With a budget of a quarter of 300 grand in hand, most petrol heads would look to Europe for potential purchases.
Something with two doors, lashings of carbon fibre, a supercar silhouette, perhaps a roof that comes down...
Very few people would use that money to buy something that started life as a humble Commodore.
The buying and selling of Aussie-built muscle cars has been a constant theme this year, as the Falcon bites the dust and the Commodore goes from being a rear-wheel drive ocker, to a front and all-wheel drive European-based mid-sized machine.
At the core of the value debate lies HSV's final purely homegrown V8 creation; the wild Corvette-powered GTSR W1.
It stands as the most powerful and arguably the most insane car to ever sport the HSV badge, and having been produced at the very end of the Commodore line, a fairly large chunk of those lucky enough to pre-order one before allocations ran out have been flogging them to a hungry public.
The latest of these is this red example, which recently sold at Lloyds Auction for a rather significant AU$250,000. By the time auction fees were added, the buyer's price to pay was up to AU$269,000.
That's NZ$294,000, and more than $100,000 over the car's original retail price. Pretty handsome turnover for the original owner...
The car? It's number 36 out of 300 made, and has only 21 kilometers on the clock. The 6.2-litre LS9 under the bonnet produces 473kW and 814Nm. It's a manual like all other W1s produced, and wears the colour most synonymous with the Lion and Stone.
Sadly with a price like that, it's unlikely that those kilowatts are going to be unleashed on anything other than the inside of a pristine garage. These cars, as wonderfully potent as they are, are probably set for a life of seclusion.
Ironic, for a brand long built on being bold and brash.
