HSV Maloo - Aussie Ute - My Car

G’day mates. This is a ute.

The recipe for a ute (short for Utility Vehicle) is simple: mix the comfort and handling of a car with the practicality of a pickup.

The story of their creation goes that in 1932, an Australian farmer’s wife wrote to Ford asking for something that could take her to church on Sunday and the pigs to market on Monday. Australian Lewis Bandt designed the car (which was unflatteringly referred to as “Kangaroo Chaser” by Henry Ford), and the first ute was released two years later.

They’ve exploded in popularity in Australia since then, with over 235,000 new utes sold in Australia in 2025 alone. Most popular among both utes and all cars total was the Ford Ranger, selling 56,555 units last year. To put that into perspective, 2025’s most popular car in the UK was the Ford Puma, and that not only had lower sales (55,488 units) but the UK’s population is over double that of Australia.

So utes are a bit of a religion. And while they are meant to be workhorses, that’s not to say that they aren’t fun. People are always going to want something a bit quicker. A bit more powerful. A bit more lairy.

In comes HSV.

HSV stands for Holden Special Vehicles, and was the performance division of Holden until both went defunct in 2021. Think what AMG is to Mercedes, or what Polestar used to be to Volvo.

Holden themselves are no stranger to performance, being one of the most successful brands in Australian motorsport. Their cars won the Bathurst 1000 a staggering 36 times (over 60% of all events), with 23 titles in the Australian Touring Car Championship and 617 race wins in the Supercars Championship.

Holden also made some famous road cars in their time, producing the HK Monaro (the first Australian-developed muscle car, coming the year after the Ford Falcon), the Commodore (Australia’s best-selling car, with over 3,000,000 sold in its 42 years), and the Torana (which took three Bathurst 1000 wins). And this - the HSV Maloo.

The name “Maloo” is derived from the Aboriginal word for “storm” or “thunder”, and this generation came with rear-wheel drive, two-seats, and a 6.2L LS3 V8 engine.

If an LS3 engine sounds familiar, that’s because it probably is. It’s a popular engine as it makes over 400bhp out of the crate and has a high compression rate, meaning it can generate more power from less fuel and air. Produced by GM - they put them in Camaros and Corvettes between 2007 and 2017 - LS3s are also very commonly used in engine swaps.

It was also a Holden Maloo that six-time Bathurst 1000 winner and five-time Supercars Championship title winner Mark Skaife drove into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2006, hitting an average of 168.66mph and crowning it the fastest ute.

Owner Matt told us he bought it from MW Performance in Chester - a company that specialises in HSV and VXR for the UK. The car is an Australian import, though thankfully for Matt both Australia and the UK drive on the left, meaning that the car was already right-hand drive.

It also came with some modifications, including an uprated camshaft and clutch, a 3” stainless steel exhaust, sport cats, and a suspension kit, among other changes. Couple that with the fact that it’s in white, and it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

“I’ve only had it for about six months,” Matt told us, “but I’d been looking for the right one for about two or three years.

“I wanted a white one, a black one, or a grey one. And I wanted a supercharged auto. This is a manual non-supercharged, but it’s the colour I wanted more than anything. And plus it doesn’t need to be supercharged - it’s 550bhp as it is.”

550bhp is certainly more than enough when you consider that the Ariel Atom 4RR, the Audi R8, and the Ruf SCR 4.2 - all incredibly competent sportscars - all have around 525bhp.

Of course that does mean that the car is… thirsty. Even with a higher compression rate it’s still a 6.2L V8, and it makes an estimated 19mpg in normal driving (dropping to 10mpg when driven hard). That’s not something Matt is too concerned about though, saying it’s more about “smiles per gallon”.

Smiles are definitely something the car evokes - whether from the driver or the people around it. “It can sometimes stand out because it’s different, and that’s what I like. Plus it sounds awesome,” Matt told us.

The roads of the UK might not be where the car envisioned spending its days (especially not on wet days like this), but we’re glad it made the trip from a land down under. And with 550bhp on British roads, people will definitely hear that thunder that the car is named for.