Welcome to the Holden section of the Australian Muscle Machines website where you will find information all of Holden's muscle cars including the Monaro GTS, Torana GTR, SLR 5000 and A9X as well as the Holden HDT Commodore.
As Holden discovered the options game, the HK in standard form was a crude, nasty old nail with strip speedo, drums all round and a tendency to jam its three-speed, non-synchro column shift. But the new Monaro GTS 327, with mechanicals courtesy of its Chevrolet relative in the USA, changed all that.
The first Falcon XR GT spat in the eye of the sleeping giant. Holden woke up grumpy and apart from the Ford Falcon Phase III GTHO, Ford has not been able to catch Holden sleeping again.
Nothing prepared Holden fans for the arrival of this mean son of a bitch, certainly not after the jelly belly HR. The GTS had one big advantage over its US pony car counterparts - it felt tough and was tough. The big Chevy engine came with a 25 gallon fuel tank(114 litres), a fake wood steering wheel that could slice your fingers off and a dumb tacho on the centre console. Taking your eyes off the road to check the revs while the 327 hauled ass and the stiff suspension skipped over the minor road blemishes was not recommended. Steering was effectively the quicker power steering ratio without the power assistance. The monster Saginaw four-speed manual fed a 10-Bolt Salisbury limited slip rear axle which had radius rods to tie it down. Go faster stripes and full width tail light effects were a sensation in 1968 except the red in the tail light garnish faded almost overnight.
Holden HK Monaro GTS
A drive in a HK GTS 327, after stepping out of an early Holden, was like being launched to the moon. Even if the engine was raucous, the gearbox growled and the HK's nasty interior was out of place, this sleek coupe unleashed fire and thunder. Many claim that the 327 was sweeter than the later 350. It was the first factory Holden that made hotted-up early streeters irrelevant and it dumped a great load on the Falcon GT in its first outing at Bathurst taking a 1-2-3-4 finish with Bruce McPhee and Barry Mulholland at the wheel of the winning car.
If the HK Monaro GTS 327 made y9our head spin, the GTS 350 brought you to your knees. After a 20 year Holden performance drought, another sensational machine appeared only one year after the 327!
Holden did a better job on the HT series than it first appeared. Even the basic Belmont was transformed with subtle but important chassis changes, bigger tail lights, less 'Coke-bottle' in the styling, round dials and more elaborate plastic grille. Translate these improvements to the Monaro and it remains one of the best regarded Holden's of all time.
It was considered to be a more refined, more capable long distance tourer than its more brutish Falcon GT rival and even today it's a surprisingly sweet drive. The jury is out on whether the later, cleaner looking and much rarer HG facelift was more desirable but it was the HT with 350ci Chev power that gave Holden its second Bathurst in a row, this time with Colin Bond and Tony Roberts at the wheel. Peter Brock also made his Bathurst debut with HDT in a HT GTS 350 in 1969 and was rewarded with third outright.
Liner up against the first of the Falcon GTHO racers, the GTS 350 manual version was no less a Bathurst racing special than the HO with 10.25:1 compression and 300bhp(225kW). It also came the the 327's rear radius rods, bigger fuel tank and stiffer suspension and the HT series refinements seemed to present the old Saginaw gearbox in a better light. The HT also looked more outrageous. Huge centre stripes, bonnet slots, decent instruments and body blackouts along with the 350's giveaway quad tail pipes were a big enough statement before you even cranked up the Chev mill.
Holden HT Monaro GTS at Coleambally 2004 - Owner Chris McCann
Holden HT Monaro drag car
Holden HG Monaro GTS original General Motors Holden Ad
By September 1970, the writing was on the wall for the Monaro after Colin Bond humbled the top series Monaro's with the new and unsorted Torana GTR XU-1. While the first LC XU-1 was good enough for a class win and third outright in its first Bathurst showing in 1970, mountain victory eluded the GTR XU-1 until the LJ series arrived. But the first LC XU-1 based on the 186 powered GTR was in many ways the sweeter car.
The Torana started life as a miserable Vauxhall Viva and the LC Torana GTR with its 161 and 186S mods was a big enough shock. Then Holden unleashed the XU-1 version with not only the 186 but hung triple Stromberg 150CD carbies and twin exhaust headers onto it for a power boost to 160bhp (120kW).
