The Vauxhall VXR8 Maloo is named after the Aboriginal word for ‘thunder’, and it certainly creates a storm on the high street.
The bright yellow part-pick-up, part-muscle car turns more heads than a Lamborghini, although some of the attention amounts to rather embarrassing pointing and laughing from passers-by. Cool this car is not.
But then the Maloo was never designed for British roads. It’s a ‘ute’ version of the Australian-market Holden HSV Commodore, and Vauxhall expects to sell only 50 here, each carrying a hefty £51,500 price tag.
With sales expectations so low, it would be unfair to compare the Maloo to, say, a similarly priced BMW M3. It’s best treated as a fish out of water – and an entertaining one at that.
Just look at it. At the back is a hard tonneau cover that rises up on hydraulic struts to reveal a vast 1,208-litre load bay. The rear also packs a huge diffuser and quad chrome tailpipes, while the front is all VXR8, complete with gaudy LED running lights.
The 425bhp 6.2-litre V8 makes a lovely rumble and can take the car from 0-62mph in 4.9 seconds, but it’s not as loud as you might expect – in fact the engine is rather muted.
Don’t take this as a sign that the Maloo has been tuned for sophistication, though. It will spin its wheels with ease if you turn off the traction control, while the pedals and six-speed gearbox require muscle.
The ride is also on the firm side, but it’s not stiff like a proper pick-up – in fact, the Maloo feels pretty sporty through corners, with meaty steering and quite a lot of grip if you feed the throttle in smoothly.
Even though there’s lots of standard equipment inside, the flimsy stalks and hard plastics let the cabin down, as does the limited space – there’s room behind the seats for a laptop-sized bag, but everything else will have to be thrown in the boot. The tonneau cover also hampers rear visibility, but that does little to dent the fun factor.
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Fast, sporty, head turning, fun, lots of standard equipment, and an extremely unique car. Yet two stars? Based on what, that the reviewer doesn't like the look of it? Don't get me wrong, it's expensive, but not grossly for what you're getting.
Why so much more expensive than the VXR8?
This is one bad Pick Up Truck, and it's made for very special people with special thinking. Only thing missing from this is the 4WD to properly utilise all that power, but this I love and would buy without a second thought.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha..............hahahahahahahahahah
Did I say hahahahaha...
A Joke surely?
For a start if i was going to give £51k to vauxhall I'd be expecting to get the whole company, not just an old pickup with a V8 in it.
I thought there was a recession going on and vauxhall had been bailed out..... if they carry on wasting money on this crap they'll need it again.
Hahahahahahahaha
A search through history has shown that when an empire is in decline the affluent are in denial and resort to decadence to try to hide their failure to adjust. Here is another indicator that Britain has joined the USA in the the decline of western civilization(?).
Here's a quick test. Load a yard of gravel in the back and then see how much you like it. I didn't think so.
No ha ha ha from me, just tears of sadness. l just can't believe this, it is totally sad, that a once great company like GM can be so totally clueless put out such a piece of junk that will appeal to absolutely to nobody what so ever on any grounds at all, Holden will struggle to sell make 1 car sale in the UK.
Who are GM trying to capture here? the attention seeking escaped loony end type of car buyer, who won the National Lottery. Can't see to many buyers that fall into this category of buyer?
Gotta say though l would love to buy anything thats Aussie made and designed, but this pig ugly joke pushes the boundaries of the worst car ever made, its got absolutely zero kerb appeal, makes absolutely no commercial sense in anyway what so ever. It could be a defining moment for Holden, like the G8 was for Pontiac, in that the company will get shutdown and be sent to that great scrapheap in the sky just like Pontiac for making pig ugly vehicles nobody wants to buy.
Get real nobody will ever want to pay £51,000 for a totally unpractical 21 MPG joke car that even Coco the clown would not be seen dead in, thats gonna make you the laughing stock look like the biggest village idiot on 4 wheels, where ever you drive it.
Get real Holden, BMW is selling the 3 Series that retunes up to 80 MPG, and 5 Series that returns up to 72 MPG 5 series Efficient dynamics diesel that sells for between 25k to 28k, that is the best handling car in the world at this moment in time.
Why can't GM bang Chevy & Vauxhall heads together and send us just one proper RHD pick-up truck to buy, the Via Motors Chevy Silverado E-REV is a awesome bit of kit thats build on the same system designed for the Volt, it will accommodate more people, tow bigger loads, with a huge practical very useful bed taboot. On top of that runs for 40 miles on electric and returns up to 100 US miles gallon that 120 UK MPG. Come on GM send us something thats useful rather than this pathetic 21 MPG Holden joke that won't carry more than two folk and a loaf of bread and a bag of crisps in the back.
We might get to live what the Americans fell in love with back in the 1950's if Chevy dropped a fuel efficient diesel power plant in a warm friendly classic 1957 Chevy short bed pick-up, it would probably return 50 MPG rather than a very poor very dull anodyne boring cold styled Holden junk that only returns only 21 MPG, no builder want to travel through Fulham or Putney at 155 MPH where the traffic moves at 5 MPH during all day. Keep it Aussieland outback where petrol is a small fraction of the price of what we pay in Europe.
Can't believe Auto Express gave the Maloo a 2 Star rating rating, it should be 0 to match the Maloo's potential UK sales numbers.
Dust off the awesome classic 57 Chevy short beds tooling and borrow a modern econetic diesel engine from Ford, it would make better commercial sense than this Maloo junk.