New Zealand Holden Nationals
Discussion
I can't believe people in Oz ( and NZ) are still doing the fake build. right now here in Ireland there are so many people driving around in Audi's that are kitted up with badges and twin exhausts to resemble mostly S4's, even though they are driving diesels with no sporting pedigree at all. when we used to live in australia nothing annoyed me more than seeing a 4 door monaro GTS when the factory never produced them. All monaro's are two door and the four door is a Kingswood. for example see the red GTS in the middle of the picture pack. the rest are cool though. I hope if they bring the Torana back to life it has the same sort of attention put into it that the monaro saw.
Edited by gargoyle666 on Monday 9th April 09:17
gargoyle666 said:
I can't believe people in Oz ( and NZ) are still doing the fake build. right now here in Ireland there are so many people driving around in Audi's that are kitted up with badges and twin exhausts to resemble mostly S4's, even though they are driving diesels with no sporting pedigree at all. when we used to live in australia nothing annoyed me more than seeing a 4 door monaro GTS when the factory never produced them. All monaro's are two door and the four door is a Kingswood. for example see the red GTS in the middle of the picture pack. the rest are cool though. I hope if they bring the Torana back to life it has the same sort of attention put into it that the monaro saw.
Edited by gargoyle666 on Monday 9th April 09:17
mmm.....v-car can probably shed more light on it but here is some light reading!
www.holden.com.au/www-holden/jsp/chooseavehicle/popups/monarohistory/hq4door.jsp
Paragraph 3 looks interesting!
gargoyle666 said:
I can't believe people in Oz ( and NZ) are still doing the fake build. right now here in Ireland there are so many people driving around in Audi's that are kitted up with badges and twin exhausts to resemble mostly S4's, even though they are driving diesels with no sporting pedigree at all. when we used to live in australia nothing annoyed me more than seeing a 4 door monaro GTS when the factory never produced them. All monaro's are two door and the four door is a Kingswood. for example see the red GTS in the middle of the picture pack. the rest are cool though. I hope if they bring the Torana back to life it has the same sort of attention put into it that the monaro saw.
Edited by gargoyle666 on Monday 9th April 09:17
Sorry mate, but there is not much funnier than someone being so indignant when they are totally wrong!
There WERE 4 door Monaros, in the HQ-HJ-HX-HZ series in the 70's.
In fact the only HZ Monaro was 4 door, they didn't make any coupes.
motomk said:
gargoyle666 said:
I can't believe people in Oz ( and NZ) are still doing the fake build. right now here in Ireland there are so many people driving around in Audi's that are kitted up with badges and twin exhausts to resemble mostly S4's, even though they are driving diesels with no sporting pedigree at all. when we used to live in australia nothing annoyed me more than seeing a 4 door monaro GTS when the factory never produced them. All monaro's are two door and the four door is a Kingswood. for example see the red GTS in the middle of the picture pack. the rest are cool though. I hope if they bring the Torana back to life it has the same sort of attention put into it that the monaro saw.
Edited by gargoyle666 on Monday 9th April 09:17
mmm.....v-car can probably shed more light on it but here is some light reading!
www.holden.com.au/www-holden/jsp/chooseavehicle/popups/monarohistory/hq4door.jsp
Paragraph 3 looks interesting!
my apologies, that is a new one on me. having lived out there for 10 years in the 80's I thought I knew my cars but I guess not. I had a good few friends into cars and we all thought the two door was it. I'd love to know how many were made as four door as prevailing opinion at the time was they were replicas. the two door was rare enough at the time but you saw no end of four door versions, I see now that some were real.
I'll have to read up a bit more on them.
madazrx7 said:
gargoyle666 said:
I can't believe people in Oz ( and NZ) are still doing the fake build. right now here in Ireland there are so many people driving around in Audi's that are kitted up with badges and twin exhausts to resemble mostly S4's, even though they are driving diesels with no sporting pedigree at all. when we used to live in australia nothing annoyed me more than seeing a 4 door monaro GTS when the factory never produced them. All monaro's are two door and the four door is a Kingswood. for example see the red GTS in the middle of the picture pack. the rest are cool though. I hope if they bring the Torana back to life it has the same sort of attention put into it that the monaro saw.
