VN Commodore 5L  

Totally agree, we had a lot of choice with our V8 rear wheel drive sedans for so many years… sad loss but the legacy will live on with passionate owners.

Thanks heaps 🙂

They sure did the best they could on a tight budget, the VN is loved or hated but it did return Holden to profitability and without it, Holden would have been gone in the early 90s

Thanks buddy, appreciated

Super rare if a factory ordered manual, dealers would have the cruise fitted for manuals, Holden wouldn’t add it until the VR. Your code on your compliance plate would be 325 from the factory, auto like mine is 324 3= Third degree of luxury, 2= engine option 2 V8, 4 and 5 are the gears, 5 for 5 speed manual, 4 for 4 speed auto

Yes correct 325 pack M78 = manual transmission, LB9

Amazing, the VN has the most model variations of any Holden, between the Holdens, HSV’s HDTs and APVs so many to choose yet super rare

Replaced the original starter which had its days recently with a smaller VS style starter, much smoother 🙂

I absolutely loved the VQ Stato's and Caprices too. I remember the clock was on the roof in between the sunvisors. @@GTZ05

On the Caprice I also love the rear mounted Vanity mirrors and audio controls on the roof lining.

Ah the memories. And inside the rear centre armrest was 2 pairs of headsets for rear seat passengers. @@GTZ05

The panel gaps are actually really good, VN’s normally cop a lot of shade on their panel fit. My 2023 Audi S3 bonnet gaps look horrid compared to this

Thanks mate

Bet she is a beauty

@@GTZ05 sure is,same colour combo ect as that one

@@clifftonjohns7854 that’s the brochure car colour 🙂

@@GTZ05 is it?love the vn's

@@clifftonjohns7854 yeah it is, might have to feature the brochure in a video someday

What a beauty to have a VN 5L on your P’s back then. I had a VN V6 Berlina and was happy with that

That looks like it's been lowered. Either way I sold my VL 5 litre Calais maroon/silver auto in 2006 for around $15,000 and thought I'd made a killing on the old boiler. Now the same condition car is going for stupid money. These things were so poorly assembled, handled like bush junk with rubbish components and engineered by 2nd year Uni students. Good riddance to them. I replaced it with a blue Renault Sport Mégane 225 F1 Team Limited Edition and that thing was bonkers fun. Hahahaha Have a great 2024 dude.@@GTZ05

It is lowered, the VL would be worth big money now. To compare something made in the mid 2000s to an 80s car wouldn’t be fair, would need to jump into a 1980s Renault for that comparison or a mid 2000s HSV to compare to your 225 to make it fair. Owning an old car is all about the experience, not the build quality, not the handling or speed.. My daily is an Audi current model S3 and it does most things better than the old Calais, except the character of an old car and of course the sound!

I agree mate. I just miss both of my cars. Have a great week.@@GTZ05

I just bought a 2022 Hyundai N Premium Kona and it's just astonishing. LOL.@@GTZ05

Thanks man, it came like that but it has pacemaker extractors, it’s still a single exhaust, so I’d say 2.25 Inch then it is 3inch from the cat back with one muffler.

Noted, Thanks mate. if I make any more videos will have a microphone. All on the old IPhone.

@@GTZ05 Awesome effort for it to be filmed on an iPhone brother. Main thing is I loved seeing a Mint condition VN Calais V8. I never really see any driving around in the condition of yours mate. I'd be keeping that for life. I love the injected 3O4 5.O V8. They are awesome for long trips and really good on fuel just putting along at 11Okmh on the highway. My mate has a white Mint condition VN BT1 5.O V8 with the long range tank. We filled the tank as full as we could of 98 BP Ultimate and we got close to 11OOkms of highway driving sitting on 1OO-11Okmh. When cruising along the highway at that speed they are actually really good on fuel for a V8. At 11Okmh his just sits on 2OOOrpm and just purrs along.💯

@@victorpeirce4753 thanks mate, very true, on an open stretch of road the economy really comes to life, loves the hills also with very little effort, they are a great cruiser, sound good and are quite a comfortable car for those long trips. They also do get the attention on the road being a certain age and rarely seeing any half decent examples around.. I am a big fan of the old Injected 5.0, I have a few and the last of them in the VT.

Climate control came out in the first few months of 1990 in line with the VQ Statesman release. Early SV5000’s and Group A’s also have the manual air con. Many running changes on VN’s during its 3 year run, might go over them in a video someday.

*@johanziersch9230 In your case it's better to remain silent and appear stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.💯*

October 89 is when climate first appeared in the VN Calais, so barely 6 months of V8 production with regular A/C. VNs went through so many running changes and cars just a month apart can be quite different. The alarm was another change. The antenna module part number stayed the same but at some point the programming changed so it only went part way up. You’re right about the velour on the door trims too - VH SL/E with leather still had velour door trims, just like VL Calais with XT8 leather, but VK Calais with leather (only available in copper-tone) had vinyl (leather look) door trims. Trivial fact - the VQ front headrests came from the 80s Magna Elite (same company did the seat frames). Only the profile of the foam on the front is different on the caprice. I prefer the early VN Calais headrests though. Quite a rare colour combo with the champagne bumpers. Later cars condensed the variety of bumper colours sadly.

@@commodorenut many running changes, that’s for sure, I have owned so many VNs that I have picked up most of them along the way… my Calais has XT8 on the compliance plate for the leather option…wouldn’t be surprised about the headrests as lots of things were shared, even the external mirrors with exception to the part connecting to the door are used on Camry and corolla of the same era. With the climate control I am 99% sure that change came out Feb/March 1990, the Sv5000 came out late 89 and they didn’t have climate until early 1990.. I still have my original leather seats for the Calais with the large headrests, even Holden reduced the size of those late in the run for the VN Calais

@@GTZ05 I had an October 89 build (only a V6) with climate back in the early 2000s. It had the 2 coolant tanks too. GMH does mention a production breakpoint in one of the TSBs somewhere for the climate introduction date. When they say parts are for the “1990 model year” it starts sept 1 89, and ends Aug 31 1990. Unlike later cars that were 95% built by Holden on the Elizabeth line, the SV5000 spent a fair bit of time at HSV to be completed before moving out to dealers. A freshly delivered SV5000 could be 1-2 months older than the Exec on the same truck. Fortunately by VN they were only building them in 1 plant, so the changes are relatively easy to track with VIN breakpoints. Unlike VH in 3 locations (and VC in 4) where changes were all over the shop as different production rates meant some old stuff took months to use up in one plant, but only days in another. But back to VN stuff, I remember one guy telling me a late ‘90 Calais I bought and flipped must have been in an accident and fixed with non-genuine bits. Little did he know the HOLDEN impression behind the front number plate, and the lions on the headlight glasses had to disappear when they knew the lexcen was coming.