Chevrolet SS
Why 7.3: GM rebadged an Australian Holden Commodore, dropped in a 415-hp Corvette-derived V8, and offered a manual for exactly one model year — then almost nobody bought one. The rarity plus the near-50/50 weight balance turned it into a cult sleeper that appreciates now instead of rotting in a used-car lot.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Sound
The LS3 does the classic small-block burble and the bi-modal exhaust opens to a proper V8 bark on throttle. But Holden silenced it as a family saloon and 6,600 rpm leaves it nowhere to go. Warm and familiar rather than exciting, well below the 6.2 AMG.
8-cylinder · naturally aspirated · 6,600 rpm redline · rated 6.7 / 10 for engine sound
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €41k (2014) → €37k (2026), trending down · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
Outboard rear LATCH anchors and top tethers standard, same as any US-homologated Zeta-platform sedan.
No LATCH hardware in the front seat.
Built in Australia as the Holden Commodore and federalized for the US — the safety hardware had to clear the same FMVSS rules as a Detroit-built car to be sold here.
FMVSS 225 (US federal LATCH mandate, lower anchors + top tether required from Sept 2002) (owner-community sourced, not manufacturer documentation)
The long version
General Motors imported this nearly wholesale from Holden's Australian Commodore lineup, right down to the multi-link rear suspension tuned for a near-50/50 weight balance most American sedans of the era never bothered chasing, then dropped in a 415-hp LS3 V8 shared with the base Corvette and sold it in dealer showrooms next to Malibus and Cruzes with almost no marketing. Buyers who found it tended to already know exactly what a Commodore-based RWD V8 sedan was worth, and a genuine manual option arrived for the final 2017 model year, right as GM was winding the whole program down — which means the rarest, most desirable spec is also the last one built. Sales were bad enough that GM killed the nameplate after four years, but that same commercial failure is why surviving examples now trade as a cult sleeper rather than a forgotten rental-fleet reject; values that cratered on the used market a decade ago have started climbing back as enthusiasts who missed it new go looking for one. What's left on the road skews toward people who specifically sought this out, not people who bought it by accident, and it gets driven like the sedan-shaped Corvette it basically is.