A big 17 gallon tank (76.5 litres) Monaro brakes, front air dam, rear spoiler, special colours and black steel wheels gave it extra street cred over the GTR. It rode like a buckboard and the flat seats trampolined occupants into the roof, but it was good fun.
Niggles with this early version meant that another much improved LC GTR-XU1 arrived in time for Bathurst 1971 with a power boost to 180bhp (135Kw). It boasted a wilder cam profile, advanced ignition timing, new carby needles, slight head mods including inlet valves that had their seal grooves removed, detail changes to the sump and oil pick-up and the new Aussie gearbox instead of the Opel box from the HR days.
Colin Bond then beat the Chargers in Class D, which was not enough to upset a horde of Phase III Ho's for outright dominance at Bathurst. But the Xu-1 was ripe to dominate rallying, and no other car has since dominated both Australian circuit racing and rallying like the Torana XU-1 did.
Even though Holden never officially acknowledged the existence of a final special build of the LJ Torana GTR-XU1, GM-H's 'Flash Bulletin' of the 23rd August 1973 circulated to dealers tells no lies. Few are aware of how much these changes transformed the GTR-XU-1 but after owning two of the 150 that were built, I can assure you that the improvement was radical.
The LJ Torana GTR XU-1 , complete with the hasty 1972 Bathurst upgrades after the 'Supercar Scare' killed off the V8 version, gave Peter Brock his first Bathurst win. For 1973, new Group C touring car regulations were introduced, allowing more extensive modifications to production cars for the track.
The first LJ Xu-1 with the 202 was a rough old dog and had a bad habit of ventilating its block with conrods and chopping cam lobes. The final 1973 Bathurst Xu-1 was released randomly to the public as a standard Xu-1, with key mods to make the most of the new racing freedoms in carburettors, cams and exhaust.
They were assigned random JP numbers between JP386593 and JP404176 so not all JP numbers are Bathurst cars. The special XU-1 came with a unique 202 block with extra ribbing around the rear main and cut-outs for the larger valves. There were forged steel conrods and pistons, larger big end bearings, a sump with bulges to clear them and a high pressure oil pump relief spring to make sure that it was well-fed.
Pushrods were shorter, the head had oversized inlet valves and there was a lumpier cam. The harmonic balancer had a bolt-on plate which required a special fan with cut-outs to clear the bolts. The flywheel lost three kilos, a fabricated extractor system services each exhaust port, wiring was wrapped in heatproof sheathing and the heater hoses were bolted to the front carburettor.
For the road versions, there were three Stromberg 175CD side draughts while the Bathurst cars ran triple Weber dual throats, each with one throat blanked off. Front wheel spacers, larger brakes and a fine splined rear axle addressed earlier problems, but the big change not documented was the extra box section underneath each front guard to control body twist and prevent the dreadful driveline vibration that could destroy even the best prepared XU-1 racer.
These last cars were so smooth and powerful, even in basic road tune, the could pull 7000rpm in top or close enough to 140mph (220 km/h). At this speed the cars aerodynamics caused the door frames to bow out of the body with the ventilation system howling in protest, the cars headlining would be sucked from the roof smothering the driver in black vinyl. When it happened the first time you thought you'd just died.
Peter Brock and Doug Chivas had to be content with a second outright at Bathurst in 1973 after their car ran out of fuel but the XU-1 was a convincing winner in the Manufacturer's Championship that year. It was also Holden's last six cylinder Bathurst racer but it was the XU-1 spirit that lived on in the six cylinder factory VB Commodores which blitzed the 1979 Repco Round Australia Trial
1974 LH Torana SL/R 5000
At the risk of upsetting Torana V8 fans, the first V8 Torana was a crap box.
I remember cruising into a Holden dealer ready to trade the XU-1 up to a new SL/R 5000, then driving away wondering how the could stuff up the SL/R 5000 after getting the final GTR XU-1 so damn good.
It now turns out that the old guard at GM-H was so entrenched that any young engineer who dared question the plough-on understeer, excessive weight, reluctant steering and wheezy V8 of the LH Torana would find himself sidelined or pushed out. The brief was to create the wonder days of the old EH and they did - warts and all.
