GTS not ready to become ‘Ring wraith: HSV

HOLDEN’S performance skunkworks will consider pitting its most powerful HSV-badged vehicle against the global performance car benchmark – Germany’s infamous Nurburgring.

The 21-kilometre road circuit that has tested the claims of many performance car-makers – including sparking a bitter war of words between German sportscar brand Porsche and Japanese car-maker Nissan over whose products were fastest – is now on the radar at HSV, which is keen to see what it can do to get a car there.

However, HSV director of sales and marketing, Tim Jackson, says any attempt to benchmark the supercharged 430kW 6.2-litre LSA-engined GTS would need to wait a while.

“A few (people) are asking us to take it over (to the Nurburgring),” Mr Jackson said. “Last year, when the Holden ute went around, we looked at what was the fastest truck around Nurburgring, and looked at taking a Maloo there to see if we could break that record.

“There’s a few asking us to have a crack, and we’re open to it.

“One of the challenges at this stage is that we can’t afford to have a car out of play, we can’t afford the resources to do it.

“In order to not have a car out of play, you have to air-freight it over and that’s a $75,000, $85,000 exercise even before you factor in people and those sorts of things,” Mr Jackson said.

He said while the attempt to lap the Nurburgring was too costly now, it could be possible in the future.

“Down the track, when we don’t have the constraints and we can afford to have the car in transit for the six to eight weeks it takes to send, then yeah, we’ll certainly look at it.” A 6.0-litre V8-engined Holden VF Commodore ute was spotted at the famous ‘Ring early last year, posting a respectable time of 8min 21secs as part of what is believed to be an aborted publicity stunt for the car-maker.

The car-maker has never confirmed what it was doing at the ‘ring, but it is believed the time the SS ute set was too slow to take the record as the fastest ute to lap the circuit.