More big-money Commodores at auction

Wednesday, 28 July 2021

A rare and immaculate 1990 VN Commodore SS Group A SV is currently under the hammer in Australia.

Old Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons are still setting records at auctions across Australia and New Zealand, and this latest one is no exception. But it is quite a special one.

Lloyds Auctioneers in Australia currently has an immaculate 1990 VN Commodore SS Group A SV up for auction, with bids currently sitting on AU$306,000 (NZ$323,670) with two days left to go.

The SS Group A is build number 002 of just 302 ever built.

The VN is build number 002 of just 302 ever built and has a remarkable 36,358km on the clock. It has only had two owners, with the current owner buying it in 1994.

Lloyds describe the car as being “virtually all original apart from an aftermarket exhaust and chip” and it comes with original books, service history, two sets of keys and a certificate of authenticity from HSV.

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The VT Commodore V8 Supercar was raced by Russell Ingall in 2000, before being sold to Team Kiwi Racing at the end of the season.

The Group A SV was powered by a 215 kW 5.0-litre V8 hooked up to a six-speed ZF manual transmission and was originally built primarily as a homologation special for Group A touring car racing.

Regulations set down by FISA, the international governing body at the time, stated a minimum of 500 road-going versions be built for Group A homologation, but HSV only managed to produce 302.

However, this didn’t affect the Group A SV's homolgation, because the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) gave Holden special dispensation, in the hope of bolstering thinning grids in the 1991 Australian Touring Car Championship.

While the current bid of AU$306,000 is still far short of the colossal AU$1,057,509 (NZ$1,133,814) a 1985 HDT VK Group A SS recently went for, there are still three days to go, so it could well get closer.

Although that particular Group A was the personal car of a bloke called Peter Brock, which no doubt influenced the price somewhat…

If you aren’t interested in road-going Commodores and want a possibly more historic one, the Lloyds also has a 2000 VT Commodore V8 Supercar raced by Russell Ingall for sale as well.

Chassis number PE-036 has CAMS rollover certification number R0018 and was one of the most controversial cars to enter the V8 Supercar series, being the first one to have a diagonal brace bar behind the windscreen. Known as the 'Larry Bar', this was the first of just four cars that Perkins Engineering built with the dual roll cages.

The VT was driven in the single-driver rounds of the 2000 ATCC Australia Touring Car Championship by Ingall and then by Cameron Murchison and Luke Youlden at Bathurst that year.

The car also has a big Kiwi connection, being sold to Team Kiwi Racing at the end of the 2000 V8 Supercar season. TKR ran the car for two years, before selling it to the late Mark Porter who took third place in the 2004 V8 development series in it. Porter then sold it to its current owner who has owned it for past 17 years.

The VT Supercar is currently sitting on an even heftier AU$520,000 (NZ$550,650) with two days left to run on the auction.