As a 1990 model myself, I'm going to mix it up with 5 cars I grew up ONLY looking at old photos of, and 5 from the post-2004 era (cars that were current when I was in my teenage years and above). Some of them are because of top-quality fabrication, tech, and packaging, some of them are because of flashy stylistic choices of an era I like, and some are just cars that I have had great exposure to, that could be exchanged for other Toranas if I associated with different people in a different area - but that doesn't change their significance to me.
THUNDER with its sunroof, alloy rollcage, colour-matched Chev badge and wheel centres. Faded old magazine photos of this adorned my dreams.
Shepherdtor_001~3.jpg 114.57K
4 downloads
IMG_20230516_133323_031.jpg 183.3K
4 downloads
LITRE8 with its alloy rollcage, colour-matched Compomotives, wild brakes, suspension, mammoth rat motor with all of the throttles and blue & red fittings, NOS hard lines, dry sump, chassis mods, etc.
1070420_SLR8k-052.jpg 191.86K
4 downloads
I finally saw this car in real life in my late 20's and it was a good hero to meet.
Mark Sanders' LH Torana, I love the pastel colour choice, the use of the colour everywhere, the set back and low slung motor, low slung seats, and the focus on weight reduction, and willingness to just essentially build huge parts of the car from scratch. We'll try and look past the panel gaps... they are astonishinly bad, haha.
164223871_2834603826788998_957693950603029091_n.jpg 311.7K
4 downloads
163770668_2834603956788985_3825763644901978903_n.jpg 330.88K
4 downloads
COPBAIT for me was just front and centre. The rude use of colour and clean-ness, although I would proudly put it on a pedestal, it isn't the car I actually want to own. It's very show-focused, particularly in the later incarnation with no wipers and HVAC. But it's certainly a poster child for the era, which I really love.
290323552_3252287168359787_6057216988698759578_n.jpg 135.5K
4 downloads
IMG_20230516_133327_173.jpg 225.45K
4 downloads
This ridiculous historic sports sedan, just because of how crazy the body mods are. I would LOVE to build a Torana with box flares at some point... maybe even on my own hatch in the future.
29133996_10156098052424019_3273802296974114816_n.jpg 179.91K
4 downloads
And now in the modern era... when I was at my MOST impressionable, I went in Glenn's awesome Ultra Blue A9X sedan. This car is why my car has 8 butterflies, a Holden V8, and the colour it has.
Glenn_A9X_5.jpg 152.46K
6 downloads
I do kind of regret not adding the side pipe to mine (it exits on the LHS, so not pictured lol).
I had to pleasure of heading to Toranafest half way through my hatch build and spent some time around a group of Sydney-based really traditional A9X street car style hatchback Toranas that really charged up my motivation, there's a few fellas who are mates who own about 5 or so cars in this style, and I'm going to group them together here and say they're a bit of a pack that are all great. They pretty much all have droptanks, 4-speeds, hot Holden V8 donks, alloy cages, super wide Simmons with 345 Pirellis on the rear, headlight covers, Recaro LX seats, etc.
14232642_10210526844790223_2918969811802402992_n.jpg 114.96K
4 downloads
Clarke Hopkins' NZV8 series Torana... and really that extends to a group of these cuzzies' beautiful race cars over there that are styled similarly and engineered beautifully.
Clarke_Hopkins_sw.jpg 136.14K
4 downloads
1433213161180.jpg 234.27K
5 downloads
John Szwede's awesome hatchback which has been transformed from a bit of a showy cruiser car to a tough street car & targa tarmac rally beast in his time of ownership. Sweet interior with classic houndstooth-insert fixed back Recaros It has yucky LS power, but in his defence it came with that motor already, and he at least installed ITB's and had the motor built with heaps of poke. Anyway, great looking and very high performance street car.
2023-04-16 17.53.55.jpg 208.07K
5 downloads
2023-04-16 19.22.13.jpg 58.67K
5 downloads
And even though I shouldn't because Brett dogged me on this one, I'm going to put LXCHEV in as my last entry. Brett was a bit like that cool older kid as he was a few years ahead and had built his awesome smallblock-powered LX and was enjoying golden times with it, during the period that I was an impressionable teenager. I loved all the old build photos, the story, the pop-up sunroof and roof aerial, the trading post video of it hooning around the industrial estate... fark. I kind of preferred it on the Hotwires actually and would never forgive the transmission choice, but this was always a COOOOOOOOOOL local car that I regularly saw and it inspired the hell out of me. And the first time I felt a holeshot with E/T Street tyres was in this car and that is hard to forget.
I feel a bit one-eyed having only included LH/LX Toranas and they are virtually all flared, but I guess my taste is concentrated in this area. I actually love loads of other Torana stuff as well but this is where I feel it the strongest.
View Garage
.jpg)
