GM’s rear-drive LS-powered sedans are an awesome way to go if you have an LS jones, but need a car with more than the two doors of a Camaro, Corvette or ’04-’06 Pontiac GTO.

The second-gen Caddy CTS-Vs and the currently (but not much longer) produced Chevy SS are part of the landscape we’re talking about here and they are the bomb to be sure.

But what if the scratch you have to lay out to get into one of these big-and-fast sport-sedans is bit too dear for your pocketbook? For about half the money, we have two solutions and have now been joyously living with one of them for the better part of a year.

Our car is a standard G8 GT without the sport package. The only real difference are its 18-inch wheels (with 245/45ZR18 tires) rather than the more Cuisinart-looking 19-inch ones on the sport-package-equipped cars. We actually like the base wheels better.

Figure about 30 to 35 grand for a good second-gen V, or a similar range for a well-cared-for ’14 or ’15 SS (as well as the one-year-only LS3-powered ’09 Pontiac G8 GXP).

Now, cut those figures roughly in half for a clean ’04-’07 first-gen V or an ’08-’09 G8 GT. With these, you have the best values of all the LS-powered four-doors that went into production beginning with those ’04-05 LS6- and ’06-’07 LS2- powered CTS-Vs.

All the ’04-’07 Vs were equipped with a T56 six-speed, so they are the way to go if you must have a manual transmission. If you are good with an automatic, though, then the G8 GTs are the ideal choice and that is what we’ve had since the first ’08 G8 GT we bought last year.

Upon selling it and seriously shopping for a second-gen V, we ultimately realized those were a little too much dough for our modest means, so we decided to “settle” for another G8. And after four months of owning the Liquid Red one you see here, we don’t feel like we’ve settled at all.

Yes, CTS-V wagons are super tasty. But they’re also still expensive. Their low production numbers mean they’re already a collectible. If you can find one for 40 grand, it’s a screamin’ deal. But our red G8 for much less than 20 bills also fits in that coveted screamin’ deal category and for that we are grateful.

In fact, for the $16k we have in the 73,000-mile car at the time of purchase, we feel that for basically half the money of the V and SS, we have much more than half the car of those others.

To summarize the specs on the short-lived G8, we’ll note that it was made in Australia and known Down Under as a Holden Commodore. The G8 was basically built on the same platform as the fifth-gen Camaro and has all the good underpinnings of that car. They are also equipped with a very respectable version of the LS2 known as the L76. This 6.0-liter LS has the good LS3/L92 square-port cylinder heads and LS3-style intake. Rated at 361 (’08) or 355 (’09) horsepower, all G8 GTs are fitted with a 6L80E six-speed automatic.

The only major difference in the L76 is that it’s equipped with Active Fuel Management (AFM) that can be easily turned off by moving the transmission shifter over to the Sport or Manual mode. We also have a SuperChips tuning device on our car that also easily allows shutting off AFM. Our G8 is fitted with a Solo axle-back exhaust system and a Roto Fab cold-air intake (CAI) setup.

The G8’s 6.0 L76 is a great LS derivative in its own right. And with the 15 or 20 grand you save over an SS or a V, you can easily have it matching the output an LS3 or LSA, if not beyond. Like way beyond.

So how do we like the car after 5,000 miles driving that includes shuttling real-estate clients around and a day-two-after-purchase road-trip from our Murietta, California office tower to the San Francisco Bay Area? In short, we love it! It runs and drives like a brand new car. On the famed 66-mile Angeles Crest Highway, it handles as good as about anything out there, as we bird-dogged a Subaru WRX STI all the way down the hill and that car didn’t even begin to shake us even with its easy 600-800-pound weight disadvantage. In fact, for a 4,000-pound car, the G8 handles like a go-kart, easily taking ACH’s turns at double the marked speed.

So there you have it. If you have the bucks for a second-gen V and its supercharged LSA, or an LS3-powered SS, then go for the gold. But if you need to come in under the $20,000 mark, shop for an under 100k-mile ’08-’09 G8 GT. You absolutely cannot go wrong. We sure didn’t.

For more info on LS-powered four door sedans check out the feature we did on them here.