The Vauxhall VXR8 is a performance car marketed by

Vauxhall Vauxhall ( , ) is an area of South London, within the London Borough of Lambeth. Named after a medieval manor called Fox Hall, it became well known for the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. From the Victorian period until the mid-20th century, Va ...

in the United Kingdom between 2007 and 2017, based on two different models produced by

Holden Special Vehicles Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) was the officially designated performance vehicle division for Holden. Established in 1987 and based in Clayton, Victoria, the privately owned company modified Holden models such as the standard wheelbase Holden Comm ...

: the

HSV Clubsport The Holden Special Vehicles ClubSport, HSV ClubSport or “Clubby” is a Performance modified Full-Sized Sedan (and later, also station wagon) produced by Holden’s in-house tuning company Holden Special Vehicles based on the Holden Commodore ...

(2007–2009) and

HSV GTS The Holden Special Vehicles GTS (or simply HSV GTS) is a performance vehicle produced by Australian company Holden Special Vehicles (HSV), the performance division of Holden. The GTS was introduced in 1992 along with the VP Series ClubSport as a ...

(2010–2017). The VXR8 is the successor to both the

Vauxhall Monaro VXR The Holden Monaro ( ) is a car that was manufactured by General Motors' Australian division Holden. It has a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout and was produced with a two-door coupé body from 1968 to 1976 and again from 2001 to 2006 and wit ...

and the Vauxhall Omega/Carlton. Initially powered by a Gen IV LS2 6.0 litre V8, from late 2009 it was upgraded to the Gen IV LS3 6.2 litre V8 with , shared with the Chevrolet Corvette C6 and the Chevrolet Camaro SS. The Vauxhall initially mainly competed with other large sport sedans such as the

Audi RS6 The Audi RS 6 is a high-performance variant of the Audi A6 range, produced by the high-performance subsidiary company Audi Sport GmbH, for its parent company Audi AG, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, from 2002 onwards. The first and se ...

BMW M5 The BMW M5 is a super high-performance variant of the BMW 5 Series marketed under the BMW M sub-brand. It is considered an iconic vehicle in the sports saloon category. The M5 has always been produced in the saloon (sedan, US English) body s ...

and Mercedes-Benz E55/E63 AMG, and although it was somewhat bigger in almost all dimensions than them, was not enough to touch luxury territory. In 2009, the VXR8 Bathurst and supercharged 'S' editions were offered using the same Gen IV LS2 V8 but with a Walkinshaw Performance supercharger in the Bathurst S. They were named for the famous Bathurst race in Australia. A rebadged version of the Maloo pickup (

coupé utility A coupé utility is a vehicle with a passenger compartment at the front and an integrated tray#cargo tray, cargo tray at the rear, with the front of the cargo bed doubling as the rear of the passenger compartment. The term originated in the 19 ...

) was also offered under the Vauxhall brand but only a few were ever sold as the "sport coupé utility" market was only a niche on the British market. In 2013, the VXR8 GTS (based on the HSV GTS Gen-f) was introduced with a supercharged Gen IV 6.2 litre LSA engine, also used in the second generation

Cadillac CTS-V The Cadillac CTS is a luxury car, manufactured and marketed by General Motors from 2003 until 2019 across three generations. Initially available as a 4-door sedan using the GM Sigma platform, GM offered the second generation CTS in 4-door s ...

and fifth generation

Chevrolet Camaro The Chevrolet Camaro is a mid-size American automobile manufactured by Chevrolet, classified as a pony car. It first went on sale on September 29, 1966, for the 1967 model year and was designed to compete with the Ford Mustang. The Camaro sha ...

ZL1. In 2017, the VXR8 was discontinued due to the closure of Holden's Australian factories and discontinuation of the

. The final run was 15 of the Vauxhall VXR8 GTS-R; fitted with a version of the supercharged LSA V8 engine.

References

Vxr8 Sports sedans Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Cars introduced in 2007 Cars discontinued in 2017 {{Modern-auto-stub