You are probably right DR Terry it was in my head it was the HG but it must have been the HT GTS that I am confusing with the HG. The HT was still racing well into 1970 and that is the car that Bond was cleaning up in.
I kept thinking 1969 was the HT's last year.
The HG was released from 26 July 1970 , the GTR XU-1 was from 19th August 1970
Below is from wiki.
The HT Monaro GTS350 was successful in Series Production racing. The Holden Dealer Team was formed in 1969 by long time Ford Works Team boss Harry Firth with the team using the GTS350 in competition. The HDT entered three Monaros in the 1969 Hardie-Ferodo 500 the lead car driven by Colin Bond and Tony Roberts winning from 1968 winners Bruce McPhee and Barry Mulholland who had switched to driving a Ford XW Falcon GTHO. Coming home third in the Dealer Team's 3rd Monaro was Des West and Bathurst rookie Peter Brock.
In January 1970, Bond and Roberts would win the Rothmans 12 Hour Series Production race at Surfers Paradise driving their HDT Holden Monaro.
The nimble 6-cylinder Torana GTR XU-1 debuted in late 1970 and in 1971 Bond began racking up an impressive list of race and rally titles in his Torana. He secured the Manufacturer's Championship for Holden by winning 3 out of 5 rounds, including the Sandown 250 enduro in his XU-1. He also won the Australian Rally Championship and the Southern Cross Rally, along with the South Pacific Touring Series that year.
The XU-1's where significantly slower per lap in the dry (4 secs or so) and 5sec slower than Moffat in practice.The Frauds pulled so much quicker up the hill and came down it faster. It was the twisty bits and under brakes that gave back some of the gains to the baby toranas.
In 1971 Moffat took pole with 2m38.9s and the fastest XU-1 was Brocks car with a 2m46.3. Moffat led from flag to flag with Bond finishing 4th and Brock coming in 6th with some problems.
Holden Heaven's
1970 Bathurst Practice: The fastest Torana was the HDT car of Colin Bond with a best lap of 2:54s which put him in fourth spot on the grid with Alan Moffat taking pole some 5 seconds quicker. During the practice sessions many of the Falcons suffered engine problems and the Torana's were running reliably so the feeling was high that the Falcons could breakdown during the running and allow the reliable cars in!
1970 Bathurst Race day: And they're off with Bond in hot pursuit of Moffat up the hill, over the top and Bond is sitting on Moffat's exhaust, then down Conrod Straight where the big Falcon could stretch it's legs until the end where the big car took some stopping and Bond dived in front under brakes. Going along the front straight the crowd gave a huge cheer of approval to the little Torana, the dice between Bond and Moffat went on for 5 laps until Moffat regained the lead and wasn't headed. The Torana's with Bond and Brock were 2nd and 3rd for quite a while but eventually succumbed to mechanical problems and dashed any hope of a HDT Torana being on the Podium but the privateer entry of Don Holland took third outright and a class win. In fact five privately entered XU-1's were in the top ten, third, sixth, seventh, ninth, and tenth outright plus the HDT all women pairing of Cole/Bennett taking 13th outright, this showed that the six cylinder 186ci Torana was close to the 351ci Falcon's but needed a bit more work to become a superior package! It turned out that the mechanical problems with HDT cars were a manufacturer fault with the valves, this also affected some private entries as well.
1971 Bathurst
The Bathurst race wasn't kind on the HDT and saw Moffat on pole with 2m38.9s and the fastest XU-1 was Brocks car with a 2m46.3. Moffat led from flag to flag with Bond finishing 4th and Brock coming in 6th with some problems.
http://holden.itgo.com/gtrxu1.html
No doubt the Frauds had many issues that effected their win/loose ratio, and we can argue till we are blue in the face about what if and why, how, if only this was different. But our Red team also had reliability and unlucky stories with the xu-1's, the plastic engines, the brakes the list is endless etc I think the other issue is our Red team had the deck stacked at times as Holden where the KINGS OF AUSTRALIA the easy market leader and one look at the sheer numbers on the mountain tells you a bit of the story of why the results worked as they did. Not that I am wanting one win to go to the Blue team. Hell I cheered and cracked another beer for the rock (i am joking DJ)
Pollution gear doesn't effect race motors as they don't have to comply with Australian road rules and regulations. Two very different subjects road versions vs race versions and the rules that need to be complied with.
Dr Terry you are a plastic motor supporter (I hate the things) would it make sense to you if Holden would have raced with a chev engine in the HQ once the new V8 plant was producing?
To me its argumentation for the sake of it. Its fully understandable why Holden used the XU-1 as a stop gap till the March 1974 LH Torana. They either used the baby Torana or waited for the LH and don't race. The only other current model option to the baby torana was the HQ which we know was never considered.
Edited by LXSS350, 04 March 2014 - 06:56 PM.