On paper, the SL/R 5000 looked like it had the goods. The Aussie 308ci V8 from the HQ Monaro GTS should have been a strip blaster but the 15.9 second standing quarters and the 0-160Km/h in 24.1 seconds (Sports Car World May 1974) were much slower than the low 14 second standing quarters and the sub 20 second blasts to 160Km/h that the Bathurst XU-1 was capable of any day of the week.
The 308's claimed 179kW (240bhp) seemed to get lost in the single tail pipe and restrictive air cleaner and the ratios of the Aussie four speed gearbox were better suited to a ute when third gear ran out at 137km/h and you had to hit fourth before the end of the quarter mile. Neither the rear axle and rear drums were heavy duty enough, the fuel tank was pathetically small at 55 litres and the 13 inch wheels with plastic hubcaps were a joke.
Not surprisingly, this parts-bin special made Bathurst 1974 as bad or worse for HDT as 1997 was for HRT as a whole new plague of problems surfaced but it demonstrated the huge potential of the V8 Torana's. John Goss and Kevin Bartlett took first place in a Falcon GT but the Forbes and Negus SL/R 5000 was never too far behind and finished second.
The boxy four door body never looked as sleek as the semi-coupe LJ style and your feet had to operate the dip switch and parking brake as well as the usual controls, antiquated even by 1974 standards. But the body was strong, suspension exceptional over all surfaces, the front buckets were good, instruments clear, the shape has never really dated and it didn't take long for the boys to unleash it's true performance potential.
In the aftermath of the 1972 Supercar scare, it seemed that Holden was hiding the big heart of the V8 Torana until it was safe to let the Lion roar again. And that exactly what happened. The SL/R 5000 was to foster two special version that would become the most successful all Australian road an track cars ever built.
1975 LH Torana SL/R 5000 L34
When contemporary road tests rated the L34 as even slower than the SL/R 5000, my XU-1 stayed even longer. The SL/R 5000 was in trouble on the track as the extra weight broke axles, put extra strain on the Aussie four speed box, fried the rear drum brakes and the engine died from oil starvation or detonation.
The L34 competition upgrade was a quick fix, but not a complete one. With only three Falcon entries versus 14 Toranas, the sheer weight of numbers ensured that the Peter Brook/Brian Sampson L34 crossed the line first at Bathurst in 1975. A year later, the Morris/Fitzpatrick L34 was to repeat the performance for much the same reasons, after Allan Moffat retired his lone Falcon when more than a lap in front.
There were two L34 models - the high output option the rarer and more valuable of the two but I'll get to that later. First, the L34 cosmetics. The rubber bumper strips were turfed along with the boot mat and centre console. Circular headlights replaced the rectangular lights of other LH Toranas and basic HQ steel sports wheels added and extra inch diameter. The rear wheels arches were crudely cut away on the production line to make room for racing rubber behind the bolt-on extensions.
Like the last Bathurst XU-1, the engine block was unique to the L34 with extra ribbing around the rear main, the flywheel was lighter and a bolt-on plate was added to the harmonic balancer. Repco's formula 5000 V8 experience was the starting point. There were special pistons, rods and crankshaft and a boost in compression ratio. Oil pump mods, new sump baffles and a big radiator tried to keep it all together. Dave Bennett from Perfectune produced the L34's big valve heads while Holden added needle roller inserts to the standard rocker arms to allow Crane items to go on the race cars.
The standard inlet manifold was honed out, manual choke added, high volume fuel lines and fuel pump were fitted ready for a racing Holley or Webbers but the road cars came with the standard Quadrajet. The L34's Formula 5000-type ignition system had twin coils, twin rotor buttons and points while the short pipe exhaust system ended just past the engine ready for a dump system on the race cars, because all of the was out of wack with the standard cam, carb and exhaust system it is no surprise that the L34 road car appeared to lose power over the SL/R 5000.
The High Output version was something else. A Holley 780, Crane roller rockers, solid lifters, wild cam, oil cooler and other internal mods turned the L34 into the fire breather it was meant to be. Power output was estimated at around 268kW or 360bhp but not before you added a decent exhaust system. With this much to play with, you also needed to upgrade the suspension and tyres.
The previous information is from an article from Joe Kenwright for Street Machine years ago!
Holden HQ Monaro GTS advert
1976 Holden HX Monaro GTS
Holden Monaro's HK GTS ,HT,HG GTS x2 Left to right