The Holden Commodore and Ute range end production in October this year. After that there’s no way to buy a new Holden V8 ute in Australia. Right? Wrong.
HSV are said to be working on a performance Colorado, which should be a great car in its own right, but if reports are accurate, it will stick with a tuned diesel setup, leaving those with a bent eight appetite wanting.
Queensland’s Killa Kustom Kables and Conversions (conversions on existing cars), or Killa Special Vehicles (for complete finished packages), has successfully completed two LS3 Colorado swaps, with plenty more on the way at a very reasonable price.
Starting with a statutory write-off Colorado as the foundation for the initial prototype, Tony and Steve got to work on installing a 6.2-litre, 304kW/580Nm LS3, attached it to a 6L80 gearbox and the Colorado’s transfer case and 4×4 system.
After cleverly integrating it with custom engine mounts and adaptors, the team tuned it with a resultant 253kW at the wheels. The car gets decent economy too, with a figure of 14L/100km comparable to what you’d see in an SS Commodore, but one customer has reported figures in the 11s.
The company cleverly sources 2015-2016 low-km cars for the conversion, with turn-key packages coming in at $75-80k. This puts it in roughly the same ballpark as an optioned-up Ford Ranger Wildtrak or Amarok Ultimate, let alone the upcoming Mercedes-Benz X-Class. Although it’s only got compliance for Queensland presently, work is under way for other states too.
Killa Special Vehicles spoke to PerformanceDrive recently and said a few more customer vehicles are coming this year and a lower cost variant off the lowest-spec Colorado around the $60k mark is on the cards too.
When quizzed about a potential ground-hugging Maloo-esque single-cab Colorado, they said they’ve “considered” it, as well as Colorado 7/ Trailblazer, but if it happened “it would be a long way off.”
Check out their handywork on the Killa Special Vehicles Facebook page, which includes a few cool videos such as this below. This could be the start of something yuuuge.
