A Nearly-New Vauxhall Monaro Is Worth Almost £25,000, Apparently

A couple of weeks ago, we stumbled across what might be the most lovely example of a Vauxhall Monaro we’d seen this side of 2005. Given it’d covered just 1809 miles in its two-decade lifespan, we wondered how much it’d go for – given the world isn’t exactly rich in the new manual, V8 muscle cars these days.

The answer? £24,500. Yes, that much. Worth it or not?

Perhaps not the most shocking figure in the world, to be honest, as 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.

And it was that relationship courtesy of its Holden ownership, you can thank for the 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 had us yearning for a better time. 

We don’t have a great deal of information on its history – just that it’d been through four owners before finding its fifth, suggesting a life with collectors. The Collecting Cars listing noted 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 revealed 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 new owner is already making more use of that LS1.