Little-known British sports car that rivals BMW M3 & described by Jeremy Clarkson as ‘truly wonderful’ is less than £12k

A LITTLE-KNOWN sports car released by Vauxhall some years ago can now be yours for just £12,000.

The powerful motor, which boasts a top speed of up to 170 mph, was once driven by Top Gear legend Jeremy Clarkson and wowed the often-hard-to-please motoring guru.

The car in question is the seldom seen Vauxhall Monaro, a powerful V8-engined beast that's said to rival the BMW M3.

The Vauxhall iteration of this motor is in fact a Holden - a well-known but now defunct Australian car brand owned by General Motors.

Indeed, the Holden Monaro is a common set of wheels in Oz, with three generations of the nameplate running in the 1960s and 1970s and then again in the early 2000s.

The Vauxhall version was built between 2001 and 2006, and are incredibly rare with few seen on UK roads.

In fact, according to the brilliant website, just 404 examples currently have an MOT in the UK.

The most powerful version was the Monaro V8 VXR - with came with a mind-boggling 6.0-litre motor capable of 400 bhp.

Clarkson got behind the wheel of one back in 2004 and was blown away by its power, saying: "The Monaro is a wonderful car.

"Too big, too brash, and too loud, for some, perhaps.

"I can't see too many outside Chipping Norton church on a Sunday, for instance.

"But if you have an electric blue Subaru now, or a banana yellow 911, and fancy something a bit different next time round, you shouldn't give a ---- for anything else."

In a review in EVO magazine in 2006, the motor's scacity and likeness to the M3 were the main takeaways from their long-term test.

They said: "Don't buy a Monaro if you want to join a club.

"Since our long-termer arrived ten months and almost 15,000 miles ago, I haven't seen another on the road.

"I've seen hundreds of BMW M3s, yet while the M3 is the closest rival for the Anglicised, V8-engined Holden coupe, it seems that few Monaro VXR buyers actually have to choose between the two.

"For most, the Monaro is an unusual, affordable and rare toy that joins a stable of interesting cars, and I've no doubt that at the core of its appeal are."

Occasionally, the Vauxhall Monaro does crop up at specialist car auctions and the like - with a 2006 example with 107,000 miles on the clock currently available to buy from for a rather reasonable £11,995.