Brace Yourself For Tears: The Last-Ever Vauxhall VXR8 Is Here

Get your black armbands ready and try your best not to cry. The final Vauxhall VXR8 has been announced. It’s the very last time we’re going to be able to get excited about the big, brutish Australian that’s as full of character as anything else on the road.

Vauxhall’s Australian sister company Holden has been shut down with one final hurrah in the shape of the GTSR W1, and with global production of the Commodore almost at an end, now it’s the turn of the UK to get its own run-out special.

It takes the first part of the Holden’s name to create the VXR8 GTS-R, offering a specification unique to the UK. The glorious 6.2-litre supercharged V8 is boosted by 19bhp to 587bhp; enough to make it the most powerful production Vauxhall ever, but still 49bhp short of the ultra-special ‘road-legal race car’ Oz-only Holden GTSR W1.

The extra power comes courtesy of a high-flow air filter and a light remap.

On top of that, the last VXR8 also gets a limited-slip differential, upgraded six-piston calipers squeezing 410mm discs at the front, and larger 20-inch alloy wheels measuring a chunky 10 inches wide at the back and nine at the front.

Just 15 will be coming to the country with a price of £74,500. One will be shown to the public at the Goodwood Festival of Speed starting on June 29, as part of the First Glance Paddock. We’re sorry to be losing an absolute icon of non-American muscle, but at least it’s going out with a heroic bang.