Australia is to apologise to the Aborigines.
Of course in the UK there is nothing new about good old breast-beating atonement, self rapprochement for the failure of the potato crop on Craggy Island. But in Oz?

Look, is it reasonable to blame the advanced society that gave us the rotary clothes line, radios in cars and parts of Kylie for the actions of some pretty desperate chaps transported for being in the wrong part of Tolpuddle in 1834?
If anything the Australian government should be apologising for Neighbours, Dame Edna Everage and severe damage to English test cricket.
Currently the vexed question down under is how to communicate this new contrition. As I see it they have a couple of choices: a personal message delivered by Mick Dundee or a case of tinnies in the back of the pickup.
All of which sounds suspiciously like stereotyping. But it’s not as stereotypical as the Vauxhall VXR8.
Australia is a vast continent with a huge interior full of pretty much nothing. And so is the VXR8. There are more extras in the Great Victoria Desert. Camels have more switches.
Then again theVXR8 is about muscle not cosmetics, heavily hinted at by 19-inch wheels and a surfboard for a rear spoiler.
The R8 is a rebadged Holden Clubsport and sold as a Pontiac in the US. Which is why it shares the Corvette’s 6.0L LS2 V8 engine, developing a slightly bonkers 420bhp and 550Nm of torque, able to trot along to 62mph in 4.9 seconds for the standard six-speed manual and topping 170mph. There is an optional six-speed automatic box costing £1,400.
So it’s a world car but it is worlds apart from what we have come to expect from our supercars.
For a start there is the price, £36,000 with the semi sequential gearbox. That is so much less than a BMW M5 I am afraid to tell you. Well okay, it’s £23,000 less.
When you have only shelled out comparative peanuts for a V8 monster with seemingly endless power delivery through the gears, it is very hard to be annoyed if inside it is less exciting than Wednesday.

What you will get is electric bucket seats that really hold you in the bends, hands-free phone fittings, music and merriment, alarm and immobiliser.
Oh, sorry, the VXR8 now has four doors and new multi- link suspension.
All of which leaves plenty of room in a massive interior. It is not plush inside, plain dash and slightly better than Vectra plastics with analogue gauges for oil, oil temperature and amps where you might have expected to find them in a 1980 Capri. The 16 miles to the gallon might hurt, too and carbon emissions are a hefty 365/km.
The thing is absolutely none of that matters.The VXR8 is a growling extended finger to the Bishop of London’s low-cabon lent. This is sheer, perfectly balanced, post-apocolypse Mad Max getaway car. Angry as a snake in a kettle, it is, I’m sure, an Aussie jibe at pansey-bottomed pommes who can’t even regularly win a small vase of charred wood and didn’t have the new balls to carry on with the Lotus Carlton.
The ride is firm but far from unrefined and there is plenty of safety gear. However, a word of warning. Do not switch off the traction control. This is like believing cars work better without brakes.
Understandably a few days in the VXR8 can make a man come over all southern hemisphere. So a couple of what I think are splendid ideas to go with my new sweat-stained vest. The driver side door should be clearly labled ‘no bishops’. And secondly you need a suitable bumper sticker: I’m sorry but I never apologise will do it.

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