The New Commodore Pt.2

[Swaytan]

Okay, so besides ripping on the new Commodore without actually have driven one, I decided to go & have a look at one in the flesh.

So I strolled along to a Holden Dealership. My first reaction was that they are actually quite nice looking vehicles. Beyond picking the car apart for it's similarities to some Fords, the rear of the car actually looks like a Mitsubishi 380.

I opened nearly every possible part of the SS I could, tapping everywhere looking for cheapness. Well, plenty of flimsy plastic everywhere. And some places where 2 pieces meet together were way off. Even the left side of the bonnet was about 5 mil higher than the right.

The dash was bright red & looked pretty cool, the gauges were typical SS Holden Gauges. Cool but nothing special. I just don't really know if I could look at the bright red dash with a hangover. I wonder what other colour options they have for the dash?

I was approached by a salesman, after chatting about the car for 5 minutes he asked me when I was looking to buy one. My reply was "if I can test drive the car today & I love it, I'll write you a check when we get back to the dealership". Of course this was a complete lie, but hey, I wanted to beat the 4 week wait for a test drive.

So he starts the car up, first thing I noticed is that the engine sound is not loud enough. When I drive a V8, I wanna feel like I'm harnessing a beast. If I can't hear the beast growl, how can I fully appreciate the power? Anyway, out of the dealership we go onto the road and around the corner to a parking area. I get into the driver's seat, nice feeling seats, nice steering wheel, good pedals, but the centre console is huge. The handbrake is really weird & folds down into the centre console. In order to change gears you've pretty much gotta hold your arm at a right angle over the centre console.

As with most commodores it does drive very smoothly, but there was a little bit of lag with the accelerator. I didn't make it out of 2nd gear around the streets. Giving it some stick is the only way to get a good sound out of it. But when you do get a sound, it's quite beefy. I then pulled over to the side of the road, stopped and just revved the car. I got it up to about 6 revs when the guy asked what I was doin. I told him I wanted to feel it rev, he then said "don't rev it too hard." With this I drove straight back to the dealership.

I can push my Fez to 6 & a half revs before I even worry about doing anything to the engine. Even then I'm not that bothered. If the dealer is worried about me revving the car to over 6 revs in this car, what's the issue?

All in all, it's not a bad car, but I wouldn't say it's better than any other commodore I've driven. I can't wait to see what the new XR8 looks like. My dealer has seen snippets of it & said it's killer.

So yeah, was very interesting.