Production Of Holden GTSR W1 Begins As The Final Australian-Built Flagship Sells Out

Holden Special Vehicles has pre-sold all 300 of its final, most powerful run of Commodores before production ceases for good, and the ultimate GTSR is a hell of a way to go out.

The GTSR W1 is HSV’s ‘road-legal race car’, with a 636bhp supercharged LS9 V8 boasting titanium con-rods and inlet valves. It’s a serious piece of kit; effectively it’s the same engine as you’ll find in the latest Chevrolet Corvette. Pub fact alert: the supercharger can pump 2.3 litres of air with every revolution of the crank. At 6500rpm that’s just under 250 litres of air a second.

It gets a six-speed manual gearbox – also from the sixth-gen Corvette, making it a seriously hot potato. But more remarkable than all that is the fact that every W1 will first be built with the standard GTSR’s supercharged, 583bhp LSA V8, before being shipped to a different facility where that engine will be ripped out and replaced. Efficient.

The W1 will be built alongside the standard GTSRs, of which 1000 will be saloons and 600 will be Maloo utes, to use the Australian vernacular. W1 spec adds carbonfibre side vents, matt black wheels and semi-slick Pirelli P-Zero Trofeo R track-biased tyres that come with a wet-weather warning. No, really.

Another difference between the GTSR and W1 is the former’s Magnetic Ride Control suspension to the latter’s SupaShock coilover-based setup. HSV says the W1 will sprint from 0-62mph in 4.2 seconds and be limited to 155mph, and stopping shouldn’t be a problem thanks to AP Racing six-pot calipers gripping 410mm front discs.

Of course, there’s also a limited-slip diff, a high-flow exhaust system that we bet sounds pretty badass, Alcantara trim and a model-specific I.D. plate on the centre console. Buyers of the $169,990 (£102,700) special edition also get sat-nav, Bluetooth and all that boring stuff that they won’t even think about while doing huge burnouts everywhere. When the notoriously strict Aussie police aren’t around, anyway…

As for Holden itself, it’s not yet absolutely certain whether the brand will be revived and built elsewhere, or whether that really is the final curtain. We’ll be watching.