Auction watch: HK GTS Monaro, XY GT & Celica GT-Four

There’s some sweet winter warmers in this week’s Grays classic car auction

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Fancy yourself an EOFY treat? Then Grays’ weekly classic car auctions have something for just about every persuasion! Here are some of our top picks from this week’s crop.

All these lots are live now, and close on the evening of 24 June. You can view the full selection right here.

Let’s talk about the heavy-hitting hero cars first, kicking off with this ’71 XY GT Falcon in the correct Vintage Burgundy and with a 351 Clevo and manual. Grays note that the car was rebodied at some stage in its history. After less than 24 hours of bidding, it’s already tipped the scales over $65K, with the reserve still to be met. See it here.

Prefer your 70s classics in a GM-H flavour? Then suss this 1968 HK Monaro GTS, which sports a few modernisations without spoiling the original recipe.

It copped a mild resto around 10 years ago, which included an interior overhaul, a respray, and a rebuild of the 307 V8 with a few choice options like trick heads and a beefier cam. It has a Turbo 700 ’box, Borgy diff, power steering and air con as well, so she’d make for one nice cruiser. See the listing here.

This one is for our champion scribe Iain ‘Marv’ Kelly, who froffs an HJ Monaro sedan harder than he does mid-2000s Lindsay Lohan. While we wouldn’t say these things are forgotten by any means, an HJ is arguably the cheapest way into a classic Monaro. It’s a matching-numbers manual machine, so check it out here.

Rightio, time for something with some actual go. VN Commodores are way lighter than any VE/VF is, so take the LS3 out of the fatter, slower brother and chuck it in its elder sibling and you’re well on your way to a bloody good time.

As the photos suggest, this VN isn’t just a stocker, either. Its VF-sourced LS3 has been converted to carby, with a 4500rpm converter and nine-inch diff in the back. It’d make for one hell of a party car, and the listing has photos of pretty much all the work done. You can view it here.

Here’s some more early-Commodore goodness in the form of this tidy 1981 VC. It rocks a slick coat of green, nicely offset by a brown interior that looks to be in pretty damn good nick. She’s still a six-pot, but she’s also being offered with no reserve, so it’s one to watch for sure. Check it out here.

A woody with a twist! This is a 1963 Ford Falcon Squire wagon, but you’ll note the front end looks a bit odd and the steering wheel is on the wrong side. This old girl is an import, and we reckon it’d make a tidy little winter purchase to fix up, ready to cruise to the beach when summer hits. See it here.

Next up is a forgotten Falcon – a BA powered by a V8 Barra! Yep, when the BA Falcon launched, we all got silly about the turbo Barra six and the Boss 260/290 V8s, but there was also a third option, the SOHC, 5.4-litre, 3V V8 that Ford Australia called the Barra 220.

Think of it as the lower-revving, torquier version of the DOHC Boss. We did a full explainer on the engine here, and this early-2002 Fairmont is fitted with one. The exterior needs a tidy-up, but the interior looks surprisingly fit. It’s probably the cheapest way into a modern Aussie V8 machine, so see the listing here.

Another early Falcon we’ve chosen is this Series III AU XR6, because for some reason the internet’s longest-running joke of pretending to like these still hasn’t waned.

This one has 497,000km under its wheels, so it’s just broken in. Sadly, behind the beautiful Tickford inline six is that godawful BTR four-speed slusher, so whoever buys it needs to get a T5 behind that thing ASAP. Otherwise, she’s rough, but with no reserve, it could still be worth a watch if you swing that way. See it here.

Much like the Datsun 240Z, values for early-model (or any generation, really) Mazda RX-7s have been shooting skyward for some time now, so any complete car is worth a second look. This one is a 1985 model, still rocking a rotary mill and manual cog-swapper. It also has the Sydney-spec Simmons rims on it, but that’s somewhat redeemed by them housing Wilwood disc brakes all ’round. Check it out here.

Fancy a 90s, 4WD, turbocharged Japanese sports coupe that won’t require an inner-city house deposit? Then feast your eyes on this 1990 Toyota Celica GT-Four. It looks like a bloody neat example, and with rally heritage behind it, it’d make for one cool club-plate sports cruiser. See the listing here.

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