I tend to agree with you on some fronts. Sure a 60's Holden may not have been as refined as some of the imported stuff, but the Holden was designed to operate on Australian roads at the time. Most other stuff fell apart, even the earlier Falcons until Ford Australia fixed subsequent designs. Any proper Holden (pre HQ) could easily live on the harsh Australian Roads of the 50's and 60's.

The earlier Toyota Crowns were built here, and were pretty robust cars. They had a full chassis and a competent straight 6cyl. Some even had GMH banjos in them! I do remember when it was time for my Parent's to replace the HQ wagon around 1981, we looked at VH Commodores and even XE Falcons. But nothing came close in Quality and driveability, fuel consumption etc. in the same approx. price bracket to a Japanese assembled Toyota Cressida. It was streets ahead of a VH SL/E with blue 6cyl and trimatic! Sure there was a 4.2L and 5.0L available but not wanted, and I doubt the blue 4.2 with trimatic, 2.78 diff and single exhaust would even have kept up with the OHC fuel injected 2.8L Cressida.

Those Datsun 240Z/260Z were good cars, if I remember correctly they were actually a Prince build, not Datsun/Nissan. Nissan kept the Prince factory after it purchased it, and built Skylines etc. out of that plant. The twin carb 240Z and 260Z would easily outrun any standard 6cyl Torana bar an XU1.

I agree with you, why would you buy a 6cyl Holden when you could have a V8 one, makes no sense. But the volume selling Holden until VE era was always the 6cyl so not everyone agreed. Since basically XE I always told people, if you want a 6cyl buy a Falcon. If you want a V8 buy a Holden.

I had a discussion with Chris Young (ex Young and Green Newcastle, one of the big GMH dealers). He said they were always in trouble in the later 60's and 70's as they didn't sell the required number of 4cyl cars. He said that they always told the GMH reps that the Hunter Valley was not a big 4cyl market, and the product was cr@p compared to Japanese and European imports so what else did they expect! It wasn't until the Gemini became more accepted that GMH had a decent 4cyl engine, the other stuff was sub-standard.

Edited by user Friday, 21 December 2018 2:39:07 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Longevity and size made Holdens the best IMO but I will admit to a very deep rose coloured tint on my glasses!

I see old Holdens (up to WB) driving around nearly every time I'm on the road. Not so many old Fords, and as for Jap or European stuff...never.

As for Aus vs other makes, as HK1837 says, the Aussie stuff just lasted. Even into the 80's you wouldn't find a 4 cyl European or Japanese car anywhere outside the city. I commented on the number of V8s in a country town to my country uncle once. He said the small stuff just doesn't last out here. These days you can repeatedly drive a Corolla back and forth between capital cities with no problems but back then it was a recipe for disaster.

And a lot of Aussies just can't easily get into Asian cars. I vividly remember a short trip in a Mazda 626 where my head was rubbing on the roof interior lining. Another Jap vehicle, I can't remember what it was, I had to thread one leg in at an awkward angle and then feed myself in in a certain way or I got stuck! Even modern cars have this problem. You need to bend your head right over and scrunch down to get your head into the car. This does not happen with a HG!

My 2c. Cheers.

I guess what one person wants from a car is different to someone else. My first wheels was a hand me down that was given to my parent by a fellow who owed them some money, mum drove it for a while and then when she got a new car just before my elder brother got his licence they decided to give it to him, then to me. It was a 1967 Rover. It would shit all over any Holden of the day, 4 wheels disc, IRS, buckets, clock, intermittent wipers, it was pretty good, but being a 2 litre would not pull the skin off a warm rice pudding. Do you want to go fast or stop and go around corners? But new it more expensive than a HR Premier with just about every option you could get.

My first real car was (yes you will all disown me) a TA Torana. Once again it was no ball tearer, but it was reasonably good motoring, cost less than the Rover to run and service. I was going to TAFE four nights a week and running around on the weekends, I saw that car go around the clock at least two times in 4 years, clocking up around 40,000 to 50,000km each year. I did replace the gearbox, diff and rebuilt the engine in those 4 years.

But that car went everywhere, to the snow full of passengers and gear, out west, up north, and it did have its faults but I think it was on about par with other 4 cylinder cars that my mates had. It was better for trips because it did have better head room and unless you came to really big hill, that little 1300 would have very little trouble. I got rid of it in 1987 and a few years ago I did a rego check and found it serviced until 1991.

I do not ever want to own another one, as even paying $500 for one I would rather buy a VN 6 cylinder for that money, as that would represent better motoring value. I sometimes have nightmares that I do purchase one and going to fix it up but have to hide it from the wife as she hates that little "shitbox". Then I wake up in a cold sweat and thank god the nightmare is over. I did see one the other day for sale, the guy is asking $20k for it, I will not be buying it, unless I win Lotto then you are all welcome to the BBQ.

That TA was to me what cars are to the vast majority, a form of transport that gets from A to B. Performance over the 1/4 mile is less important that fuel economy, reliability more important than top speed, comfort features more important than looks. Manufacturers have to find that balance.

The funny thing was when I purchased it I wanted something that would be inconspicuous and not get touched, and it is the only car that I have owned that someone stole. I got it back the next day 400m from the TAFE I was going to that night, would have happily given the buggers a lift.

They sold over 9000 of those little TA's in less than 2 years, but could only sell 13000 HQ coupes in 3 years. So which car was the best for the market at the time? (please do not all start to respond, I know what the answer will be on a car enthusiast web site)

Alternatively we become like the Ford guys who have one answer to every motoring question: THE PHASE THREE FALCON WAS THE WORLDS FASTEST FOUR DOOR PRODUCTION CAR.

