the Torana's tale

When you look at the list and pictures of the various cars we've owned, it's strongly British for the first 30 years and then goes a bit European. This is the only Holden amongst them. I never really owned it, but this is its story.

We came home from Pakistan in late 1979. Mrs VVB was pregnant with offspring no 1 and we were due to go to Singapore after the birth, a period of only a couple of months. We were essentially broke in cash terms - living in Pakistan had eaten up our little savings as the allowances were out of date for most of our two years and when they were adjusted, it was only from when the process (an inspection) was done, about a year late. So buying a car for a couple of months was out of the question as was renting even moreso.

Uncle was still alive and running the former family car business, now just a workshop and small second hand yard. Following the two oil shocks and, of course, the Whitlam government, the economy was in a hole. Thirsty V8s were not popular and he had this Torana SLR (4.2, not the SLR5000 as per the model) on the lot. The deal was I would use it and then flog in the larger and (hopefully) more receptive market of Canberra rather than Dubbo.

So we came home, Mrs VVB moved in with my folks (as I recall) and I got on a commuter flight to Dubbo. The flight was via Orange and we landed just on dusk. A few folk got off - it was about an 8 seater - and the pilot helpfully unloaded their baggage. He then turned the lights off in the terminal, as there were no staff on duty, and locked it up. Now, to the best of my memory the lights on the runway also went off, but I can't swear to this. We took off heading due west and had barely gained much altitude before we could see the lights of Dubbo in the distance.

This was amazing. Having grown up there and travelled by road to Sydney many times as a child, Orange was "are we there yet?" away. But here it was, rushing towards us on the horizon. Perspective, it's a strange animal.

Barely a few minutes later we touched down and uncle was there with this green beast. It being a Friday night, he was overdue at the bowling club, where he was on the committee, for the regulation several sherbets so he gave me the keys and I adjusted the seat and mirrors. He warned me about the power it had and I assured him that I had been driving the office Caprice v8 in Pakistan and I realised it wasn't like my old British bangers. No, he said, it's very different.

I fired it up, manhandled it into first (the gearshift was like pushing a rock through a concrete abutment), eased forward and wound on a little lock and then applied a very little throttle. I reckon I nearly did 3 doughnuts in the airport carpark before I wrestled it straight and through the gate. I agreed with his assessment that it in fact did drive differently to a Caprice and we continued to agree over a number of cleansing ales with his bowling mates.

The next day I set off back to Canberra. I must have used about 3 tankfuls of petrol, it drank juice like it was going out of fashion. Induced, I have to admit, by a very enthusiastic use of the throttle. I had never driven any thing like this before, even my old Triumph 2.5Pi, when it was going well and had instant throttle response, didn't have the kick in the back that this thing delivered. I very nearly threw it off one corner, after which I moderated the enthusiasm a tad.

Suffice to say we got home safely, if somewhat poorer. It was a kind of fun thing around town because of the non standard twin exhaust - of course you were forever poking it in the guts, especially in the tunnels on Capital Hill, just to listen to that sound. It snorted and rattled and the idle was all over the place, there was no suspension to speak of and the seats were crap, but it made you feel very alive.

So young offspring no 1 made his first car trip in it, home from the hospital, which probably explains why he now owns a Calais V8 (pictured above because I can't, for the life of me, get it to appear here).

But I couldn't sell the damn thing, even to a couple of mates I knew who bought and sold cars to supplement their wages. So uncle was obliged to take it back and we choofed off to Singapore. The lung cancer crept up on him, he had been a lifelong smoker. He had to liquidate the business which was pretty much in debt by then and he died alone in 1982.

Would I own one now? Dunno, I'd have to drive one again, they were really crude. The SLR5000 was always the model to have and a couple of mates at work in fact did own them. Perspective, it's a strange animal.