Holden HSV Senator 215i: Upper House Holden
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Holden HSV Senator 215i: Upper House Holden

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By WheelsMagazine - 01 December 2016
Author: Bob Hall

The offspring are out of high-maintenance mode, you've got a good paying job, maybe a company car, and you have developed an appreciation of the zippier but far too expensive European machinery. Occasionally you pine for the heady days of youth and all the plans you had for your first car.

If this scenario rings true - and you're not a dyed-in-the-oval Ford fan or a Euro snob - Holden Special Vehicles has the answer: the Senator, complete with 215 kW motivator and automatic tranny.

Hallelujah! You ca11 have performance and respectability for under 70 grand.

The HSV people are quick to point out - justifiably – that they are more like tuners AMG and Alpina. Yet the fact that HSV performs its magic on local bent eights ensures a perception that it is this continent's pre-eminent builder of factory V8 street machines. The over-the-top appearance of the first SS Group A in 1988 set that in the minds of many Australians.

Fully loaded, the HSV Senator 215i Automatic lists for $66,576, and that includes ABS, airbag, Hydratrak cliff, nearly as much leather as you'll find in a shoe store and the requisite gun wheels and tyres.

Not that 66 grand is cheap. But it's $58,074 cheaper than the BMW M3 (the more directly comparable M5 has been dropped quietly from the special order sheet at BMW). Granted, the M3 is quicker and more economical than the Senator, but it doesn't have an automatic option, and concedes two doors as well as some interior space. The comparison is made purely as an exan1ple - given the choice between the Senator and an M3, we'd take 'em both and run.

The combination of an automatic and the hefty 215 kW stroker V8 is a new one for HSV, and adoption of the Commodore's self-shifter was not a straight substitution for the six speed box previously fitted to 5.7 litre HSV cars.

Serious massaging was required before the Turbo Hydramatic electronic four speed could handle the long-stroke Holden V8's hefty 475 Nm without grenading spectacularly Beyond a greater capacity torque converter, major areas of modification were to the shift body and accumulator, and the software for the auto's electronic control unit was optimised.

Strangely, the automatic doesn't make the Senator 215i a particularly smooth drive. Shifts are noticeably firm, and when you first hop into the Senator from something with less oomph, we can almost guarantee your first dab of the accelerator no matter how tentative – will send the car lurching forward. The 215i takes a few extra revs before the torque converter 'bites', and it almost became a point of an1usement watching a new driver behind the wheel.

With 0-400 metre times of 15.2 seconds (at a steamy 143.4 km/ h) and a not at all shabby 6.9 seconds for the 0-100 km/ h sprint, this Senator's the fastest big luxury car we've driven this year. Amongst self-shifting luxury conveyances, its straightline performance beats such exalted competitors as BMW 750iL, Mercedes-Benz S600L and Jaguar's XJ12.

We suspect that only Jaguar's just-arrived supercharged XJR matches the Senator's performance. And the cheapest import is about $70,000 more, enough to buy another Senator.

If you're thinking "if the Senator 215i is so quick, and isn't pricey on a bang for the buck basis, it must handle worse than an HD Premier, right?", the answer is "wrong".

The Senator is less stiffly sprung than the hell-bent- for-nomex GTS 215i but it has a reasonable ride for an ultra-high-performance sedan. (A Touring suspension set-up is standard on the Senator, while the GTS gets Sport suspension; either is available on both cars.)

The Senator is not as isolated as the Statesman and Caprice, but its Jekyll and Hyde nature can still be found, or felt, in the harshness of the 235/ 45ZR17 tyres, which is virtually impossible to conceal.

Inside the familiar Commodore cabin, the HSV team has spiffed things up a trifle. The interior is swathed in hectares of Australian Howe leather, and the front seat occupants get to ride in just about the niftiest pair of buckets never to wear a Recaro label. Space is on par with a Calais but rear seat room falls below that of the long wheelbase S class and 7 Series cars.

Perhaps the only jarring note comes from an off-key application of dead tree adorning the transmission selector and ashtray. The airbag wheel is taken straight from the Commodore, and could use a couple of easier-to-use horn presses. Not to mention a horn befitting something more upmarket than a Barina.

The Senator's only obstacles to a place in the luxury performance pantheon may be that it's not an import - and the wing on the bootlid.

Given the baggage of public perception that HSV has to carry with its greatly in1proved range of very special Holdens, it's working hard to put across the point that its cars are a whole lot more sophisticated and well-rounded than that first VL Group A.

Cars like the 215i Senator certainly help, but the image can 't change overnight. And the wing must go.

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