Am I mad or is this car worth buying?

Marcusm · 07-03-2011 4:14pm #1

I've just come back from a holiday in Australia. While there I needed to rent cars at various points. Given that Australia has a well established industry I thought I would take the opportunity to rent locally produced performance saloons, basically a Ford Falcon XR6 (4.0L V6) and Holden Commodore SV6 (3.6L V6). There is a well known local rivalry between these two and while there are also family saloon versions, these are more on the performance side but very much the first rung of that ladder.

Both were nice to drive and very roomy compared to European cars (I'm 6'5" and corpulent). Preferred the SV6 as it had better low range acceleration. Both had auto boxes which I didn't like.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201103377639275/sort/priceasc/usedcars/transmission/manual/model/vxr8/make/vauxhall/radius/1501/postcode/se14tx/page/1?logcode=p
Now I'm back (UK based), I'm thinking I could do worse than buy something similar here. Vauxhall imports the Holden HSV (higher end performance car) as the Vauxhall VXR8 (6.2L V8) which until recently cost £35k new although strength of A$ means that's now up to £50k. Manuals are more available than in the Aussie rental Market.

There are a reasonable number of nearly new models for £22k - see link below. Clearly fuel would be expensive but I wouldn't be doing massive mileage. Servicing is relatively cheap and lack of turbo/supercharger means it's a fairly unsophisticated engine. But I sounds wonderful.

Is this the onset of a middle crisis?

Some very

Mr Benevolent · 07-03-2011 4:21pm

I'd really, really make sure I drove a manual version of the car before deciding on the manual. Go for it though, while fuel may be more expensive in the UK, tax is significantly cheaper. If you can afford the sub 20mpg fuel burn in traffic it'd be ideal. The Australians know their big engined cars. Me, I'd rather an LS430, but I'd still say go for it.

Absurdum · 07-03-2011 4:31pm

you'll get raped for VRT and motortax (€2100 per annum) but the noise alone will make it worthwhile. The last pic there shows average fuel consumption at 17.7mpg which isn't all that bad all things considered.

07-03-2011 4:44pm

OP is UK based so VRT and our motor tax aren't an issue.

17.7mpg average but the average speed is 30 odd miles an hour which suggests very little pootling about

That car linked to looks awful, especially from behind. I reckon you'd be mad to drop £20 odd thousand on that.

Gary ITR · 07-03-2011 4:47pm

Stealthyspeeder here was running a Vauxhall Monaro until very recently, maybe drop him a PM and ask him to respond here

RobAMerc · 07-03-2011 5:12pm

I'm not going to add much to this other than to say - the fookin sound out of these yokes is absolutely worth buying one for alone, and I imagine it plays a big part in the reason the fuel economy is so poor - you would be constantly giving it the beans.
I wouldn't bother with a V6 - even if either the Holden or Ford were imported with them - v8 all the way.

Marcusm · 07-03-2011 9:17pm

RoverJames wrote: »

OP is UK based so VRT and our motor tax aren't an issue.

17.7mpg average but the average speed is 30 odd miles an hour which suggests very little pootling about

That car linked to looks awful, especially from behind. I reckon you'd be mad to drop £20 odd thousand on that.

Does it really look awful or just bland? I'm disregarding the rear view as that's taken from about 2 feet off the ground. People that short (kids) probably wouldn't comment on what it looks like!

T be Frank, the car really looks best in real boy racer colours, lime green, luminous orange, but I wouldn't really consider those. In any event, the Vauxhall cars seem to be limited to black, silver, red and White.

Leaving looks aided, I think it's actually quite a steal performance wise. Agree that it doesn't look as if it's been thrashed about. There's another for sale with only 800 miles. I bet those are all track miles which would be less attractive.