So to summarise, it's big, it's heavy, the engine is MASSIVE and it pulls like a train in any gear. It lacks the punch you get from a turbo however I feel that it could amble alongside most jap motors which would have their highly strung 4 cylinder engines screaming to the redline, and it wouldnt even break into a sweat.
0-60 in Autocar was something like 5.6 secs I think, and again it would probably do this every time without fear of destroying the engine/clutch, but you will become good friends with the local tyre supplier.
I'd have one, the spec is huge, it's just a fraction less ***** out than a PPP'd STi (similair price range) but has thousands of pounds worth of electrical goodies thrown in.

It's just a big coupe, with a monster engine + rear wheel drive and that means BIG fun, pity its a Vauxhall (first thing I'd have is a set of Holden badges shipped in from OZ)

what would scooby do

errm - I suggest you do a search for Gen3 engine failures - I'm sure I heard some funnies about them a while back.

what would scooby do

nice looking thing..

scoobynutta555

"Well I was thinking about something different, I passed two P1's and another STi5-R LTD on the 10 min drive to the Vauxhall garage, so common as mud these scoobies."

you must live in a wet field

A scoobymeet somewhere per chance?

MJW

I definitely agree with the badge switching, get some HSV ones from Oz. The Monaro seems a good car and I suppose having a V8 and RWD will be good fun, but they seem to have tamed the styling down a bit for the uk market - the Ozzies get the Clubsport R8 (4-door) which looks a lot better IMO :



and the GTS coupe :

fatherpierre

The GTS look a bit like a Calibra after lots of steriods.

CrisPDuk

Wasn't that the early ones with the heads that went porous? Holden use their own, Oz-sourced heads now, rather than the US-sourced chevy ones so I would imagine the problem is solved.

what would scooby do

I don't know the details of the problem - just saw a photo and snidey comment from a site like sniffpetrol.com ????

matlow

lmao now thats a funny line, saw loads of these on a recent trip to Oz, think theyre popular as anything because juice is a fair bit cheaper.

they actually look pretty cool in flatbed form aswell.

CrisPDuk

I believe the correct term of reference for the pick-up is 'ute' my good man & the HSV versions look & sound awesome, they don't appear to hang around either

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I will get one.....one day, probably import a 2nd hand one from oz.

If only I the money

Trumble

Nice on Dan, I was thinking of getting a test drive - what would you say the fuel consumption was when do tried it ? 10-15mpg - I cant imagine it comes anywhere near the 'official' 28mpg...

T.

DanTheMan

Actually I was surprised that the MPG was in the 30's & 40's when just cruising along in 6th, it has cruise control which will help a lot.

However when in traffic, 1st & 2nd gear trundling along thats when the MPG was well under 20MPG. I was too busy getting a feel of it to pay too much attention to the digital readouts.

The 380BHP VXR has a similair front end to the GTS coupe as photo'd above (it's probably the same car), five grand gets you an extra 50HP and a more menacing look, but stretches the wallet even further......

check out http://www.lindenspecialvehicles.com/ for tuning details

DanTheMan

Stage Two Additional 60 bhp

Cold air intake system, mass airflow meter, 4-1 headers and 2 ½" 'cat back' mild steel exhaust
The mass air flow meter measures the amount of air entering the engine; this is then used to calculate the amount of fuel and the timing the engine requires. As the standard unit uses a mean average for this calculation, it compromises the power output at low and mid throttle settings. The LSV unit measures the actual amount of air entering the engine to the control unit, and allows more accurate timing and fuel requirement to be calculated, thus increasing power output.

Fully fitted £2,695.00

sounds like a real bargain to get a shade under 400BHP

NotoriousREV

Bearing in mind that the old Chevy 350 small block has been around since 1955 I'm pretty sure most bugs have been ironed out and there's one or 2 people that know how to tune them

How 'bout running it on methanol and supercharging it?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

It's not really the old 350 small block. The gen III LS engine is all alloy and uses 6bolt main bearing caps rather than 4 bolts mains and cast iron blocks.

The original small block had more in common with the gen II LT engines than the current LS6 genIII's

Unfortunatley this means there isn't anywhere near as much off the shelf tuning components as what you can get for the 350's (very little is interchangeable).

DanTheMan

good news is that my insurance would only go up £47 even if its the VRX model.

and thats going from a 14K cover to 28K cover, bargain

Midmotorsteve

go for it be different

what would scooby do

ideal motor for adding NOS also

DanTheMan

NOS - I thought of that too

I have just spoken to lindenspecialvehicles.com and they say that any work they do (i.e. performance upgrades) will be warranted by Vauxhall as normal, sounds like they are the equivalent of Prodrive to Subaru.

This means you could take the power of the basic CV8 to a fraction higher than the monster VXR model, keep the warranty and save a few grand too.

RoShamBo

iTrader: (1)

Go for it dude !
Bagsy fiirst ride !

logiclee

Not driven one but recently drove the prodrive developed MGZT 260.

4.6l Mustang V8 and RWD is loads of fun.

Lee

Olly

I love it, would have one tomorrow if I could afford it.

Wonder what residuals would be like? Surely the 300 examples will be snatched up by the hardcore, who couldn't give a stuff about the griffin on the front, and despise the badge snobbishness mentality that lures buyers to the default choice of a BMW 330 Coupe (eg. me). But then what?

Could be a bargain in 12-18 months.

DanTheMan

Perhaps it's the modern day Lotus Carlton ?

It's just a bit different to the beemers/mercs/porkers that blend into the background, funny thing was that in the pub today with the other halfs work people, none of them knew what a Holden was - cool or what !

Don't know about residuals, all cars depreciate, even subaru's, fact.

Dracoro

I saw a few when I was in New Zealand a coupla years ago. Wanted one ever since.

Have to take the Vauxhall badge off and replace with Holden one though!

LC Geezer

Modern day Lotus Carlton? HAH!!!! My mate had a Monaro for the weekend a couple of weeks back (a nice Devil Yellow one that is a press car). We did a side by side compariosn of my LC against the Monaro. Rolling side by side start in second gear. No comparison - the LC was so much quicker even though I was only running standard unleaded (sodding Optimax garage near me has gone to the dark side and become BP - where's the nearest Optimax to Eastbourne?).

DanTheMan

do you think the VXR would be near identical then ?

LC Geezer

I would imagine so. My LC posted 391 bhp at SAS (tuning Japanese) and others posted even more (up to 419 bhp). All were bog standard so either RR is inaccurate (which they all are by there very definition) or the quoted 377bhp is actually too low (which I also believe is true). It has since transpired that my engine mounts are shot and you can see that boost was retared during the run, almost certainly due to knock detected because of the FUBAR engine mounts. So, I reckon most standard LCs will be around the 400 bhp mark. Minor mods (decat/free flow cats and straight through exhaust) may make some small difference (another 10 bhp?). So, back to the original question - will the VXR be near identical ? On paper - yes. But let's wait and see. Round two is looming and this time, I'll have new engine mounts I really must fit a knock-link.

DanTheMan

On paper virtually identical:

Carlton 1655 KG 377BHP
Monaro 1640 KG 380BHP (VXR)

However taller gear ratio's may be the downfall of the Monaro, would be interesting to see though.
One thing to remember is that I'm sure the Carlton was £49,000 when new, which is a damn sight more expensive than the Monaro.

trionic

You have gotta ask what use the Australians have for such a bonkers car when their country has absurdly low speed limits everywhere, enforced by (all hidden) speed cameras.