“AFTER DIGGING IT OUT FROM UNDER THE BICYCLES I WENT OVER IT TO SEE WHAT IT NEEDED"
Top of our popular vote for this series was this Torana hatch, done up as an SS with a 202 six and auto transmission. It was a close-run vote, but people seemed to appreciate the idea that you didn’t have to have a V8 in the snout to build a good car. Craig Flavel, the owner, agrees. He originally planned to throw a bent eight in the nose, and had even gone out and bought a VK 4.9 as a donor car. However a couple of factors changed his mind. First, he realised he already three other V8s, so a fourth seemed a little superfluous. Second, his daughter was showing an interest in the project and he felt a six would make for a better-balanced car she could get some fun out of. Craig takes up the story…
I ended up owning this car by mistake. I was playing gold at Eurora and was regularly driving past an old HT Monaro out in a paddock. After two years I called in and asked about it, and the bloke didn’t want to part with it. But he had an old Torana sitting in a shed. So I left a deposit, and went and picked it up a couple of hours later – before he changed his mind!”
This is one of those cars that has spent a lot of its life sitting in sheds. The couple in Euroa who had it before me had it ‘resting’ for six years and I did pretty much the same with it until 2015 when I decided to have a go at it.
It cost just $1600 but that’s all they were worth back then and, as it turned out, it needed a lot of work. After digging it out from under the bicycles and other gear, I went over it to see what it needed.
The good news was the body was a good one. Around the rear hatch is the biggest problem area, but they can also cop rust in the tail lights, floors and doors, sometimes the sills and the plenum. Really, they can rust anywhere, but the hatch is the worst.
I’m a fitter and turner by trade and so am able to tackle a lot of the work. For the hatch, I made up some new sections and welded them in. I also had a bloke come in during the day and do a lot of the rubbing down, then I’d get on to the next task when I got home at night.