2000 HSV GTS review from UK and Ireland

Please note that this is my copy of a road test that was published, with pictures, in the Bath Chronicle's Drive suppliment on 17th Nov 2000.

Main copy:

I contained myself until I got out of earshot of the show room and then let rip "Yeeaaaas!!". I was driving the car of my dreams, a fuel-injected, V8 Corvette engine in a chassis that handles, and what's more, the steering wheel was on the right hand side!

Being born too late and in the wrong country has left me bereft of soulful V8 experiences. I've nurtured a deep yearning for that off-beat V8 burble for too long. A brief, but ecstatic, holiday in New York state, 20 years ago, driving a beat up Oldsmobile has been my only release. But now I had been reunited with another V8! And this one would do 160mph at 4000 revs; it would run down to 50 revs per minute and still pull away; it would do 20mpg at 100mph. Adrenalin was spreading from my heart to my finger tips and I hadn't even put my foot down yet.

We hit the open road outside Buckingham and I stuck it in second gear and let rip. My passenger's head slammed back against the rest for a couple of seconds, lurched forwards before being pinned back against it again as I found third gear. The engine howled and we howled. This was going to be fun!

Avoiding the traffic-laden dual carriageways and motorways, we chose some swoopy Cotswold 'A' roads to get to know this potent beast on the way back to Bath. A few miles later and I switched off the traction control and discovered a hint of the tail-out fun the more privileged journos get to do on race tracks. Kevin, my passenger, owns a hot Vauxhall Corsa and was beginning to writhe about in a sea of nervous excitement. Not that this car is tail-end happy. Considering its power, this is probably the safest car I have ever driven. On the wet and windy October roads in England - halfway round the world from the Holden's roots, this Ozzie muscle car was behaving itself impeccably. Unlike me!. Years of development for touring car racing over the notorious 1000km Mount Panorama race in Australia has produced a car with pinpoint steering and terrific road holding. Holden UK Director, Rodney Clausen, said that this car would go where I pointed it - probably more of a jibe at my ageing Merc Estates lumbering gait than a boast. Nevertheless, he wasn't joking! Think "line through corner", do line through corner. Think "I'm going to overtake" and whoosh, it's done. Safely and nicely, without a run up, without a last dash cut-up. Plenty of confidence to wait until the road is safe and plenty of power to out accelerate those naive enough to try to give you a hard time. But this is the sort of car that brings out the devil in you. Overtaking isn't just a case of passing the car in front. It's a case of accelerating past it as though you had just hit the hypersapce button, flooring the gas pedal to 6000 revs in each gear, hauling saloon car ass in supercar fashion. Even at 30mph the "whorrrrrrrrrrr" of the big V8 is saying "go on then, put your foot down hard!".

The Holden GTS is the product of HSV (Holden Special Vehicles) of Australia. Although the family resemblance is strong, HSV are entirely separate to Holden who are owned by General Motors of America. HSV are owned by TWR (Tom Wilkinshaw Racing). The Holden HSV GTS is basically four-door racing car. The one I drove has 340 horse power and its twin brother, the GTS-R, has 410 horsepower. The all-alloy V8 engine is coupled to a six-speed gearbox and braking is courtesy of four, twelve inch diameter disc brakes on wicked looking low profile wheels. Those concerned about safety will be reassured by the passenger and side-impact airbags. Those concerned with in-car toys and walnut veneer will be disappointed but the air-con, cruise control, power steering and cracking CD player and sound system should satisfy most. If value-for-money was only skin deep the Holden would be a let down but this car is all about a bullet-proof engine, gearbox, brakes and chassis which all become very apparent when you get behind the wheel and drive!

The GTS costs a cool forty grand. A BMW M5 would set you back five grand more and the GTS-R another five grand on top of that. As far as I'm concerned the BMW doesn't even get a look in. The Holden is rare, rhorty and... powered by a V8! Residual values on the Holden stay high. Apparently there are two things Ozzies take into the outback: Water, and either a Toyota Landcruiser or a Holden. Whereas Brits get bored and change their cars around every two years, the Ozzies keep hold of their cars for an average of seven years. If the bullet-proof feel of the Holden was typical then owners would have no problems running their cars for this long.

Our press car was painted in a beautiful burnt orange metallic paint Holden call "Tiger". In daylight the bulging curves of the Holden's macho torso brought out a whole spectrum of hues from sand to barley sugar. More appropriately for Holden's target UK audience of Aston Martin drivers looking for a sporty run around, the cars back at the distributors were either dark metallic "Ocean Blue" or plain old metallic black. If you go for the mean GTS-R you can have metallic black only but the black leather interior is trimmed in bright red with matching console. Continuing the race-bred theme further, the GTS-R has drilled aluminium pedals, the right-hand one summoning up a much less stifled V8 grumble - wow! A recent GTS-R customer, who had asked for his speed limiter to be removed, came back for his 1000 running-in service to announce that his limiter must be faulty as he had already seen 178mph on the clock!

Next service after the 1000 mile running in call is at 50,000 miles to change the spark plugs. If you drive around 10,000 miles a year I reckon you would get 5 years' wear out of my first set of plugs - not bad for a race car, eh?

This is the sort of car for you and four chums to rip down to Dover, across the channel to a Calais hypermarket, fill the boot with Leffe and burn back before sundown. No worries, mate!

Richard Grigsby,

Home e-mail: richard@tantraweb.co.uk