Edited by gargoyle666 on Monday 9th April 09:17
Sorry mate, but there is not much funnier than someone being so indignant when they are totally wrong!
There WERE 4 door Monaros, in the HQ-HJ-HX-HZ series in the 70's.
In fact the only HZ Monaro was 4 door, they didn't make any coupes.
Again I see now I was wrong but I still feel I am right in thinking that most you saw on the road weren't real ones as top spec cars don't sell in the sort of numbers that would cause them to be seen everyday on the road. Comparable cars from ford (GTHO Falcon) and Chrysler (E45 Charger) were few and far between and usually only seen at car shows and almost never on the road, whereas everyone seemed to have a four door monaro.
gargoyle666 said:
Again I see now I was wrong but I still feel I am right in thinking that most you saw on the road weren't real ones as top spec cars don't sell in the sort of numbers that would cause them to be seen everyday on the road. Comparable cars from ford (GTHO Falcon) and Chrysler (E45 Charger) were few and far between and usually only seen at car shows and almost never on the road, whereas everyone seemed to have a four door monaro.
But there was nothing special about those Monaros, and they did make thousands of them. They were mechanically identical to the equivalent V8 Kingswood/Premier. Differences were badges, colours and probably "bucket seats"(!) and "sports instruments" (ie Tacho & oil pressure). The Monaro of the 70s was a family car which you cannot compare to the HO Falcon or Bathurst Charger. The performance Holden (at that time) was the V8 Torana.
Edited by madazrx7 on Monday 9th April 15:09
madazrx7 said:
gargoyle666 said:
Again I see now I was wrong but I still feel I am right in thinking that most you saw on the road weren't real ones as top spec cars don't sell in the sort of numbers that would cause them to be seen everyday on the road. Comparable cars from ford (GTHO Falcon) and Chrysler (E45 Charger) were few and far between and usually only seen at car shows and almost never on the road, whereas everyone seemed to have a four door monaro.
But there was nothing special about those Monaros, and they did make thousands of them. They were mechanically identical to the equivalent V8 Kingswood/Premier. Differences were badges, colours and probably "bucket seats"(!) and "sports instruments" (ie Tacho & oil pressure). The Monaro of the 70s was a family car which you cannot compare to the HO Falcon or Bathurst Charger. The performance Holden (at that time) was the V8 Torana.
Edited by madazrx7 on Monday 9th April 15:09
I see, so more a cosmetic job than an actual performance variant kind of like buying an Sline Audi or Msport BMW a little bit more show but no extra go. when I was there the 60s cars from ford and holden were the cars to have and the Torana only had a cult following at the time but funnily enough it was very popular with mechanics and now years later I can understand why.
gargoyle666 said:
motomk said:
gargoyle666 said:
I can't believe people in Oz ( and NZ) are still doing the fake build. right now here in Ireland there are so many people driving around in Audi's that are kitted up with badges and twin exhausts to resemble mostly S4's, even though they are driving diesels with no sporting pedigree at all. when we used to live in australia nothing annoyed me more than seeing a 4 door monaro GTS when the factory never produced them. All monaro's are two door and the four door is a Kingswood. for example see the red GTS in the middle of the picture pack. the rest are cool though. I hope if they bring the Torana back to life it has the same sort of attention put into it that the monaro saw.
Edited by gargoyle666 on Monday 9th April 09:17
mmm.....v-car can probably shed more light on it but here is some light reading!
www.holden.com.au/www-holden/jsp/chooseavehicle/popups/monarohistory/hq4door.jsp
Paragraph 3 looks interesting!
my apologies, that is a new one on me. having lived out there for 10 years in the 80's I thought I knew my cars but I guess not. I had a good few friends into cars and we all thought the two door was it. I'd love to know how many were made as four door as prevailing opinion at the time was they were replicas. the two door was rare enough at the time but you saw no end of four door versions, I see now that some were real.
I'll have to read up a bit more on them.
