First published in the September 2002 issue of Street Machine

What we’ve done to Seddo’s ute so far…

Hands up who wouldn’t own a new Holden ute. A new black 5.7-litre V8 SS Holden ute. Six-speed, buckets, alloys, sound. Yeah, I thought so.

Over the past six months, I have become a full convert to Commodores, Gen III V8s, six-speed manual gearboxes and even black duco. No longer do I drone on about the WB being the last ‘real’ Holden. Or argue that no-one will buy a Gen IIIs ’cos it doesn’t sound like a ‘real’ V8. Or complain about having to wash and chamois the blessed thing every two days. Like, try and stop me.

Where I live on the NSW Central Coast, new SS utes are breeding like single mums. Red ones, black ones, ‘hyper yellow’ ones, white ones. Some run aftermarket wheels, many are lowered and a few rock’n’rumble through sports exhausts. At close to $20K under the price of a new CV8 Monaro, we’ll be seeing plenty more and every one of them drop-dead gorgeous.

Few look as sexy as ours, but. Owners more sensible than us usually drop their utes an inch or two at most. That way they keep most of the VU’s much-vaunted sedanesque ride and handling, courtesy of its trick IRS rear end, while ditching its 4WD-like ride height.

As simple honest street machiners, we lowered ours by four inches. It halved the comfort and practicality quotient but it looks twice as tough. Throw in window tint (Fit’n’Fiddle, SM, May 2002) as dark as a Quentin Tarantino movie and the only blokes who don’t stop and stare as we cruise past are blind, dead or still asleep in their prams.

Does it steer and handle better than stock? Yes and no. When first we lowered it (Drop Zone, SM, March 2002), the wheel alignment went out to all buggery and we left it like that until we fitted a K-Mac front camber/castor kit (Off Camber, SM, May 2002) then realigned the wheels, after which it felt like we were driving Skaifey’s race car.

It’s a great old ploy: stuff around with something, make it worse, then do something else to make it less worse and marvel at the difference!

Seriously, with the camber kit installed, it steers likes it’s on rails, with way less of that character-building Commodore understeer on the pace, but the radical shortening of suspension travel still has it pigrooting like a Snowy River brumby over the bumps.

We can’t fail to be impressed by the strength of the standard SS 17-inch alloys, by the way. I had fully expected bent rims, or at least chipped, given the hiding they take from Sydney’s shitful roads on a daily basis and the minimal cushioning afforded by the 235/45R17 Bridgestone B530 tyres. But they scrub up like bought ones after every wash, amazingly enough.

As it turns out, we don’t think the ute’s anywhere near low enough anyway and will be modifying the suspension further over coming months to retrieve some of that lost travel while keeping the whole show sitting lower than the right wing of the Labor Party. But I’m getting ahead of myself there.

The best part of living with a newish ute is that it is, well, so new! I usually split most of my miles between a 35-year-old Ford and a 10-year-old Ducati, so pulling regular duty in a current model Holden is quite a treat.

It has suffered only one reliability hiccup; a faulty airflow sensor which caused intermittent poor running until it was replaced. We asked the dealer dude what exactly went wrong with it. The computer said it was the problem, he said, so we replaced it. Good thing I checked, eh. Apart from that, not a single thing has gone wrong with it, not a rattle, not a squeak, nothing.

Not only does the VU accelerate harder than my 7.0-litre Galaxie, it uses maybe half the fuel and regular el-cheapo unleaded at that. We have recorded close to 10l/100km (28mpg) on country trips and rarely use more 13l/100km (21mpg), even round the city. For a 5.7-litre V8 pumping out more than 300hp, it’s eye-opening stuff, the secret to the Gen III’s phenomenal popularity that has seen the smooth-walkin’ Chev optioned by no fewer than 40 per cent of private Commodore buyers.

I’ll miss its comfort, the excellent stereo, the ambiance of spending quality time in ‘the office’. And not because Holden is taking it back either. It has become increasingly clear that our original plan to develop the VU as a project car while in regular use as a ‘workshop ute’ never had a chance. It’s just too much fun to drive everyday to take off the road.

Which is why Craig Parker mugged me in the car park, the bastard, and prised the keys out of my clenched, sweaty grip. The 1991 SMOTY winner has got just under six months to get the thing looking pretty for Summernats and I’m not getting so much as a run around the block in the meantime.