www.walkinshaw.net - Home of the VL SS Group A SV

VL SS GROUP A SV - HISTORY

The VL SS Group A SV or as it is more commonly known as - The Walkinshaw or Walky was created in 1988. It also has a number of other nicknames, such as the Plastic Pic, Winged Warrior, Plastic Fantastic and Batmobile just to name a few.

In Feb 1987, Holden and Peter Brock's HDT parted ways. Holden needed someone to build performance cars, so a partnership was formed with Tom Walkinshaw's British based TWR (Tom Walkinshaw Racing) and HSV was born.

With a world famous international racing company partnering Holden, big things were expected of HSV and their 1st car. With the resources of TWR and a much bigger wallet, HSV had the necessary ingredients to show it was able to match, if not better HDT's previous cars. Naturally it didn't disappoint.

The VL SS Group A SV, was it's first task. To meet International Group A homologation rules, 500 had to be sold. Holden and HSV decided to make 750, as the VK SS Group A and VL HDT SS Group A only had the minimum of 500 produced and there were people that missed out. Unfortunately the release of the VN Group A SS was not too far around the corner, sales dropped as people were waiting to see what the VN had to offer. HSV was left with many of the cars, and there are reports of some being sold without all of the body kit on the car and some being raffled off.

Apart from the outrageous body kit, it became the first Holden V8 to be fuel injected. It also came with 4 bolt mains and twin throttle body inlet manifold. The body kit was designed to minimise drag and maximise down force. It was designed and undertook extensive wind tunnel testing by TWR in Britain.

At $47,000 it wasn't cheap, but has held its value fairly well for a car built 30 years. Clean, low kilometre Walkinshaw's go for $25,000-$30,000 and some with extremely low km's for $35,000 +

In 1990 the combination of Alan Grice / Win Percy won Bathurst driving a Walkinshaw.

It's a head turner wherever it goes, and has cemented itself as one of Australia's true muscle cars.

The only options for Walkinshaw's from HSV's factory was the Mesh Grille insert for the front bumper, and the clips for the jack holes in the side skirts, which came with the car anyway! All other accessories (including sunroofs, and the Calais-Walkinshaw option) were dealer mods.

This is what the jack mount clips look like:

One of the early prototypes for the Walkinshaw was to have the rear 1/4 window C pillar moulds filled in, and Momo rims. This is what it would have looked like:

Thanks to Will for sending these pics in.

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