This rare, championship-winning Vauxhall Carlton ‘TS6000’ is up for grabs at £180k

In the past, Vauxhall’s brief for its hottest cars was simple: lots of power and lots of personality. It was peak Britain, particularly during the early Nineties, where we saw the emergence of the MkII Carlton-based ‘TS6000’ you see above.

It’s the saloon from hell; a true one-off which dominated the 1988 Thundersaloon Championship thanks to its fuel-injected small-block Chevy V8. Fill it with race fuel and Old Coyote will crank 572bhp/480lb ft to the rear wheels through a five-speed manual. Don’t under any circumstances forget those spare pants.

Its 1,150kg weight - thanks to a steel monocoque chassis and Kevlar body panels - means a power-to-weight ratio of 495bhp/tonne, which also blows pretty much every modern super saloon out of the water. A 0-62mph time of 4.3s isn’t lagging far behind either, while the Goodyear Eagle rubber should keep it within touching distance during the twisty bits.

And would you look at those gold BBS alloys? They only heighten the other aggressive touchpoints, like the headlight covers, centrally-mounted exhaust and that brutal rear wing. The Mobil livery doesn’t half do a good job of stitching it all together either.

Interested? Of course you are. Here’s the link to the real thing, which could be yours for under the listed £180,000 price if your sweet talk is good enough. For perspective, that’s the price of four new Astra Sport Tourer GSEs. We know which we’d rather have.