Holden Special Vehicles already make the greatest muscle car Australia has ever seen.

With their 215 kW 5.7 litre V8s, HSV’s VR Commodore-based GTS and Senator 215i models are without doubt the best high performance production cars ever made here.

They’re fast; nothing past or present beats the genuine, laser-measured 246 km/h we’ve seen from a GTS with the mighty V8 spinning close to its 5500 rpm redline in the fifth of its six gears as it bellowed round the top lane of Holden’s Lang Lang Proving Ground speed bowl.

And it’s quick, too. Like 6.3 seconds from standstill to 100 km/h. If the bitumen is grippy enough to cope with enough of the car’s 475 Newton monsters, that is. But sheer speed and surging acceleration aren’t all the HSV is good at. Equipped with nice big brakes and excellent tyres on 17 inch wheels, it’s as accomplished through the corners as it is on the dragstrip.

Including, of course, the 185 kW 5.0 litre models which are the company’s biggest sellers. So HSV’s VS-based line-up is a story of incremental improvement and minor modification.

Manta, as it’s named, mates HSV’s bread and butter 185 engine with a standard five speed manual or optional four speed auto in both sedan and wagon bodies. Minus the usual HSV exterior additions and equipped with new 16 inch five spoke alloy wheels, Manta will be priced at about $5000 more than Holden’s SS V8 and a similar amount less than HSV’s Clubsport.

In fact, so fur as engines and ancilliaries are concerned, there’s only one new component worthy of mention. The 185 engined VS models get a new exhaust system, one which reduces decibels.

The newer exhaust of the 5.7litre was left alone. “On the low restriction thingo with the twin converters … there’s no change,” he says. “It’s just straight carryover.”

“On the Sport suspension, which is Clubsport and GTS, and the Touring suspension, which is Senator standard, we have revised it in the form of sway bars and shock and strut coding for improved ride,” he says.

“I’m getting more and more remote, if you like, from the day-to-day engineering of the product,” he adds, “and I’ve always had a bit of a bias towards soft springs and large diameter sway bars. There’s a counter argument against this.

“We’ve gone back from 28 to 27 on the front. We’ve gone back from 18 to 1 7 on the rear. The springs are actually the same rates as the standard springs, but shorter. On the bump side of the shock coding they’re stiffened up, so there’s more control.

“Left to my own devices I wouldn’t have done this, but the guys have gone this way and I can’t argue with it.”

And a brand new Boulevard suspension set-up has been developed for the slow-moving HSV Statesman models. While it’s not so firm as the Touring calibration of the short wheelbase cars, it’s still a well controlled and precise handling package. The Touring suspension fitted to previous HSV Satesman-based models remains an option.

The choice of Sport and Touring set-ups, where they aren’t standard, is also offered on all the other HSV models. So it’s possible to specify a Touring suspension GTS or a Sports suspension Senator. The only exceptions are the live rear axle vehicles, Manta wagon and Maloo ute, which come in Sports specification.

The Bridgestones are mounted on two new wheels, both designed by Ian Callum, the man responsible for HSV’s VR body kit. There’s a dramatic three spoker, flat silver finished for Clubsport and mirror polished zinc for the GTS. Senator gets a classically good looking 10 spoker.

Driver’s side airbags, previously fitted only in Senator, have proliferated. “On VR we’ve had the sports steering wheel as standard on Clubsport and GTS and we’ve had driver’s side airbag with the leather trim on Senator,” says Mcinerney.

Manta also misses out on the new 250 km/h speedometer which is peculiar to HSV’s cars. “Originally we were going to do it on the 215 cars only,” says McInerney, “and then we thought: ‘No, hang it, we’ll put it across everything’. It’s quite an expensive thing to swap instruments.” Presumably less expensive is fitting the new, quieter carpet assembly developed for the VS Calais in the Senator.

Finally, a fire extinguisher is included in every model, though not in response to owners’ feedback. McInerney is at pains to point out HSV’s cars aren’t particularly prone to catching fire.

Maybe it’s simply subtle reinforcement of the idea that HSV’s products are hot…