Mark & Michelle’s LX Hatch
Holden 1977 Torana SL v8 Hatchback
Car is a matching numbers L32 M40 SL Hatch
When new the car was optioned with factory Holden aircon and the 13×6 steel rims.
I’ve never owned a hatch before but was always one of my favourite’s whether it be SS or SL as long as it was factory V8.
Id been looking for some time and travelled to different states to try and find what I was looking for but unfortunately the ones we looked at didn’t tick the right boxes, I spent many hours, day and night looking in all the usual classifies, then one morning before work with coffee in hand this one popped up, I said to Michelle I have a good feeling about this one.
I got on the phone asap to speak to the owner Carl. Carl was in his late 60s and retired and proceeded to tell me all the info on the car.
Sounded just what we were looking for so within a few days we jumped on a plane flew to Adelade to look at the yellow hatch, hired a car and drove to Goolwa where it was located, at first glance I was pretty impressed no mods at all except for the mags which was an easy fix. Spent a few hours doing all the usual checks and all seemed ok, so we decided to do the deal. We then drove back to Adelade the following week with a car trailer to pick her up.
Carl was the second owner from new and bought the car in 1985 as his daily driver, the original owner had bought the car in Mt Barker Adelade from Gilbert Motors.
In the time carl owned the car he managed to travel a total of 184000klm and in 2009 did a part resto on the car which included full respray in the original Absinth yellow and any signs of rust repaired, and cavity waxed.
The plan with the hatch is to keep it in its original form to within some degree only changing personal little things that I like. First to go where the mags and replace with the original 6inch wide wheels, I had a slr steering wheel on the shelf so that took place of the original SL variety.
I’ve slowly been working on all the mechanicals on the car and replacing what’s needed to keep it roadworthy and reliable and tidying things up as I go.
We plan on driving the hatch as much as we can as it’s a nice cruisey car to drive, we plan on driving it to Torana fest this year and a trip to Tassie the following year.
Mark & Michelle