Holden on a grand scale

By Alastair Sloane

Holden is bracing itself for a rush of buyers when this limited-edition variant of the Mobile Holden Racing Team's VT Commodore goes on sale to the public. The carmaker has kept the racing model under wraps, but plans for its release ended up in the pages of Excelerate, Holden Special Vehicles' house magazine.

But before you sell the house, blackmail the bank manager and cash in the kids' insurance, the car isn't really, um, real. It's a highly specified, radio-controlled model, one-tenth the scale of the genuine article. And, like the real V8 racer, it can smoke its tyres, do power slides and brake with the best of them.

A single-cylinder, pull-start petrol engine gives the two-wheel-drive model a top speed of 40 km/h. The optional four-wheel drive can blast the opposition into the weeds at a lickety-split 60 km/h.

The car was built by Australian Michael Farnan and won the 1999 Australian hobby product of the year. Such awards are nothing new to Farnan. He built a radio-controlled model helicopter and flew it for 134km to set a world record.

The scale model Commodore was unveiled on a popular television show in Melbourne this week and HSV has been inundated with phone calls since. It is expected to sell in Australia for about $A700 ($830). There is one problem: the paintwork and decals are so detailed that HSV says it might have to sell unpainted, do-it-yourself models to cope with demand.

The car will be available through HSV New Zealand, phone 09 525 2597.