HSV Senator Signature Series Car Review

Overview

The exterior of the HSV Senator is more than impressive. If you have been driving the HSV Senator for awhile, it becomes harder for the air conditioner to produce cooler air. The GTS (automatic) is the second most expensive car available in this series. The GTS manual transmission is priced at $74,990, with the automatic transmission model going for $76,990.

Details

The exterior of the HSV Senator is more than impressive. No matter how you look at it you know this car means business and isn't going to be seen messing around. If you look at the tires you will see the incredibly good looking 19 inch 10 spoke wheels gracefully adding an even sportier image. The tired themselves are 275mm wide Bridgestones that appear quite large when you view them from the back. I can't talk about any flaws with the way it looks are its design simply because I couldn't find any. I definitely tried but this car was built very sturdy and professionally.

When you finally take a look at the interior of the HSV Senator, you will certainly be pleased with what you see. It appears that this model has been built to set continue the excitement built up by all the hype of the vehicle. The large and bulky bench seats are accented with a very nice looking leather/suede treatment. They also provide enough support to hold the driver tightly in place. If you are looking for a mix between luxury style and comfort in your vehicles seats then there is no need to look any further. The HSV Senator achieves that quite well, while at the same time providing racing style leverage.

The safety features included in the purchase of this vehicle are as follows: Antilock Brake System (ABS) brakes, Dual stage driver and passenger front airbags, side curtain airbags, side impact airbags for the driver and passenger, and active front head restraints.

With gas prices jumping from expensive to even more expensive everyone was looking to find a nice vehicle that could give you great options, but still remain just as fuel efficient as other options that are available. HSV has complete faith in their new vehicle and they even have enough confidence to poke fun at the competition though advertising. With the intriguing slogan 'I just want one', I was curious about the new vehicle to say the least. After spending over three and a half years and well over $4.5 million dollars on the Magnetic Ride Control (MRC) alone, this had many drivers such as me, extremely eager to take it for a spin. With that said, I had to get my hands on a HSV Senator Signature Series to see what is was all about and what it had to offer.

The interior of the Senator has an abundant amount of space for not only carrying things, but it can easily carry around you and your passengers comfortably as well. Passengers in the backseat can enjoy a hidden flip down DVD screen that is controlled completely from the back of the vehicle. The rear passengers have the option to listen to the DVD through the speakers, but when you don't want to disturb others you have the option to listen to it through headphones. This is a fabulous option for long road trips where others might grow tired of listening to the DVD and want to listen to the radio instead. There aren't major flaws with this that I could see, so I was content with this feature.

I was definitely impressed with the new LCD screen. The layout of the system is extremely easy to use and won't take a long time to figure it out, even for the less computer friendly drivers. In fact, the same can be said about the rest of the interior controls. Everything is in a good location and doesn't get overwhelming or confusing. One feature in particular that I really liked was the dual zone climate control. This allowed passengers to have the freedom to choose their own climate level. It's not a feature that we are in desperate need of, but pretty nice to have none the less. The only downfall I noticed in the interior was with the air conditioning. If you have been driving the HSV Senator for awhile, it becomes harder for the air conditioner to produce cooler air.

I wish I could say the same for the audio system. The HSV Senator's sound system comes with 11 speakers, sub woofers, produces 230 watts of power, but still managed to sound absolutely horrible. Not only do you have to deal with the annoying rattling speakers, but the distortion is what made the experience the most unpleasant. Listening to music becomes a difficult task and this is an issue that I don't think any new car should be having. Since I was testing a pre-production model I was willing to let this go and just hope that it gets fixed before it hits the sales floor.

If you look at the gear lever you will notice a set of switches surrounding it. These switches control the Electronic Stability Control (ESC), as well as the sport shift mode (only available in the automatic) and the front/rear parking sensors. Whenever the front or rear sensors are set off, you will see visual and hear audio indicators that are available. If you look on the LCD screen you can see the how close objects in your surroundings are to the front or back the vehicle. This system works wonders and is truly amazing how much easier it makes parking.

The grip you are able to get on the steering wheel makes you feel right at home when driving. The sport style wheel helps greatly when taking corners. If you look at the top of the dashboard you will notice the three gauges that are mounted on it. These gauges monitor the oil temperature, oil pressure, and battery voltage displayed by the use of analogue dials.

