After the Lotus Carlton there were talks of a successor, but the project did not go ahead, meaning the 3.0-litre quad-cam engined Omega produced from 1993 to 1997, became the final large performance saloon for Vauxhall through the rest of the 1990s.
Buyers had to wait till the early 2000s, until large performance cars were firmly back on Vauxhall’s agenda, thanks to the all-new VXR range. In 2007, it spawned the 420PS VXR8 saloon, based on sister-company Holden’s Clubsport R8. All of a sudden Vauxhall had BMW and Mercedes in its sights, and with good reason: the VXR8 produced an impressive 420PS from its 6.0-litre V8 engine and managed the 0-60 sprint in under five seconds.
The Bathurst was an astonishingly fast and capable performance saloon, equally at home on the road or the track
However, the development didn’t stop there, as the supercharged limited edition Bathurst S joined the VXR8 range in 2009, costing less than £45,000, making it the least expensive car with 500PS+ at the time. The car developed a colossal 577PS and 720Nm of torque, with the V8’s grunt and supercharger’s whine providing a truly spine-tingling soundtrack. All of this power teamed with an array of performance modifications over the standard car, made the Bathurst an astonishingly fast and capable performance saloon, equally at home on the road or the track.
Vauxhall hasn’t stopped there and the latest incarnation, the VXR8 GTS, produces 576bhp in its current form – more power than its main rivals the BMW M5 and Mercedes E63 AMG, yet costing a substantial £20K less.
