Australian cars

[Batmobile_Turbo]

i don't know anything about Australian cars so could someone fill me in on a few things?
1.what's the best super car in Ausralia?
2. what's the biggest company in Australia
3. anything else about Australian cars i don't know (which is pretty much anything)

[HoldenHFV6]

Hi,

Well the best super car in Australia will bring much debate. I am not even going to start it. The biggest vehicle company in Australia (in terms of market share) is Toyota, then Holden (A General Motors company), then Ford Australia, then Mitsubishi, Nissan, Mazda, Hyundai, Honda, Subaru and Mercedes Benz.

We race v8 supercars over here, which are the Holden's and Fords. Generally these are the only 2 cars considered to by Australian.

Ou cars come in V8, V6, in line 6 and 4 cylinder engines. The biggest V8 you can by stock is the 300Kw 5.7L V8 which is found in Holdens (or in Holden Special Vehicles, HSV, which is a subsiduary of holden). The next biggest engine is the 290Kw 5.4L V8 from Ford. Holden V8 is push rod, Ford V8 is DOHC.

[Batmobile_Turbo]

thanks, i have a couple other questions
what does kw mean?
could any one post some Australian supercars on this thread?

[HoldenHFV6]

Sorry. Kw is what we use in Aus these days. It is how "powerful" the engine is. The conversion rate is:

1 Hp = 0.7455 Kw

So our 300 Kw engine has approx 400 Hp (ie same as the corvett).

[Nildo]

Bat Turbo, not picking on you, but I find it really odd that an overseas person cares about our cars.

This may help you though....

A kw is a metric measure of car power. 1kw =1.34 hp. Or 1 hp = .7457 kw. Either way, a figure quoted in kilowatts is roughly three quarters of its horsepower figure. For example, a skyline GTR produces (allegedly) 280 ps. This equals about 276 bhp, which is 206 kilowatts. Right. Torque over here is expressed as newton metres, but I don't have the exact comparison figures to lbs/ft. I can get them if you want though.

As far as supercars go, we do have a fringe company called Corsa Special Vehicles (CSV). They modify and release as production specials Holden cars based on the Commodore. I don't know their entire line up, but they have a car that is based on a 5.7 litre chevy motor. It is stroked to 6.5 litres and has, i think 365 kw (or 489 bhp ). I don't know performance figures from the top of my head, but if memory serves me they aren't quite up to a porsche 911 turbo or 360 modena.

There is nothing quite like corvette or ferrari though.

[HoldenHFV6]

Tourque conversion is about the same

1lb/ft = 1.35 Nm
or
1Nm = 0.73b/ft

[fpv_gtho]

i thought torque conversion was about 1 NM = 0.7507509 ft/lbs.

As far as supercars go, the current top of the line i guess would have to be the HSV GTS. Holden recently tried to topple that by making the monaro body lighter and sticking a corvette C5-R engine in, but the development costs got too high. The most powerful local car released though, is the Phase 4 Falcon GTHO from 1972 with about 306kw. They only made 1 production car and 3 prototypes though, as a media scare killed the planned production build of 300 cars as well as the V8 Torana and Charger which were previously only straight sixes

[HoldenHFV6]

it is somewhere between 0.73 and .75. lets say 3/4 just to be safe.

[fpv_gtho]

well the 666nm Ford GT gets 500ft/lbs torque so that makes 1nm = 0.7507508ft/lbs

[Batmobile_Turbo]

Originally posted by Nildo
Bat Turbo, not picking on you, but I find it really odd that an overseas person cares about our cars.

i just want to know, because theres a whole forum for australian cars and i want to talk about them.

[Nildo]

I was just a little curious. There sadly isn't quite the scope for comment as on the US and asian forums, although it means the conversations here are much more deep and specific.

The Holden GTS is currently the most powerful car (followed closely by the Ford Falcon GT) with 300 kw and 510 nm. The best timed run I have seen clocked 13.36@176kph. Not bad, but not up there with exotica or US supercars.

[crisis]

This is a two door Holden Monaro modified by HSV. It is effectively a AWD version of what Holden is sending to the US as the new GTO. It has about 360hp.

[crisis]

This is the standard Holden Commodore SS which is a 350cu LS1 Chev V8 @ 330hp

[Batmobile_Turbo]

ok sweet, so what is HSV?

[fpv_gtho]

Holden Special Vehicles, its like what SVT is to Ford america and SRT is to Dodge