Let’s be plain from the beginning, ‘Murph’ has spent more than a few minutes going very, very fast in all manner of cars, not just his regular V8 Supercar ride.
Whatismore, it was palpably plain from the excitement on his face as he burst into The Chalet at GM Holden’s Proving Ground complex at Lang Lang outside Melbourne that he had had more fun than normally is the case, at least sitting down!
I, and my assembled motoring writer colleagues, stopped eating our very excellent GM provided lunch as Greg repeated his statement and then went on to wax lyrical for several more minutes on just how much fun HSV’s “supercar” W427 was – and all he’d done is a few laps of the so-called “ride and handling track” – a simulation of just about every bad piece of Australian road that GM has been able to put together.
Even better was to come later, certainly for yours truly, but let’s roll back a few hours to an early morning start in Clayton at the industrial complex-hidden headquarters of HSV.
While much of the local motoring media had spent a day at a wet and windy Calder Park Raceway near Melbourne with the HSV W427, CarAdvice was invited along to a road drive program from HSV HQ in Clayton that was to culminate at the super-secret Lang Lang Proving Ground with the opportunity to drive the W427 on some of the test tracks, in company with aforementioned Mr Murphy.
How could we refuse? Of course we didn’t!
In the beginning there were the usual presentations from a string of HSV executives who explained that the W427 will be built to a total of 427 individually constructed vehicles over the next two years and the first 90, governed by the availability of the LS7, 7.0-litre V8 monster that goes under the bonnet, will be built and delivered to owners who, apparently, have happily parted with $155,000 for the most expensive Holden Commodore, and the most expensive HSV, ever built.
The W427 was conceived to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of HSV and the 375kW/640Nm Chevrolet Corvette-engined W427 is the car “HSV has always wanted to build” according to engineering manager Joel Stoddart.
He added that it had been the focus for the organisation over the past two years.
Like most of HSV’s powerplants the LS7 engine is shipped direct from the GM Performance Build Centre in North America, but all the external bits, including the dry-sump system, the exhaust and the cold-air induction system were all developed right here in Australia.
The standard Corvette engine computer and the Electronic Stability Control system were also modified after a year of local development work.
HSV’s Managing Director Phil Harding was keen to tell us that the W427 demonstrated that engineering and design ingenuity was alive and well in the Australian car industry.
He’s also keen to have the W427 identified as a ‘supercar’ and while we doubt its credentials as such, preferring the tag to remain with somewhat more bespoke automotive creations, there is no doubting that this is one of the most competent cars ever built by HSV.
HSV’s design team, led by Julian Quincey, are also keen to ensure that the distinctive mark they have left on the W427 doesn’t go un-noticed.
Quincey told us;” the design brief for the W427 was to create a unique face for this HSV, one that would signal the car’s immense capability, authority and power.”
“The W427 is the flagship of the HSV range and we wanted to emphasise the hand-built qualities of this car, “ he said.
Next page…
Pages: 1 2 3
Hide It
