1978 HOLDEN TORANA
IT STARTED LIFE AS A SUNBIRD BUT THIS TORANA NOW HAS MUCH BIGGER ‘TEETH’ UNDER THE BONNET.
If you’re wondering where you’ve seen that happy smiling face before, it’s probably on these pages. Kerri Weeding and partner Darryn Carr are serial offenders when it comes to Torana ownership – in fact Darryn’s GTR tribute has featured on our cover. Among their modest fleet is this 1978 LX hatchback, which started life as a humble Sunbird, complete with the less-thaninspiring Starfire four powerplant.
These days the car is running a very different mechanical package, which includes what Kerri describes as a mildly-worked 308 V8 backed up by a Trimatic auto with a 2500 stall converter.
“I bought it 15 years ago off my mate Eastie as an original car – he had got it from the original owner. It was green with the original four-cylinder engine,” explains Kerri.
“We pulled it apart and did everything from the start. It spent two years in the body shop and it took us another year to assemble it.”
Kerri chose the new colour scheme and has every right to be happy with the result. She says it drives well and has plenty of performance – not surprising given the decent-sized engine in a fairly light body.
Given her experience with finding and building Toranas, what’s her advice for someone starting out looking for a new project?
“Follow every lead,” she says, without hesitation. “When you see a part at a swap meet, ask if they have the car to go with it. We did that a lot and it’s how we got a lot of our cars. And don’t be put off by appearances. Even if it doesn’t look good in the photos, go and check it out anyway as they might have something else. So you follow every lead.”