First published in the February 2008 issue of Street Machine

You’ve gotta love a Torana, right? Now becoming prized collectors’ cars, 15 years ago early 70s Toranas were like VN Commodores are today. Those same 15 years ago, a coat of SV5000 Commodore Malachite Green transformed this LC from Just Another Torana into something with special potential.

But it remained nothing more than potential because, although beautifully dressed, the Torana was a jilted princess, untouched for much of the next decade. Until ‘Big’ Rob Bright saw the potential.

“The bloke who owned it, Cane, dropped around to my place with a list of what was included,” Rob says of the unfinished project he’d heard about through some mates. “Full alloy rollcage, harnesses, fresh paint, all these bits and pieces for $5½K. I was like: ‘Nah, don’t want to know about it,’ and the list sat on my fridge for a month. In the end, Cane dropped around again and said: ‘At least come and have a look at it.’ So I walked into his garage. I gave him cash straight away. That was five years ago.

“I was still mucking around with my four-door when I bought this one and hadn’t even chosen a colour for it. To buy this one already painted was a godsend. I didn’t have to go through the hassle.”

Adding to the happy feeling was a stack of photographs of the car in bare metal, with no rust.

Pushed home — Cane lived only a few hundred metres away — Rob took stock of his new project.

“It was pretty good but I didn’t do anything for about 12 months — I moved house, so I stored it at my mum’s — then I got inspired. I decided I wanted big wheels, not for racing but for a modern look.”

To complete the Torana to his tastes, Rob commissioned Cane to add some tubs, re-jig the nine-inch axle and set up the rear coil-overs. “Then we heard that Powercruise was coming to Sydney,” says Rob. “That fired us up even more. We hooked into it then!”

The Torana was registered on Thursday before the first Sydney Powercruise. “It was hectic. The wheels turned up the Thursday before the event and we had to get the car blue-slipped. But the bloke who wrote the blue slip misquoted one of the numbers on the car, so we had to do a bit more running around to get that fixed. Then my brother rang me and said the new wheels didn’t fit.

“I went nuts! Absolutely out of my tree. Mum was with me and she was trying to settle me down. Then I heard laughing in the background over the phone — it was a gee-up!”

Power for the Torana comes from a healthy 308. Well, it’s healthy now. “I’ll tell you a bit of a story,” Rob begins. “I had an engine built and took it to Summernats. I didn’t even do one lap and it blew both head gaskets. I came home and covered the thing in the garage for four months. I walked around depressed all that time until my missus said: ‘Get out there and fix the fukken thing, I’m sick of ya!’

“So we fitted a set of $400 head gaskets and driving it home, the oil pump pick-up fell off. It junked it. We started pulling it apart; broken rings, bores were stuffed — it was junk.”

The heads, manifold and carby were all that survived. He’d had other dramas with this engine, too, such as wiped cams and busted pushrods. “I paid big bucks for the engine and was pissed off. But I found a fella on the net with low-mileage engines. I raced over there and grabbed one. We stripped it down for a check-up — looked at the bores and bearings — and it was so close to brand new.”

Fitted with a lumpier cam and his old L34-spec heads, Rob is now happy as a kid at Christmas and while the LC was designed for cruising rather than racing, it’s had a couple of runs down the WSID quarter mile, with a best of 12.7@109mph.

Rob’s not the first bloke to install a V8 in a Torana and he followed the path beaten by those before him, by reworking the steering column with some extra joints and sorting out an exhaust system that had ground clearance with the Torana’s lowered stance. Then he needed some gears.

“I swapped my four-door Torana for the gearbox that’s in the GTR now,” he says. It’s a tricked-up TH350 three-cogger behind a 3000rpm torque converter. “It’s been a good gearbox!”

The trim is a blend of then and now. The seats and door trims are original GTR, restored with close-to-original colour Chamois vinyl. But recolouring the dash and steering wheel in similar colours, rather than the factory black, brings the interior bang up to date. It’s all thanks to Steve at Sydney’s All Trim.

Wrapping a set of transplanted Kingswood brakes, these wheels have only been on the car for a couple of months. They’re Intros from Showwheels; Rob sold his old wheels to another Torana enthusiast. “I had 17s on it before but I wanted more ‘blow’ under the arse-end,” he says of his choice of 18-inch rear and 17-inch front wheels.

Like Shane Warne, Rob blames his mum for all this malarkey.

“The mistake she made was giving me an LC four-door when I was 15,” laughs Rob. “You know the drill — it went from immaculate one-owner car to stroker with a tricked-up auto. Then I lost my licence, then I wanted to tub it. I spent way too much and now I wish I still had it — unmodified. I saw one recently, valued at $13K! That was one, two, three, four, five Toranas ago. Damn, I sold two LCs on one day once! Nothing wrong with them — wish I still had those too.”

ROBERT BRIGHT
1971 LC HOLDEN TORANA GTR

THANKS
My wife, Melissa; Dennis, KD Automotive; Chris, Showwheels; Steve, All Trim; George, Mirror Finish; Buzzard Racing; Cane, Luke, Geoff, Ballzy, Mark, my little brother Tim, Jamie and Gibby.