As far as the steering wheel goes, it is decent in size and should fit the hands of most drivers with no problems. The steering wheel controls let you simplify a number of different tasks such as changing the radio volume, radio stations, or CD tracks without spending a dangerous amount of time with your eyes off the road.

When you finally get this car out on the road you notice the fine tuned driving experience right off. If you are stopped at a red light or stop sign you may notice that the HSV is vibrating and rumbling away. It makes you feel like as soon as you let your foot off of the brake, you are going to be sent flying off into the sunset. Sure, they could have toned this down a bit but many drivers actually like the effect this gives the car. Since the engine is a hefty V8 many believe that is how the car should be acting with such a powerful engine. During normal and daily driving the engine produces an ample amount of power to get your around.

When you start driving this HSV Senator around tight corners you may begin to notice its downfall in this area. It certainly can't keep up with an Audi vehicle when taking these corners. That shouldn't come as to big of a surprise though, since the Audi is well known for handling this area quite well. Other than that though, the handling is actually fairly impressive. The long awaited Magnetic Ride Control (MRC) was helpful to adjust to damper firmness in the fraction of a second, which is much better than the delay in normal mechanical arrangements. In this type of setup you will notice that the car leaning into the body roll before the dampers can adjust to compensate is simply unavoidable. The MRC feature manages to keep the car a lot more flat through a corner than it would be without it. It was nice to see this feature in action and working so well.

One thing I was a bit concerned about was the gearboxes 'tiptronic' shifting mechanism. I didn't like how sensitive the gear lever was because it made it very easy to knock it out of gear while driving. When this happens it makes an extremely unpleasant noise and if you aren't sure if you have ever heard, then you haven't. Trust me when I sat it is quite the memorable sound.

When you are looking at the HSV E-series you have the choice between four different models. You can go with the Clubsport, R8, GTS, Senator, and the Grange. Each model is slightly different in price and they all contain a decent set of features that come with them.

The HSV Senator is far from short on features which are definitely a good thing when you are paying this much for a vehicle. A list of respectable standard features is as follows: Overhead DVD player, color LCD screen, cruise control, leather/suede seats, 19n inch alloy wheels, auxiliary audio input, power mirrors, automatic headlights, Bluetooth phone capabilities, dual zone climate controlled air conditioning, 6 disc changing MP3 compatible CD player, trip computer, many useful steering wheel controls, sports steering wheel, front and back parking sensors, power windows, and heated mirrors.

If you are in the market to purchase a vehicle that has this type of price tag, but is well worth it when you look at interior features and exterior design, you should definitely take a look at the HSV Senator Signature Series. The one thing that I found negative about the vehicle is the lack of a manual transmission-the six speed automatic transmission just really does not belong in a car of this magnitude. It could possibly go even faster if it had a six speed manual transmission that the driver could control. Since many times the Holden manufacturers compete with Ford, I will be curious to find out what they will produce to hold up to the Holden Senator Signature Series-it will be difficult to live up to it. All in all, the vehicle is worth the price you pay-there are plenty of benefits that add up to the final cost, so if you have the money to fork out to pay for a car like this, at least give it a test drive-you will not be sorry that you did. In fact, you might end up walking out of there a new proud owner of a HSV Senator Signature Series.

The manual Clubsport is priced at $62,890 for the manual transmission and $64,890 for the automatic transmission. The Grange is the most expensive model and is starting its price at $89,990. The GTS (automatic) is the second most expensive car available in this series. The GTS manual transmission is priced at $74,990, with the automatic transmission model going for $76,990.

In conclusion, I have been nothing but impressed with Holden VE series. Though I initially had my doubts, in the end I was thoroughly pleased with what it had to offer. The fact that this four door luxury sedan was priced under $100,000 was amazing to me. I have driven many other cars that are like this, and trust me, they were not under $100,000. I honestly did not know whether or not it would hold up against all of the other cars that were in the same class, but it did. It actually sped right past the competition going from 0 to 100 in about 5 seconds. That's fast. We're talking almost as fast as one of the Ferraris released a couple of years back-the fact that this car is almost as fast as a Ferrari is amazing.