Vauxhall VXR8 | High Mile Club
Well if fuel is going to cost a fortune, it may as well go into a great car...
First things first: by the standards of High Mile Club, this Vauxhall VXR8 isn’t anything special. Just 103,000 miles ought to be nothing for a car with a relatively unstressed 6.0-litre Chevy small block motoring it along. Secondly, this is PH, and what this community doesn’t know about Monaros and VXR8s isn’t worth knowing. So there may well be a lot written here you already know…
Still, if there’s an iconic V8 performance car worth revisiting, the VXR8 is it. The four-door saloon replaced the two-door Monaro in 2007, albeit with much the same recipe as before: honking great V8 up front, standard manual gearbox, a nicely balanced rear drive chassis and an alluringly cheap RRP. Nothing feels quite as 2007, quite so pre-meltdown-that-never-really-went-away, as the £35k V8 Vauxhall supersaloon.
The VXR8 proved popular with UK buyers, just as the Monaro did, and evolved to keep their interest. Normally that would be evolved to stay competitive, but it was hard to know what the VXR8 rivalled, costing little more than 335i money for something 5 Series sized. With a 6.0-litre V8. That initial LS2-engined model was replaced by a more powerful, 6.2-litre LS3 in 2008, after which came the mighty Bathurst supercharged model. Additional significant revisions came in 2011, 2013 (with the Tourer available, too), then the final LSA-engined GTS from 2014. The model bowed out in spectacular fashion, the GTS-R of 2017 boasting almost 600hp.
This VXR8 is one of those first 6.0-litres, though with a Walkinshaw exhaust and power kit to produce in the region of 440hp. So it’ll sound even better and go even better than a standard car - perfect. It’s being sold from an HSV specialist with a full service history; inside and out it looks a really smart VXR8, fit to rumble along for many more miles yet. Or for as long as it can be kept in super unleaded…
As has been discussed at length already, the future for relatively humble and gloriously over-engined performance cars looks uncertain. For the moment, however, £16,495 doesn’t look much for such a hunk of lovable V8 thunder saloon. Once upon a time the VXR8 was being compared to the E39 BMW M5, such was its combination of talents and similarity in feel; £16k doesn’t get and awful lot of old M5 nowadays.
And while the big Vaux is unlikely to ever have the reputation of an M car legend, it’s always going to be loved by a dedicated bunch of enthusiasts. If you aren’t one already, this might just be the time (and the car) to do the convincing…
Check the history very carefully as a lot of these 4 doors were bought by track day experience companies and were thrashed mercilessly. Not particularly well looked after either as I remember the one I went in had pretty much every dash warning light on and an interior like a 20 year old mini cab. The instructor said they would drive them into the ground then punt them onto ‘specialists’ who would clean them up and sell them on again.
Plus it hasn’t got that awful auto box slurring noise on full throttle changes
Imagine if Corvettes had been sold in this country as Vauxhalls? I’m sure buyers would have done the same thing
The speed the driver took some of the corners was mind boggling, easily double what I had done in those other cars. Truly impressive, especially given its a big front engined, RWD car.
I don't want to be pedantic, but it would make me question other things this "specialist" has put in the advert if he can't recognise the exhaust brand.
Lots people kept the Vauxhall badging on the back as it looked more normal there.
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