Holden Commodore VL Berlina 1986-1988 $1,000 - $4,300 Rating: 4.00 / 5

I am referring to the 1987 Holden Commodore VL Turbo (1986-1988). These are a terrific underrated Australian performance car and in their day were very underrated. The engine coded by Nissan RB30ET Powertech inline six cylinder turbocharged is extremely rugged and sports the same block as the R32 Nissan Skyline GTR. Rumour had it the Australian engineers at Holden took the micky out of the Japanese and kept on sending the engine back to Japan claiming it was not good enough and the poor Japanese kept improving on it unnecessarily. Perhaps thats why the bottom end is good for almost 600HP if the engine is worked. It had 150kW standard and weighed only 1290kg in executive form, was capable of 226km/h in manual form and 0-100km/h 7.78 seconds (8 seconds in automatic). Turbo installation was garret which has an excellent reputation. While the turbo charge was not intercooled make no mistake this thing moved amd on boost you could hear the wheels chirping as the car gathered spped midway accross an intersection and up to 80km/h. I loved to see the shocked faces of HSV owners and Brock VK's when I lost them at the lights. And the noise of the thing was incredible, it sounded like a jet engine as the turbo wound up and turned heads during rush hour! Some said the turbo has too much lag, but get it in its on boost range and the VL Turbo was faster than a Lamborghini Countach from 60-90km/k (Modern Motor Upwardly Mobile Vl Turbo Calais 1987) and would enielate a TurboS DOHC SAAB! It was refined and high tech. The engine is so smooth at idle I still reckon it is ine of the most refined rngines I have ever known. It is also more refined than the non-turvo VL Commodore. Most turbos come with FE2 sports suspension. If you want the ultimate get one with LSD and the upgraded brakes- these use corvette calipers. Most Police pursuit vehicles used had these options on their VL Turbos and these cars are stamped BT1 on the compliance plate. The uktimate versions of these police pursuit specials were Yellow Manual Executive Turbos as they were badgedon the bootlid. Some of these cars were cooked as people were alien to the requirements of turbo care and failed to wind down the turbo charger after a pursuit by leaving the vehicle running. It was primitively believed that turbos were unreliable as opposed to V8's, when the real trouble was a lack of turbo care and understanding.VL Turbos are also reasonably good on fuel as opposed to V8's. They are not good handling cars and will drift. At extreme speeds 200km/h + the front end has a tendancy to lift and gives a very unerring feeling the car wants to flip. This car alyhough greatly missunderstood was a hell of a package in the 1990's and is still deserving of great respect as being one of Australias true performance icons.