Classic Cars

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Sep 6, 2009
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What a legend in Australian motoring

1972-chrysler-vh-charger-e49-rt-bathurst-coupe.jpg
 

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The 1973 LJ Torana came in a colour called PurrPull o_O

They gave the colours great names. I remember the Pacer had a colour called Little Hood Riding Red.
 

Port81

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First car was an LJ too, remember looking through the trading post 15 years ago and there would be dozens on there for under 2k, good luck finding one under 8k these days, if only i knew.
 

xflamedancer

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I learnt to drive in an FB Holden, 138 grey, three on the tree, Armstrong power steering and a 2/35 air conditioner ;). It also had a flattened out powdered milk tin pop riveted and siliconed to the passenger floor to cover up the big rust hole. What a great car though, I still managed to get it to 85 MPH on the South East freeway one night doing a burger run to Murray Bridge. Good times :cool:
 

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Sep 6, 2009
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I learnt to drive in an FB Holden, 138 grey, three on the tree, Armstrong power steering and a 2/35 air conditioner ;). It also had a flattened out powdered milk tin pop riveted and siliconed to the passenger floor to cover up the big rust hole. What a great car though, I still managed to get it to 85 MPH on the South East freeway one night doing a burger run to Murray Bridge. Good times :cool:

Ah..the all night Ampol servo
A 44 gallon drum halved lengthwise could be remanufactured into FB, FC,FE and EK floot tubs
 
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We had a cracking thread on this on TPFP, it's rolling again ...

Mick, 54, here is the bit you may like to see



Hi werner, your post reminded me of a discussion we had on the general topic mega-thread. Thought it would fit nicely here.

wharfie_1870 I_Dont_Care Phhht might be interested to continue the discussion.
 
Mar 1, 2014
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I didn't know this thread existed, but there was a similar thread on the old site that (I think ) Power Pete put up.

My 1971 GTR Torana which had a bit of grunt ( it was tricked up a tad ), because it pays to have an uncle who is a car fanatic and could find gold, like triple 1.75 inch SU's and a yella terra head in a barn at bordertown, all for the princely sum of 25 oxfords ( fitting and tuning came free courtesy of said uncle ), but I did have to drive to Melbourne to get the job done.
Now my good mate Gregory of `I don't f****** care' fame ,will prob say a yellow terra head wouldn't fit a holden 161 block, but this one did, so there, old son.

It was Lima mint green with the same colour scheme to the seats, f*****g awful (if you had one too many sherberts ) when viewed the morning after, but it could give my mates Dolly yellow genuine XU1 a fair seeing to.

The same uncle found an early 60's Studebaker Golden Hawk being used as a chicken coop on a farm at Bordertown in about 1971, paid $100 for it, put a battery in it, some fresh liquid gold and drove it to Melbourne ( where he lived ), no doubt with the windows down all the way.
He kept working on it until all semblance of it's chicken coop life style had disappeared, and the only change he made to the exterior was to spray the roof ( the chooks had scratched the crapola out of it, but hadn't damaged the bonnet or boot ) in a black rubber compound to simulate a vinyl roof, sounds shizenhausen, but it was the early 70's and that was a popular upgrade ( in Melbourne ) at the time.

Lovely car to look at, but with a 2 speed auto, a fairly small V8 and brakes that belonged on a shopping trolley, it was no speed machine, but he sold it for a fairly decent profit after driving it around for 4 or 5 years, including at least a couple of return trips to Adelberg. .

There is a similar car on a recent ABC show, with Guy ( the Priscilla of the desert ) actor, but I think it's a year or two earlier, so it's a Hawk, not a Golden Hawk.

Anyway, I digress ,there is a genuine 1970's XU1 ( one owner with gnat's mileage on it ) about 5 mins drive from where I am typing now.
It is on blocks, hasn't been registered since the early to mid 80's, because the bloke was an air traffic controller who worked all over the country and was hardly ever home, is started on very few occasions, the owner was waiting for a son to be born, but I suspect after 3 daughters he is now waiting for a grandson.

He had a gf ( I don't know if it is his now wife ) who had a mid 60's Prince Skyline GTA.
I believe the Prince had the overhead cam 6, which Nissan/Datsun developed for the Z car range when they took over the Prince factory, a very collectable car I believe, but not as collectable as the GTB.
 

Port81

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Every now and then when i go to the shopping center i see this little old lady driving a gold 4 door LJ, excellent condition, all original...so one day i pulled up as she was about to leave and asked if she would ever sell it, she said she wouldnt know how to drive one of these modern cars and that she was happy with her old reliable... i would have dropped 5k then and there for it, im assuming she's been told by a son/grandson to leave the keys as part of the inheritance and id say that she probably gets approached almost every day she takes it out by some young fella looking to take it off her hands.
 

LukeSA

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Jun 14, 2014
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Doesnt get much better than an LC/LJ Torana

My brother had an LJ Torana, i was quite young at the time so my memory of it is not that flash but what i do remember was getting burns from the seatbelts on a summer day, it seeming to need a new diff every fortnight and flying through the countryside in it.

Back when my brother was still on his L's, dad toom him on a driving lesson with me and my sister and coming down the hill at Maslins Beach, it's the intersection where Commercial road goes onto Old Coach road, one road goes to the beach and the other to McLaren Vale, at the bottom of the hill on Old Coach Road side coming to Moana was a drainage ditch and my brother going down it a bit faster than he should have been, hit the ditch. I don't know if the car got airborn i know me and my sister did in the back and landed with a thud. Good times.

He traded it in for some ford which i accidentally totalled some years later. :oops:
 
Mar 1, 2014
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The 1973 LJ Torana came in a colour called PurrPull o_O

The 1970's threw up ( no pun intended ) some sensational names for paint colours, I couldn't quite raise the funds for an HQ 253 V8, the special model SS? ( I don't care will know the model I'm referring to ) and unless my memory is failing me (again) , it came in one colour, and that was Lettuce Alone.

As it turned out I was better off sticking with my tricked up GTR, it made a fair effort at getting around corners, while the HQ I drove went fairly well in a straight line, but it handled like a barge, or as a West Indian cricketer would say, `A Full Bus Marn.'

Lima mint green and Dolly yellow were par for the course, and I reckon there was a pukeworthy orange/red concoction called Lone O' Ranger in the Holden range, and they even had a crack at giving a fancy name to white.

My old man bought a Datsun 1600 in 1968, ( but being the impatient bloke he is ) he wouldn't wait for a usual shipment to arrive ( 3 or 4 weeks ), so he bought the only one they had left at Bennett Datsun on Goodwood road, it was baby sh*t brown, a few had been imported on spec ( he was told ) as potential S.A, government vehicles, but had been left on the shelf, so to speak.

My mother wasn't impressed to say the least, she said every time she parked at the shops on South rd or Marion rd, housing trust tenants would run out and offer her their rent.

It wasn't a bad car around the suburbs, but the seats were about an inch thick, and when I took my 70 year old grandfather to Melbourne we both had plenty of sore spots when we got there despite frequent stops for the old bloke, the carpets didn't fit properly, and as for the hyped up performance ( 90 plus mph the brochure said ), I had to rev it's lungs off to get to about 75 mph, and that was downhill with a tail wind.

Out of tune will say the experts - yeah right, my uncle could tune a lawn mower to go harder, but he couldn't do anything with that Datsun.

Edit - I should have read more of the first page, I don't care has already mentioned the Lettuce Alone HQ.
 
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