HOLDEN’S GREAT EIGHT

NOT QUITE a year after the VN Commodore’s launch, Holden reintroduced its V8, this time with electronic multi-point fuel injection. Based on the block of the 308 V8 that was launched in 1969 – that provided Holden with dozens of Australian race wins over two decades in Torana and Commodore – the new engine had better-breathing symmetrical-port heads and a smart GM/Delco management system. Lifting the bonnet of a VN V8 showed-off the bunch-of-bananas, cast-alloy tuned-length intake manifold, too, devised by the same crew who tweaked the VL Commodore SS Group A’s twin-throttle design. Its 165kW and 380Nm was streets ahead of the 122kW and 323Nm of the carby VL and according to Wheels magazine April 1989, made it the ‘fastest family car in the world’. In 180kW and 200kW (VN-VP), 185kW (VR-VS) 195kW (VT) and 5.7-litre 215kW (VR-VS) and 220kW (in VT) versions, it was the basis for just about everything HSV did for the next decade, too.