Hey gargoyle666, No damage done! I don't know a lot about them either but having read AMC magazine down here, I am starting to pick up on the older cars!
V-car knows more than me about them, the post 1990 cars I am sort of up to speed on!
Incidentally Duncan, nice pics, apologies about not being able to meet you on your brief stop in Melbourne. Work caught up with me.
Back again there now at 4am! but I love it!
What did you think about the Calais-V ?
motomk
gargoyle666 said:
Chrysler (E45 Charger)
E45?
Havent heard of those...maybe you are thinking of the E38 (3speed), E49 (4speed) or their more steetable E37 and E48 versions?
For those of you over there who dont know these cars, they were quite special at the time with specially developed triple Weber equipped (Hemi) 265ci 6cyl engines.
Complete cars were sent to Italy where Weber engineers spent many hours in the dyno room (and on the roads around Bologna)tuning these beasts, and they were arguably as quick as the 350 Monaros and 351 GTHO Falcons at the time.
Personally, one of my favourites at the time though was the E55 with the 340 engine.
Pity the so called horsepower scare of the early 70's put a stop to Chrysler running the race version of the E55 at Bathurst as they were well down the track developing that baby. Nice engine the 340.
But others are correct in saying that the 4 door GTS' were nothing special, just a decal and trim special of the Kingswood with base 253/308, some had the 350, as was HQ 4 door SS.
The Monaro, Falcon and Charger Bathurst cars were a whole different ball game though and rare even when new.
Apparently, only 149 E49 R/T's were built.
V-Car said:
gargoyle666 said:
Chrysler (E45 Charger)
E45?
Havent heard of those...maybe you are thinking of the E38 (3speed), E49 (4speed) or their more steetable E37 and E48 versions?
For those of you over there who dont know these cars, they were quite special at the time with specially developed triple Weber equipped (Hemi) 265ci 6cyl engines.
Complete cars were sent to Italy where Weber engineers spent many hours in the dyno room (and on the roads around Bologna)tuning these beasts, and they were arguably as quick as the 350 Monaros and 351 GTHO Falcons at the time.
Personally, one of my favourites at the time though was the E55 with the 340 engine.
Pity the so called horsepower scare of the early 70's put a stop to Chrysler running the race version of the E55 at Bathurst as they were well down the track developing that baby. Nice engine the 340.
But others are correct in saying that the 4 door GTS' were nothing special, just a decal and trim special of the Kingswood with base 253/308, some had the 350, as was HQ 4 door SS.
The Monaro, Falcon and Charger Bathurst cars were a whole different ball game though and rare even when new.
Apparently, only 149 E49 R/T's were built.
when I was posting I thought E45 didn't sound right, it was the E49 I was thinking of. they were my dream cars at the time and I had two great chryslers, one a 245 hemi valiant and the other a chrysler by chrysler uber sedan with the 360c.i.
I had a spare 340 motor rebuilt for performance that was meant to go into a two door valiant ( U.S dart lookalike) but never got the chance and had to sell both on before we left australia.
I worked at a mitsubishi dealer in Melbourne for a couple of years and managed to clean out head office in Adelaide of all the remaining stock of original R/T stickers and decals knowing that someday they will be worth something to someone. If I remember right there was one onlyE49 R/T made as a either a Ute or a station wagon. if it still exists it must be a worth a fortune.
Honestly I would have taken the E49 over the E55 simply as at the time it was the only performance engine in the chrysler kingdom still known as a hemi ( the real Hemi was god to us at the time and still is)
I really have to go and hunt out the history as this thread has sparked my interest in it again.
gargoyle666 said:
...I had a spare 340 motor rebuilt for performance that was meant to go into a two door valiant ( U.S dart lookalike) but never got the chance and had to sell both on before we left australia.
...
...
One of my first driving experiences was in a 265 Hemi Valiant Pacer. Drove from Perth with some fellow amateur astronomers for a solar eclipse when I was 16. Did some of the driving (across the Nullarbor), made a 3 week trip of it visiting Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Phillip Island (no racing there at that time) & Adelaide.
Will see if I can find a pic to scan...
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