RARE FIND
Little-known British sports car that rivals BMW M3 & described by Jeremy Clarkson as ‘truly wonderful’ is less than £12k
Just over 400 examples can be found in the UK with a valid MOT
A LITTLE-KNOWN sports car released by Vauxhall some years ago can now be yours for just £12,000.
The powerful motor, which boasts a top speed of up to 170 mph, was once driven byTop GearlegendJeremy Clarksonand wowed the often-hard-to-please motoring guru.
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The car in question is the seldom seenVauxhallMonaro, a powerful V8-engined beast that's said to rival theBMWM3.
The Vauxhall iteration of this motor is in fact a Holden - a well-known but now defunct Australian car brand owned by General Motors.
Indeed, the Holden Monaro is a common set of wheels in Oz, with three generations of the nameplate running in the 1960s and 1970s and then again in the early 2000s.
The Vauxhall version was built between 2001 and 2006, and are incredibly rare with few seen on UK roads.
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In fact, according to the brilliantHow Rare is My Carwebsite, just 404 examples currently have an MOT in the UK.
The most powerful version was the Monaro V8 VXR - with came with a mind-boggling 6.0-litre motor capable of 400 bhp.
Clarkson got behind the wheel of one back in 2004 and was blown away by itspower,saying: "The Monaro is a wonderful car.
"Too big, too brash, and too loud, for some, perhaps.
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"I can't see too many outside Chipping Norton church on a Sunday, for instance.
"But if you have an electric blueSubarunow, or a banana yellow 911, and fancy something a bit differentnexttime round, you shouldn't give a ---- for anything else. "
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In areviewin EVO magazine in 2006, the motor's scacity and likeness to the M3 were the main takeaways from their long-term test.
They said: "Don't buy a Monaro if you want to join a club.
"Since our long-termer arrived ten months and almost 15,000 miles ago, I haven't seen another on the road.
"I've seen hundreds of BMW M3s, yet while the M3 is the closest rival for the Anglicised, V8-engined Holden coupe, it seems that few Monaro VXR buyers actually have to choose between the two.
"For most, the Monaro is an unusual, affordable and rare toy that joins a stable of interesting cars, and I've no doubt that at the core of its appeal are."
Occasionally, the Vauxhall Monaro does crop up at specialistcar auctionsand the like - with a 2006 example with 107,000 miles on the clock currently available to buy fromPistonheadsfor a rather reasonable £11,995.
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