How Much Is A Nearly-New Vauxhall Monaro Worth?

Looking through the lineup of Vauxhall’s cars might be the most depressing it’s ever been. A real achievement, given this is the manufacturer that once sold the Vectra.

The now-Stellantis-owned brand sells three SUVs of not-too-dissimilar sizes, two vans, the Astra and the Corsa. None of which are anything beyond ‘Yeah, it’s ok’.

Admittedly, even in its GM years, Vauxhall rarely produced great stuff. Yet, it did happen on occasion – often through its VXR sub-brand, and on occasion its GM connections. You can thank the latter for the Lotus-derived VX220.

You can also thank it for producing the only series of V8-powered cars to wear a Vauxhall badge, courtesy of its Holden ownership.

That started with the car we have here, the Vauxhall Monaro. The process was a simple one – take a CV8 Holden Monaro, boat it to the UK, put a Vauxhall badge on, profit.

That started in 2004, and gave Vauxhall a car that could compete with a E46 BMW M3 on paper for a fraction of the price. 354bhp came courtesy of a 5.7-litre LS1 V8, sent to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox.

We say on paper, because while the E46 M3 could be considered one of the most well-rounded cars of its generation, the Monaro was very much a brutalist approach to performance.

Beyond a limited-slip differential, it had some form of suspension and traction control settings included ‘on’ or ‘off’. The interior too was pretty much devoid of any niceties – if you wanted a Monaro, it was for its raw V8 performance.

Which is why seeing this practically-new example for sale has us yearning for a better time. A 2005 car, it’s covered just 1809 miles across four owners – suggesting it’s been passed around as a collector’s item.

We don’t have a great deal of information on its history, though the Collecting Cars listing notes a full service was carried out by Vauxhall Swindon in February this year. We suspect that may have made a few mechanics’ days.

A check of its MOT history reveals two fails. The first was in 2016 for a spongy brake pedal (seemingly since sorted) and the second in 2017 for insufficient washer fluid, which feels like someone could’ve just taken two minutes to fill it up.

Interestingly enough, we found an article on PistonHeads from 2021 discussing this exact car, at which point it had covered 1663 miles. Hopefully its next owner will make more use of that LS1.

As we’re writing this, there are seven days left to go on the auction. Bidding sits at £5,100 just as we published this, though given it was at £100 when we started writing, that may well have changed again.