There’s only one performance car that scares me witless. It’s completely unpredictable, untamed, tail happy and needs to be sectioned. If you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m talking about the Vauxhall Monaro in its many different forms….CV8, VXR, HSV and Holden’s Maloo and Ute.

Around 50 Holden and Vauxhall owners turned up at the famous Ace Café in London for the annual Australia Day celebrations. Imagine just for a second what the sound of 50 burbling Chevy V8s would be like, in decibels deafening enough to cause permanent tinnitus. Yep, that’s exactly what I experienced. And these cars are mean, very mean, what with a standard £29k Monaro CV8 pushing out 338bhp from its 5.7 litre V8 beast. If you thought this would be fast enough, one nutter, aka Tiler, had even modded his CV8 with a supercharger, giving a whopping output of 550bhp! Tiler’s motor has kicked a serious amount of dust in the face of a Ferrari 360 Modena and lately a brand new Porsche GT2 gave up chasing him out of embarrassment. Not surprisingly, the new BMW M5 doesn’t even stand a chance either. The only sports car that could still give Tiler’s powerful Monaro CV8 a run for its money would be a TVR, but that just simply comes down to the weight difference.

More madness came in the shape of a Holden suped-up pick-up commonly known as a Maloo. These beauties are as rare as rocking horse poo, with only a handful actually on English turf. Some of you may have seen the black and red graphic VXR Maloo on the Vauxhall stand at the Autosport show. This pickup has a supercharged 6.0 litre engine and will even wheel spin in fifth gear. How nuts is that?! It’s the only one in existence in its current form. And there’s enough room in the back of one of these pickups for an executive sized paddling pool. Or a flock of sheep. Or both.

Now the Monaro drivers who are members of the HSV Drivers Club are a friendly bunch and really do pride themselves in having such a rare motor. I guess this is because there’s only about 100 Monaros in the UK at the moment and half of these were sitting on display at the Ace Café! Monaro owners find that as well as people trying to race them, a few just want to come alongside to ask what the hell their car is and give the thumbs up.

You will never really understand how powerful these Monaros are until you’ve been out in one. Then your body will be pinned to the seat and your head flung back to the headrest with the g-force. One tap of the throttle and the engine roars like an untamed animal; keep your foot to the floor and the acceleration is tremendous - and it doesn’t stop. You can see why some of these motors can do 190mph+ with no problem. But, this rare beast can lull you into a false sense of security. Hit the throttle too hard too quickly, and you’ll end up backwards in a ditch before you can even say the word bol*ocks. A lot of these mental Monaro owners were playing with fire on exiting the Ace Café, wheel spinning and fighting with oversteer then massive understeer, a bit like a pendulum effect. As for the unsuspecting passenger – I’m sure many had their sick bags at the ready; they would certainly have needed it.

So next time you see a Monaro bonnet filling up your rear view mirror, just give up and let it pass. Honestly it’s the best option, as these unforgiving beasts don’t take prisoners. They’d just chew you up and spit you out instead.

Sezza