Owner Peter Briggs. On May 28, Australia’s newest million-dollar supercar gets launched. Except that it’s 41 years old and it’s a Torana.
Mossgreen will be auctioning the 1979 Australian Touring Car Championship-winning Holden Torana A9X at Sydney’s Carriageworks, with expectations of more than $1 million for a car that cost $10,800 new.
For most Australians, Toranas were the car you bought when you couldn’t afford a Kingswood and the car that became the choice of bogans. For metalheads, they are one of this country’s greatest cars.
The four-cylinder compacts came out of the Holden factory from 1967 to 1979 and initially suffered from the poor relative syndrome. But Australian Crawl, Mi-Sex and Dead Kelly wrote songs about them.
Note to parents: do not let your children hear Dead Kelly’s Red Torana or read the lyrics.
In 1972, the big three carmakers planned to launch family supercars, powerful monsters that with a bit of help could race at Bathurst. Journalist Evan Green wrote a piece for The Sun-Herald headlined “160mph Super Cars Soon”. Among the three cars was a 239kW, 5-litre V8 Torana. Green quoted NSW transport minister Milton Morris going ballistic, calling the cars “bullets on wheels”. Soon he was joined by his Queensland counterpart Keith Hooper calling for them to be banned. The big three backed down.
No wonder, then, that Holden didn’t want any publicity when it launched the A9X Torana to get back on the racetrack. These hotties just had a big V8, with no wussie bits like radios and airconditioning. They were Australia’s fastest street cars and the factory made just 305 four-door sedans and 100 two-door hatches A9X Toranas. Probably only 45 of the hatches survive today. Earlier this year a pristine A9X sold for $260,000. Ten years ago, prices were testing $500,000. An entry-level sedan will cost you $100,000 today.
Bob Morris Bathurst, 1978.
Bob Morris Bathurst, 1978.
But Mossgreen has the greatest of them all. This was the Torana campaigned for three years by car dealer Ron Hodgson with Bob Morris at the wheel. First time out, Morris was beaten by Peter Brock. But in 1979 Morris created history, beating Brock and winning the championship. It was the first time a private team beat the factory teams.
“Still in running order, this rare Torana is highly original and still showcases the livery it wore in 1979,” says James Nicholls, Mossgreen’s collectors cars specialist.
Perth entrepreneur and one of Australia’s top classic car collectors, Peter Briggs, bought the car in 1979 and raced it for the last time in 1980, before putting it on display in his York and Fremantle motor museums.
OK, so why the high expectations? There are five factors that drive the demand for a classic car: provenance, scarcity, originality, history and condition. Briggsy’s Torana is a 10 out of 10 in all these departments. It has had just two owners. There are only a few left and this is the rarest of all of them. It’s unmolested. It has a fantastic history and it’s in tip-top condition for an old race car. My guess is, sadly, it will go overseas.
This is a shortened version of the original article – read the rest at The Australian
