Yep, it's legit! This is what has happened to the car that started life as a Lansvale VN Group A Commodore. And yes, that's a green Torana you can spot in the background. In Germany!
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6:00 AM Sat 18 February, 2012
Source: BigPond Sport
THIS week on Saturday Sleuthing we have a very, very special story about how a V8 Supercar Commodore ended up on the other side of the planet – and has been converted into the world's only left-hand drive V8 Supercar.
The story of this car that you see in the images starts back in 1991 when it was built new as a VN Commodore Group A car by Dencar for the Lansvale Smash Repairs team of Trevor Ashby and Steve Reed.
The popular Sydney-based privateers raced it during 1991 and 1992 before updating it to VP appearance for the 1993 season when the new five-litre rules (later to become known as V8 Supercars) were introduced.
This car effectively became a spare when they debuted a new car at Bathurst that year, and appeared 12 months later in the 1994 race in the hands of Stephen McLaine Motorsport.
From there it was sold to Wayne Russell (who thesedays runs son Drew and Aaren in the Dunlop Series), who ran it as a privateer from 1995 through to 1997 before he then updated machinery.
It's then when the story of this car takes a very different turn – to Germany!
Wayne Russell and Ric Shaw at BathurstRussell sold the car in 1998 to German Holger Boemanns, who bought it via fax and then gave it something of a massive birthday when it arrived.
It was completely rebuilt, being completely sandblasted inside, outside and underneath. It was repainted green from the white and blue scheme it had carried in Russell's hands.
Boemanns and his company put plenty of work into the Commodore, fitting it out with a range of new parts, tubes for fuel, oil, brake and air jack systems, wiring and so on.
And they converted it to left hand drive – making it the only one of its kind in the world.
And from that point on through to now it has been driven on a racetrack for just 100 kilometres of testing.
True!
We touched base with Holger, who runs Hoemanns Motorsport GmbH and asked him about how on earth he ended up with a car that made five Bathurst 1000 starts.
"We love the Holdens and the special sound and power of the Holden," he told us.
"I do not drive races with the Commodore because at first I have not the time and second it is expensive.
"My company and I are the reference for all competitors of all Porsche Cup classes in Germany, all GT3 cars for the DMSB, like CAMS in Australia.
"My Holden is not the right car for winning an endurance race because we have no ABS, no traction control and no active suspension."
There have been plenty of prospective buyers from Australia that have been in touch with Holger over the last few months looking to bring the ex-Lansvale Commodore back home.
We've kept quiet on the topic for a while, waiting to see what happened with the car before we went and spilled the beans here on Saturday Sleuthing.
But the V8 Sleuth can now report that indeed a deal has been struck with an Australian buyer – whose identity we'll keep private for the moment – and that the car is going to be heading back to its homeland.
Just what the new owner does with it remains to be seen.
But surely this is the most 'different' story we've ever seen on Saturday Sleuthing!
We're still working our way through all of your email from over summer, but keep loading us up and email us: ask@v8supercars.com.au with suggestions for cars for us to find.
And don't forget the week of the Clipsal 500 – the V8 Sleuth's impressive website packed with chassis information is launching!
You can find it at: www.v8sleuth.com.au
