When Nathan Lambert laid down the cash for his dream LJ Torana almost 25 years ago, he never dreamed that it would turn into a 600hp monster capable of landing in the Elite Hall at Street Machine Summernats 38. Toranas simply run in the Melburnian’s blood, and this LJ is the third one he’s owned.

First published in the April 2026 issue of Street Machine

“My first car was a red LJ S two-door with a beige vinyl interior,” Nathan says. “It had a 138ci engine, Trimatic, and Sprintmaster wheels. But 12 months later, I bought another two-door LJ. This time it was white and done as an XU-1 mock-up, but engineered and registered with a 308 and Turbo 350. It still had the standard banjo diff, which I replaced the centre in countless times, and the paint was average. I wanted to mini-tub it, install a nine-inch and change the wheels.”

Then, in true project car style, came an escalation. “At Easternats in 2002, Justin ‘Froggy’ Farrar mentioned to me that he was thinking of selling his Torana so he could finish his FB station wagon [SM, Mar ’08],” says Nathan. “I immediately said I would buy it. It was a really nice car, painted orange with a black XU-1 interior, a 308 and Powerglide, mini-tubs, and a nine-inch rear end with a 4.11 LSD and shortened 28-spline axles. It also had 15×5 and 15×8 Weld ProStars, and it was engineered and registered.”

Nathan added his own flavour to the car in small stages, including a custom fuel cell, and a six-point rollcage with removable taxi bar and side intrusion bars, installed by Darren Reid. In 2008, things really clicked up a gear when he decided to switch to Bowtie power, and soon enough, good ol’ scope creep had Nathan by the short and curlies.

“It blew out into a full ground-up rebuild,” he laughs. “To start, with a lot of guidance from Rob Riko, I grafted chassis rails into the floor, added Strange double-adjustable coil-over struts to the rear end, and installed an adjustable anti-roll bar. I strengthened the front crossmember and upper and lower control arms, and added an engine plate up front to give some more room for the exhaust.

“I found some rust in the lower front guard and Rob did the repairs for me. He also moved the doglegs on the rear wheelarches forward to accommodate a bigger tyre, and while it was on the rotisserie, I had Phil Jackson paint the underside of the body gloss-black.”

Nathan wanted to drive the wheels off his LJ, so he had the crossmember, front and rear control arms and diff housing powdercoated for durability. The diff was then filled with a 4.11:1 Strange nodular-iron centre built by Mark Schwarze, before Nathan installed Strange 31-spline axles and rebuilt drum brakes.

With the shell rolling, it was sent up to Ryan McDermott’s Paint & Panel in Shepparton, where Ryan and Barry got the body smooth and slick in readiness for the lurid colour Nathan had picked. Vibing on the outrageous hues of the golden era of muscle cars, Nathan had the LJ slathered in straight Baslac orange tinter; the result is capable of detaching retinas in direct sunlight.

“Once I got the car back from paint, I had Darren Reid install the headlining and the trim on the tops of the doors so we could install the new glass,” says Nathan. “I installed the headlights and tail-lights with aluminium surrounds I had straightened, polished and clear-anodised. I also fitted a brand-new grille from Rare Spares, along with the bumper bars, door handles and locks that I had stripped, straightened and re-chromed.”

Remember how Nathan’s initial impetus for this mammoth rebuild was his desire to switch to Chevy small-block power? Well, the SBC that now lives in the LJ’s engine bay is no mild mouse motor – Nathan’s packed it full of sweet power-swag.

“I bought a very early sprintcar short block from Graham Hussey, along with some Brodix Track 1 heads off Wayne Talbot, and then I took that all to Shane and Athol at Cable & Burns Race Engines to have them check it over,” says Nathan. “They added steel four-bolt caps to the factory 400 block, changed the rods to Scat I-beams, and re-balanced it for me. Shane selected a suitable Comp solid-roller cam, and then I took it home and assembled it.”

Bolted to the 5.7in-long Scat rods are TRW forged 4.155in-bore slugs and a 3.480in-stroke GM steel crank, which has been nitride-treated for strength, for a total capacity of 377 cubes. The Comp solid party stick works BAM bushed lifters, while the 64cc Brodix heads are crowned by an Edelbrock Victor Jr manifold and Holley 850cfm XP Ultra carb. All up, it made an impressive 604hp at 7600rpm on the engine dyno.

“I had Danko at Adicted Performance put it on the engine dyno to tune it and get some numbers, so I could get Jason at Shotgun Performance Transmissions to spec the 6000rpm eight-inch converter,” says Nathan. “I’d purchased a second-hand, transbraked Mike’s Tranmission Ultimate Powerglide from the USA, and I took it to Paul Rogers Performance Transmissions to freshen it up. I then installed the motor and ’box, and had GJ Drivelines build me a chrome-moly tailshaft.”

With the LJ’s zappy bits connected by a totally new wiring loom by Chris at Race Wires, Nathan’s 16-year odyssey with this Torry was coming to a close, and it was nearly time to enjoy all the hard work at his first outing with the car at the 2024 Bright Rod Run.

“Throughout this rebuild, I was in contact with an engineer and was issued a new engineer’s certificate for all the modifications once completed. I then started driving it and sorting out a few new-car gremlins,” says Nathan.

With everything signed off and running sweetly, Nathan took the opportunity to have the angry coupe judged at Summernats 38.

“I had Rob ‘Patto’ Paterson from Enhanced Vehicle Solutions detail it before Summernats 38, and he did such a good job it managed to get into the Top 60 Elite Hall,” says Nathan proudly.

Sounds like a just reward for Nathan’s hard work and perseverance during his epic, thorough rebuild of what was already a neat streeter, but is so much better now.

NATHAN LAMBERT
1972 HOLDEN LJ TORANA

THANKS
My wife Rebecca and daughters Jazz and Indi; Dozza at Ryan McDermott’s Paint & Panel; Joel Lambert; Jason Vandyk at Vandyk Specialist Engineering; Darren Reid at Dazza’s Exhaust & Fab; Chris at Race Wires; Shane and Athol at Cable & Burns Race Engines; Ted and Barney at Fastfit Car Care; Patto at Enhanced Vehicle Solutions; Marcus and all the boys at Speed Pro; Adam at Precision International; Cameron Milne; Rob Riko; Troy Zerbato; Rohan Hutson; Trav Grace; Scott Breasley.