The Monaro
What is it?
“It’s a 2003 Monaro CV8 V2 Series II auto.”
Why did you buy it?
“At the time I had been driving a silver VT Commodore, the Olympic Edition, but the lease was up so I was in the market for a new car. Ever since I first saw the new model Monaro, the prototype at the 2000 Motor Show, owning one was in the back of my mind. To me it was as good a looking a car as anything you’d get out of Europe, for a half or a third of the price – and with at least as good a set of performance characteristics.
“So I borrowed a road test Monaro from Holden for a few weeks, to see what the car was like. It was Series I six-speed manual, orange with tan/ orange interior – very garish. I drove it around for a few days and thoroughly disliked it. I’d been driving autos for a long time, and to suddenly get into something with a heavy gearshift and clutch, driving it around the streets I didn’t like it at all.
“I put buying a Monaro the car I was hoping it would be. I took it back after a week or so, and thanked Eve for the lend of it, and then while I was driving home she phoned me. She said ‘are you serious about buying a Monaro?’ And I said, ‘yes, I’m going to go to Suttons at Hornsby to enquire about one today. She said, ‘well look, that car you were driving is coming off the fleet on Friday, and it would be available if you wanted it. It had 2000km on the clock, and it had pretty much every optional extra a Monaro could have, and it was about $20,000 less than the price of a new one. It turned out also to be one of the last cars Holden sold directly – shortly after that no one outside of Holden could buy Holden fleet or executive cars direct, they all from then on went through dealers.”
