Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) is the officially designated performance arm of Australian manufacturer, Holden. Think of them as the equivalent of AMG division to Mercedes-Benz, or M division to BMW. This company has just released details and pictures of the HSV Gen F GTS with a supercharged LSA V8 out of the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Is it coming to South Africa? No. Do we still want to talk about? Hell yes.
Established in 1987 and based in Victoria, Australia, the power-crazed company modifies regular Holden models such as the Commodore, Caprice and Ute and markets them under the HSV brandname. We in South Africa have received versions of the previous generation Commodore and Ute but rebadged as the Chevrolet Lumina SS and Lumina Ute SS.
The new range of vehicles from HSV is referred to as the Gen-F range and at the very top of that range is the hulking presence of an LSA-powered GTS model. The range-topper HSV GTS features the same supercharged 6.2-litre LSA powertrain as the Camaro ZL1 with 433 kW and 728 Nm of torque. That out-powers both the current BMW M5 and Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG super saloons, and at a fraction of the cost of its R1.2-million plus rivals.
HSV executives have named the BMW M5, Audi RS6 and Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG as natural rivals for the ballistic new GTS, which has seen its power and torque figures surge from 325 kW and 550 Nm of the last most-powerful model. HSV chief engineer Joel Stoddart admitted the brand had not done any back-to-back testing of the GTS against the Germans, but confirmed its engineering team had spent time in those vehicles as part of the car’s development.
“We’re aware of the M5 and RS6 specifications for GTS, and at that performance we’ve got to make sure that tyres, brakes, chassis, power are in that playing field,” Stoddart said. For the markets where the HSV Gen-F GTS will be sold, it sounds almost too good to be true. Time will tell if the cheap and fun GTS can compete with the serious hardware Germany has to offer. In pictures its certainly no shrinking violet.
