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The November 2002 edition of Wheels magazine with the mighty 427C gracing it’s cover.

A 420kW Monaro/Supercar with crosshairs on Le Mans aimed to give Porsche’s 911 GT2, “perhaps the best all-round road racer on the market,” a real challenge!

That was Holden’s bold statement with the launch of the Holden Monaro 427C!

The two door race weapon was created initially as a concept car for the Sydney Motor Show and covered comprehensively in Wheels magazine’s November 2002 issue, with $400,000 invested into the one off special hoping to generate enough interest to turn it into a viable $220,000 road ready beast.

At the heart of the monster was a 7.0 litre V8 based on the Le Mans winning Chevrolet Corvette C5-R race car, “the biggest, strongest and most powerful of all Chev Gen III’s, displacing 427 cubic inches and reckoned to produce around 420kw at 6000rpm.” That’s some power, particularly for 2002!

The article covers all major components of the build, and has numerous breakout stories including how Holden and HSV combined forces on the project, a comparison - on paper - against the GT2, and a full spec sheet.

The ambitious project never reached full production “due to the high cost specifications, the business case for full production failed since Holden could not built the 427 in such limited quantities for the original asking…” (Wikipedia)

Garry Rogers Motorsport did however build a racing version of the Holden Monaro 427C which took to the track in the Australian Nations Cup Championship, the forerunner to the Australian GT Championsip.

If you want to see all the details of this special car, The Motor Page has one copy of the issue available for sale online here now.