I keep hearing this will be the Australian equal to the 2007 Camaro....anyone heard anything?

The is the first I hae heard about this.... It does seem logical for Holden to get one... Maybe it will be the bases for a 2007 Camaro for the States :D

The Torana was a car a size under the commodore. Ended production in the late 70's. The word from the departing ceo (hanenberger) was that the seed has been sown. A design team is working on the car. As far as I know it hasnt been approved yet. He did think it would be a good export car for holden if it came to fruition. He said it would be targeted at competitors such as the 3 series coupe etc.

edit: the car would be built off a shortened version of the Zeta/VE platform.

Has anyone noticed Monaro and Camaro are very similar...I have always wondered if they were orginally linked.

The original monaro and the follow up HQ? series had some styling cues from the gto or other gmna cars but are in no way linked on the chassis side of things

The Torana was a car a size under the commodore. Ended production in the late 70's. The word from the departing ceo (hanenberger) was that the seed has been sown. A design team is working on the car. As far as I know it hasnt been approved yet. He did think it would be a good export car for holden if it came to fruition. He said it would be targeted at competitors such as the 3 series coupe etc.

edit: the car would be built off a shortened version of the Zeta/VE platform.

hanenberger REALLY wanted to bring back the torana before retiring. However lack of a small light car with the Torana credentials held it back.

Concept torana gtr-x
http://www.fedrelandsvennen.no/tema/amcar/eurohot/bilder/holden4.jpg
torana lj gtr xu1 (1972-1975) 6cyl with more than 200bhp
http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/images/car_info/holden_torana_lj_xu1.jpg

My dream torana would be a really light car, with a turbo/ tt v6 or a v8. It should also be a hatch with an optional 4wd similar to the ssx.

There was an "early" Torana XU-1 Rally Car incident in Tasmania on the weekend - the Owner/Navigator sustained fatal injuries and the driver sustained leg injuries.

BTW, the race version of these cars in the early 1970s were successful at the Australian Bathurst Race.

Mike

If you are interested in torana's my best advice is look at the LC/LJ series. This was a very nice car for its time in its GTR XU1 guise. This won the australian rally championship and bathurst in the same year (only car to every do it). Someone has already posted an lj picture. It has this amazing "coke bottle" shape for its time.

It had a 3.3 litre inline 6 cly engine with 3 stromberg carbs. At bathurst it was outgunned by massive ford falcon gtho's (5.8 litre v8) which had massive straight line speed but got monstered under brakes and in the tighter parts of the track. In 1972 a huge rain storm evened out the advantage with the fords and crysler (dodge) chargers being decidedly less manouverable than the toranas.

Later toranas ( from 1974 onwards) sported v8's (5.0 litre) with two famous versions (the SLR 5000, a four dour sedan and the A9X, absolutely beautiful 3 door hatchback somewhat similar in styling to the US Vega). Both one bathurst but the torana had sort of become to big and with the comming of the commordore in 1978/9 there was no room for it in the line up. The last torana was the UC which internally seemed to be a trial for some of the commodores fitout to me.

There was a very original torana called the HB which was out in the mid 60's, but this was really a UK vauxhall viva with a badge on. There was a performance version of the with all of 70HP called the brabham. Almost none exist now i suspect.

If I was to rebuild it, it would be a 6 cylinder but hyped, very light, AWD and would reuse the GTR and possibly XU1 logos on the performance versions. But thats just me....