Sydney show: Walkinshaw's exclusive Commodore

WALKINSHAW Performance this afternoon introduced its latest low-volume Commodore-based road car, the WP Series II, which has been built as a tribute to the TWR Group A Commodore that was the foundation of sister company Holden Special Vehicles in 1987.

However, while the original 5.0-litre V8-engined VL Group A made do with 180kW of power and 380Nm of torque, the 2010 tribute uses an Edelbrock supercharger on its Chevrolet 6.0-litre V8 to produce an incredible 460kW and 780Nm.

Impressive as that is, it falls short of the 480kW and 802Nm extracted from the ‘E2 Supercar’ kit the company developed for the bigger HSV 6.2-litre LS3 V8.

Coming 23 years after the iconic VL Group A, only 23 examples of the tribute car will be built – priced at $99,990, inclusive of the donor Holden Commodore Series II SS – and all of them painted in the same familiar ‘Panorama Silver’ colour as the original ‘Walky’.

Although the Sydney show car also has almost $18,000 worth of extras fitted, the ‘base’ WP Series II comes with a six-piston brake package, a suspension package developed with Bilstein, a specially commissioned Rockford Fosgate audio system and a 1987-style bodykit.