VL 'Walky' Group As now apparently worth as much if not more than GTSR W1s

How much weight do you put behind a badge?

When HSV wanted to send off locally-manufactured cars with a bang, it banked on there being a bit of special equity behind the rarely-seen ‘GTSR’ badge.

Famously, at $169,990, the GTSR W1 was the most expensive production car ever built in Australia.

Soon after the very limited run of 300 examples was sold, they started showing up in dealerships and auction houses, with prices inflating to almost $300,000.

Maybe they should have just called it the ‘SS Group A’ though, because the ever-controversial 1988 model is now apparently worth just as much, if not more, than the final home-grown HSVs.

Just the other day, for example, an almost-never-driven example (#333 of 500) with 1308km on the clock was sold for $340,000 at a Moama, NSW auction. It was particularly special, in that it was never registered and spent much of its life just sitting on a dealership floor, but still - that’s a lot of cash.

This never-registered example fetched a huge $340k at auction. (image credit: Burns & Co)

A quick look at the CarsGuide listings showed us that there are two more ‘88 Walkinshaw Group As for sale at $179,999 and $199,500 respectively, each with less than 70,000km on the clock.

Only 500 examples of the 5.0-litre V8 'Walky' Group As were built – all in the ‘Panorama Silver’ shade you see here - as it was a requirement to homologate the track version of the car. It was the first Walkinshaw-tweaked Commodore and the first to feature fuel-injection.

In comparison, the two GTSR W1s currently listed are offered at 279,990 (grey, #167) and $239,900 (white, #135), although both cars are brand new.

You can pick up this car, #135 - for $239,900. Just a casual $70k above the original RRP.

Even at auction, the W1 has yet to best the $340k VL Group A, with recent examples sold for $269,000 and $280,000 (still $100 - $110k over RRP).

Limited-run HSVs have become something of an investment platform of late, much to the ire of HSV itself that didn’t want to encourage the practice of buying and re-auctioning the cars (meaning there will be some that are never registered… why hurt your profit margin with rego fes?)

The ‘88 VL group A especially has skyrocketed in value in the last few years, with prices around $60k not unusual as recently as 2012.

Would you rather have a 1988 Group A or the GTSR W1? Tell us why and how much you’d pay for it in the comments.