1988 Holden VL Commodore Group A SS Walkinshaw Sedan

Description

Holden Special Vehicles, operated by Tom Walkinshaw, was established in 1988 to take the place of HDT following Holden’s widely publicised split with Peter Brock in 1987 and the first model offered by the new performance tuning operation was the radical Group A SS, based on the then current VL Commodore. Built between March and November 1988 in very limited numbers (a total of 750 were made) to homologate the car for Bathurst, the Walkinshaw Commodore boasted a highly tuned 5-litre V8 with Delco EFI producing 180kW of power and 380Nm of torque. A five-speed Borg-Warner T56 manual gearbox, Turbo 6/V8 brakes and 16 by 7-inch alloy wheels on 225/55 VR16 tyres were clothed in a dramatic body kit whose most arresting features were the built-up boot-lid spoiler and bonnet bulge needed to clear the twin-throttle body intake manifold. All Walkinshaw Commodores were finished in the same Panorama Silver body colour and priced on a par with the best European luxury cars - at $47,000 the car was more than three times the price of a base VL when new. The HSV was a big step from the previous HDT VL Group A in many respects, offering a lot more performance, refinement and of course that wild body kit, making the Walkinshaw Commodore instantly recognisable. The recently homologated Group A Commodore made its racing debut at Brands Hatch in Round 10 of the 1988 British Touring Car Championship but struggled to compete with the turbocharged Ford Sierra RS500 and Nissan Skylines until a reversal of fortune saw the Holden score an impressive win at Bathurst in 1990 thanks to Win Percy and Allan Grice in the factory-backed HDT entry. With enormous growth in prices over the past couple of years, the Walkinshaw Group A Commodores have fast become hot property on the modern Aussie muscle car scene and prices seem set to continue rising in the near future.