There was even an article recently in AMC about HK Monaro advertising to women and on their web page there was some discussion about it when on came: BUT THEY ARE NOT AS GOOD AS A PHASE THREE.

Yes a V8 Torana maybe a better car than my humble 1300 TA Torana, but with the miles I was doing and in my third year of an apprenticeship there is no way I could afford to run it, or should I have just gone and purchased a Phase Three and be done with it.

Warren

Warren, speaking of rose coloured glasses....you mentioned the PhaseIII. I think it is the biggest example of rose coloured glasses! They seem to forget that there was no real competition for the car like the GT-HO had to contend with, and a Holden 6 powered LJ Torana (a true cousin to that TA of yours) still beat them at Bathurst in 1972!

I wouldn't exactly call a GT-HO over-rated. all three were built for a purpose with a brute of an engine. The magazine articles of the day were not complimentary of them as a road car. Sports Car World for example came to the conclusion about the XW GT-HO that they did not like the car and to them it was intended for one use purpose only - as a race car. They stated that you would be silly to buy one over a GT or a GTS350 unless you intended to race the car at Bathurst. I know that the PhaseIII had far better road manners than the previous two GT-HO's but it still was a brute of a car totally unsuited to the majority of Australian roads, drivers and available fuel. So in a comparison between what was available at the time and suited to Australian conditions the GT-HO's are today seen through rose coloured glasses. Compare the engine in one of those to the kittens in the GTS350's with their hydraulic cam (same cam as a 307 and the same distributor), road friendly Quadrajet and 10:1 compression ratio able to run on most Super fuels found across Australia and you have a winner. Same argument for the standard GT's. Sure if you had a choice today of a GT-HO or a GT you'd take the HO, but think about buying one to use as an everyday driver in 1969-71 and I bet most would choose the GT or walk over the road and buy a GTS350 for a lot less money.

I thought that Australia back in the days of the Phase 2 XW had fuel octane ratting's of Standard 89 and Super 97 I do not remember anything other at the Stations pumps.
Looking at the compression of 11:1 for the Cleveland powered GT, they ran on 97 octane no problems, I run a bike alloy engine with 13:1 that recommends 95 octane.

I do not have a real handle on Australian fuel octane ratings back in the days of the 1950's FX Holden and on but judging from the compression ratios of all the grey motors I think that the octane rating is getting better as time goes by, so we see the octane ratings must of gone way up over most of Australia with the EH red motors by 1963 and the 1967 XR 289GT is 10:1 and Sep 1969 HT GTS350 10.25:1

It takes a real man or maybe a loon a tick to drive a XW GT-HO P2 or XY GT-HO especially back in the day with them tyres and roads, but the Windsor powered XW GT-HO was not the same type of beast as the Phase 2 or 3.
One problem was with the XY GT auto that it has the 2.75 ration diff, a 3.0 would of been much better, but with the tyres of the day they thought that the crappy rear end would come out on ya when going into 2ed gear.
From what I have driven of them Falcons and Holdens is that the HK-T-G rear leaf setup was much better behaved.

I think that it's funny that any discussion about the 'best' cars in Australia (in that era) ends up being a Falcon vs Monaro vs Torana thing. This when the real completion in the marketplace was between the Aussies, Japanese & Euros

The other thing that irritates me is the quote that "the XY Falcon GT-HO Phase 3 was the fastest 4-door sedan in the world at at time".

I think that those who drove a Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.3 (1968-72) might beg to differ.

The Benz had a top speed of 220 km/h (136.7 mph), 0-100 km/h in 6.6 sec and did the standing 1/4 in 14.2 sec.

There was also an AMG version with a 6.8 litre V8 which did 0-100 km/h in 4.2 sec & had a 265 km/h top speed. Maybe the AMG was their limited build "GT-HO" version.

Dr Terry

Oh yes the Merc's like that if you had the money.

I agree Terry, racing a car on the track does not make the best car, but the whole thing comes back to specials built for racing.

But how many of those cars did they sell and how easy was it to buy one, i.e. availability and price.

Sales is what counts to a manufacturer, how many people want to buy them. It is amazing when you look at sales per month of both Ford and Holden product, there are a few surprises in there as to what people were prepared to put their hands in their pocket and buy. These are the cars that hit the market.

But race on Sunday sell on Monday BS has been going around for so long that everyone believes it. Race on Sunday was about the winning at any cost. If you think its about race on Sunday sell on Monday what the hell happened in 1972, XY racing yet XA out for 7 months. remember when someone says, "at least you could buy the cars that raced in the old days" remind them that you could not buy the Ford product in October 1972.

So many good cars have been made that get very little recognition.

The phase IV may not have been released but they did make one and it was faster than the phase III, it is a production car and has to be recognised in automotive history. (the three they call prototypes are built after the production car so are not prototypes but race prepared GTs).

If you look at a lot of the vision being put up on utuibe of this era, you se lots of small cars, VWs, Morris, Datsun, Toyota, Hillmans etc. It was an increasing market that Holden/Ford and Chrysler got heavily involved with, some successfully and others not. They were marketed at a variety of buyers, but mainly women at first, as the second car. Then at the youth with cars like the Cortina GT, it was a complicated and diverse market

There are some statistic of the day on how many of each model were registered in each state. I have recorded the Holden stuff but it has it all. If you get these books, there is a set in the national library, you can then get the real figures. They also break into commercial, sedan and wagon, different engine sizes including V8, etc.

My daily is an ls2 clubsport, May as well use the remaining earths dwindling resources for something worthwhile!