Performance COTY

Performance Car of the Year 2018: Behind the scenes

Robbo’s far from a celebrity, but he’d definitely like to get out of here – this is his tale

01 Mar 2018 7:17 AM

Performance Car of the Year 2018 Behind the scenes

Gallery 6

SO, Here we are again. The unenviable task of assessing the best performance cars on sale in 2017. (Or 2018. I can’t quite keep up with the marketing types…)

It does mean, however, that largely the same group of reprobates as last year – with one notable exception, which you’ll read about in just a minute – all saddle up again for a gallop through the wilds of Victoria.

Started in 1918 by the late Viscount of Lower Oatley – it’s suggested that Paul Cockburn is a direct line relative of the founder but we can’t be sure (love ya, Paul!) – PCOTY has seen more than 140,000 cars go through the rigorous rigmarole of navel gazing, sausage-roll scarfing and “Oi! How many cylinders does this Porsche have again?” over the course of the past 100 years.

Despite his boyish good looks (Jesus… being a freelancer is a tough earn, I’ll tell you), this is Editor Campbell’s fourth PCOTY rodeo. Or is it the fifth?

Despite being subjected to even higher levels of ridicule this year, DC steadfastly refuses to buy a half-decent helmet.

Damn my senility… and he’s ably backed up as always by the sultan of spanking stuff – cars included – Scott Newman and young office punks/InstaBookTweet guys Louis, Trent and Chris. The baton of age and, well, age is once again grasped in feeble, hairy-knuckled fingers by Morley and I.

“Is it just me, or can you not understand half of what these kids say?” Morley muses over breakfast one morning. Hashtag, bro – smh.

One of Wazza’s trademarks over the past 15 years has been his absolute rigour and unshakeable professionalism when it comes to testing cars, no matter where they came from. Anyway, it is what it is, I don’t get paid to make the hard calls, and hopefully Wazza’s trademark perfect hair will be present and correct next year.

DAY ONE

In Winton. Morley and Newman (not the name of a law firm) arrive a tad late at the airport to fetch me, but their choice of wheels can’t be faulted – the last of the Clayton Mohicans, a metallic tangerine HSV GTSR W1. It’s been pulled back from other, less strenuous duties to give us at least one more chance to be able to say ‘Country – Australia’ on our spec sheets.

MORE Building HSV’s GTSR W1

Task one is its raison d’etre, too – a cross-country lope from Melbourne to Benalla, three-up with their gear aboard.

In truth, I’m not particularly sentimental about the whole end of the road for Holden. In fact, I’ve only ever owned one, a yellow-and-rust UC Sunbird that I swapped a mountain bike for – it was the better deal.

Morley is a bit doe-eyed and wistful, though – although it could have been a touch of wind – and even stops insulting me for 10 minutes (okay, two minutes) as he gently guides the big, jostling, pulsating HSV through a bright and warming spring afternoon.

“End of an era, this is,” he opines wistfully, tapping the steering lightly. I nod in pretend interest. You know, gotta be supportive and all that.

What it lacks in poster-worthy exotic metal, it makes up for in rarity and uniqueness. You won’t, for example, see the W1 very often in traffic, nor the Nissan GT-R Nismo. Or, for that matter, a BMW M4 CS. And there’s a bit of poke throughout, too – a 375kW Alfa Romeo Giulia QV here, a 294kW Audi TT RS there, and a few in the 400-plus club, too.

The balance of the field filters in, but it’s soon apparent that one is missing. Well, at least that’s what I ascertained from the remark overheard from a Person in Charge. “What do you mean it isn’t here yet?”

Dunno why they’re worried – it’s just a $200,000 Lexus LC500. I lose mine all the time. It’ll turn up down between the chair and the coffee table. Always does.

DAY TWO

My spirits are already dashed – I have literally been waiting all year for a bowl of porridge from the Benalla bakery, but the guy who makes it doesn’t work on Tuesdays, does he? – so Dave and I make do with an 0817 arrival. And we’re not the last.

A truck bearing gifts shaped like the most amazing Lexus visage since the LFA has showed up, bringing the field to order. Trent is ecstatic.

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There’s a reason that people like steam trains, fighter aircraft, racing trucks and big things that make noise… because they are utterly amazing to watch. The W1’s supercharger rents the air like a plummeting Spitfire, while its exhausts bellow like a pissed-off T-Rex as it hurtles over the deck like an orange torpedo. Oh sure, the Mercedes-AMG E63 S roars like a ’50s powerboat and the GT-R looks like a ground-bound ICBM, but the HSV just lights up the day.

Speaking of Dave, he arrives fresh from an early finish at the Gold Coast Supercars, in his unassuming black SS company car, singularly bereft of any sort of entourage, excessive sponsor clobber and any kind of attitude at all.

“Hi, I’m Dave,” he proffers, introducing himself to the entire team. The kid’s taken a few lumps in the media over the years, but he’s still refreshingly and disarmingly… I’d like to say ‘normal’, but he’s chosen to spend a week with us.

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Given we’re testing the Stinger in the midst of a media love-in not unlike the launch of the Holden Monaro in the early 2000s, we quickly come to the realisation that there’s something about this guy we really like.

We work through the field a car at a time, while whispers about favourites start to filter through. Like the Honda Civic Type R. It’s the most outgunned car here – it has less than half the power of the W1 – but the jungle drums are beating about it early on.

The Hubble telescope could hear the W1’s primal roar. It’s hair-tingling stuff for those of us with actual hair (that’s a dangerous joke to make when we’ve not paid your invoice yet – Ed).

“Expected a bit more, to be honest,” is Dave’s first remark when he returns. You can literally hear the jaws dropping.