USTRALIA’S fastest and most expensive
car is built like most skunkworks
exotica... in a shed. A really big one.
How do we know? We are putting one
together. Okay, that’s a lie. But we will fit
it with a badge. Briefly, for a photo.
And it’s not really a shed. It only feels like
one. It’s hard to grasp the HSV GTSR W1
without its symbolic importance. Which
may be why Alastair, after quizzed about
how he would photograph this feature’s
opener, revealed he was expecting the
W1’s birthplace to be... different.
It sounds like he thought the W1
gravitates from a sealed lab to a secret
wind tunnel by robot butler. And he’d bag a shot inside
it while moving through the guts of a super factory.
Maybe it’s because he’s an Aussie-born pommy. Or
maybe it’s because this is a world-class super sedan
with a warranty-backed 474kW. But I honestly thought
the same. I pictured R8s that float down production
lines like toys pinched by a claw crane.
We thought we could get close as they waft by, tighten
a screw here, buff a badge there, smile for the camera,
and call ourselves line workers for a day. And tell you
that, yep, we’ve built one.
Like any masterpiece,
though, things take time.
These tyre-frying monsters
need at least six days in HSV’s
Clayton production facility.
Rather than building the
from scratch, cars arrive
from Holden with their main
organs so they can trundle
around on their own power.
Things like the interior,
main body panels, and
windscreen are already done.
But a regular GTSR still has 40 per cent to go. W1s even
more. So the first thing waiting at the Clayton plant’s
doors is nothing like an HSV. It’s a VF II Commodore,
yes, but it’s on yellow steelies, plugged with plastic
bumpers, while grilles and vents are missing like it’s
been plucked at by wreckers.
It must visit 11 stations before leaving with
474kW/815Nm, suspension akin to a Supercar, semi-
slick rubber, looks tougher than America’s immigration
policy and an equally scary $169,990 price tag. A W1
doesn’t stack $67K on a GTSR for an engine tune.
The W1’s LSA is swapped here for a rabid LS9 as
Holden didn’t see the point in developing the tools, and
process, to install them in Elizabeth. And the defunct
LSA? We’re told they go back to Holden. Just like other
parts of these ‘core vehicles’, like ‘slave’ brakes and
wheels, destined for suppliers or the tip.
This makes the first checkpoint a strip-search. On a
hoist, three blokes remove bumpers, skirts and wheels
A
“Weknowit’ssomebody’s
prideandjoy,acollector’s
item,soeveryonehandles
thesecarswithabsolute
careandasifthey’reour
own cars. That’s where
management gives us a
bitoftrust,”saysHassam
Kakar at vehicle strip
about cutting into the
GTSRandW1bodies.It’sa
new process for his teamThese tyre-frying
monsters need six
days before leaving
with 474kW and
Supercar suspension
STAGE
1-2
74 january 2018 motormag.com.au