Vauxhall VXR8 Bathurst S

Ghastly but lovable, the Vauxhall VXR8 Bathurst S is

vulgar, terrible but ridiculously exciting, says
Jeremy Clarkson
Jeremy Clarkson

It was late, dark, cold and pouring down. But even though I was soaking wet, I simply
couldn’t get into the car you see photographed this morning. My wife was screaming at
me, saying the rain was ruining her hair and making her dress see-through and would I
please stop being so stupid and just unlock the damn doors. But I couldn’t because it
would have been just too embarrassing.

Had I been at the annual general meeting of the Ray Winstone Appreciation Society,
then things would have been fine. I would have been proud of the car’s gigantism, and
its black bonnet stripes and its flared wheelarches and its own-brand badge. But I was
outside the New Theatre in Oxford, and Oxford theatre crowds, with their mad hair and
their cycling helmets and their hairy sports jackets, really don’t take kindly to cars like
this. Or the people who drive them. Especially as it sported the numberplate DE51RED.

Frankly, ATW4T would have been less blushingly awful. So I stood there pretending it
wasn’t mine until they’d all wobbled off on their stupid foldaway bicycles.

Things were a bit quiet on the way home, and they remained that way until, with just
two miles to go, the engine coughed. I thought at first I’d fluffed a gearchange. But then
it coughed again. And then it ran out of fuel. And it didn’t matter how much I pointed
defensively at the gauge, which showed I had a quarter of a tank left; the facts were
these. It was the middle of the night. It was the middle of nowhere. And the raindrops
were now as big as rabbits.

So the Vauxhall VXR8 Bathurst S did not get off to a good start. It had made me very
wet, then it had made me very angry and now it was in the process of making me very
divorced. So what is it, then, this tattooed bouncer with a neck like a birthday cake and,
you suspect, a pickaxe handle down its trousers?

Well, in short it’s the result of an Australian civil war. In Oz, everyone is either a
supporter of Holden, part of General Motors, or a supporter of Ford. Oh sure, there are
solicitors and accountants who will claim they are above such nonsense, but when
pressed they will say: “Of course, I’m a GM man by birth and I would never allow a
Ford onto my drive because” — and at this point they start to get a bit red in the face —
“they are all raving poofters and” — by this stage they will be banging the table — “I
hate them. I would gladly lay down my life and the lives of my children for Holden and
I will kill anyone with a hammer if they disagree.”

At the Bathurst race from which this limited-edition Vauxhall takes its name, there are
pitched battles between gangs of Ford and GM fans. Proper bike-chains-and-
flamethrower, Hell’s Angel-type stuff. And the only time they ever came together was
when a chap called Jim Richards won in a Nissan Skyline. Such was the torrent of
catcalls as he climbed onto the podium, he leant into the microphone and called the
entire crowd “a pack of arseholes”.

That’s the background from which this big Vauxhall comes. A rough, partisan sink
estate, where there are no women and even the spiders are frightened. It’s a car
deliberately built to be uncouth. To stick its face into anything Ford might do by way of
response. It’s designed to keep those bike chains whirling.

Strangely, however, it’s not actually Australian. It’s built there but it was engineered by
a Scotchman called Tom Walkinshaw. So since he’s a neighbour I thought I’d go to see
how on earth such a quiet, reserved chap could possibly have come up with something
so ... wilfully ocker.

It’s easy to find his house. You go left at Alex James’s agreeable cheesery, straight on
past David Cameron’s delightful wisteria, right by Ben Kingsley’s lovely gable ends
and through the dry-stone walls that mark the entrance. But I didn’t want to go past all
those places — and people — in a car with stripes and DE51RED written on the back.
So I stayed at home.

The next day I was due for lunch at a friend’s house. And I decided that since he lives
down a long private drive, it would be okay to turn up in what was essentially a bull-
necked version of Crocodile Dundee. But, for no reason, the battery was flat and it
wouldn’t start. So I went in a Range Rover. As did everyone else.

Eventually, though, when it was dark and the nation was asleep, I did sneak out to see
what on earth this car was like. And I found after a very short space of time it was like
being in 1978. There is no refinement at all.When you dip the clutch pedal to change
gear, you can feel and hear the entire driveline moving around. Something I haven’t felt
to anything like this degree since the Chevette HS went west.

Then there’s the steering wheel. It’s made from the cheapest plastic in the world and has
a diameter exactly an eighth of an inch bigger than the outer ring round Saturn. You
don’t steer this car. You flail.

And finally there’s the noise. Oh. My. God. There has never been a car that sounds like
this. Not ever. Obviously the V8, lifted straight from the latest generation of Corvette, is
quite a noisy thing, but when you accelerate you don’t hear it at all. What you hear is
the supercharger. It’s not a whine or a whistle, as you might expect. It’s as though
someone is feeding a million squirrels into an industrial wood chipper.

It is a deafening sound and it’s at a pitch that could shatter Katherine Jenkins’s hair. So
after a while you can take no more and you lift off, whereupon you are treated to the
sound of distant artillery fire as traces of unburnt fuel ignite in the exhaust’s tailpipe. It
is the most glorious noise in the world.

So you find yourself gritting your teeth through the squirrel mincing phase and then
sitting there, with your foot off the throttle, waiting for the revs to drop to 1800, when
the sound of far-off warfare comes.
There are other good things too. For something that produces an almost insane 564
horsepower, it is surprisingly easy to drive. You put your foot down, the squirrels die,
and you expect you’re going to spend the next five minutes wrestling with the ship’s
wheel, trying to keep in a straight line.

But no. It just squats and goes. And it’s not like it’s being held in check by all sorts of
clever stability controls. All you get is traction control that is on, or off. And that’s it.

Of course, it is a very big car. So massive, in fact, that very often those on the left-hand
side are going through quite different weather from those on the right. And the people in
the back are still in bed. But as a result of this vastness, there is room to lounge, and
space in the boot for several grandfather clocks. It’s got a good ride too.

Equipment? Yes, it’s got some but not much, and the little there was didn’t work.

And you know what? I didn’t care. I’m ashamed to admit I loved this car. Yes, it’s
vulgar and terrible but it’s almost ridiculously exciting and there is no other car that
offers this much space and this much power for less.

So you go ahead. You buy yourself a BMW M3 instead. In the meantime, I’m going to
join the Ray Winstone Appreciation Society. And go to its meetings, in Spain, in what
can only be described as the real sexy beast. Ghastly but utterly, utterly lovable.

Engine 6162cc, supercharged V8

Power 564bhp @ 6000rpm

Torque 547 lb ft @ 4000rpm

Transmission Six-speed manual

Fuel Unknown, but less than the 18.2mpg (combined) for the standard VXR8

CO2 Unknown, but more than the 364g/km for the standard VXR8

Acceleration 0-62mph: 4.6sec (estimated)

Top speed 155mph

Price £44,995

Road tax band M (£405 a year)

Clarkson's verdict