Holden Torana A9X: Reader Ride

Date: 05.11.2015

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

Jan bought her A9X Torana new and says she will never part with it

Jan's Holden Torana A9X

We bought this car in 1978, about the same time as we bought a house in Beechworth and they cost about the same – around $14,000.

Before that we owned an SL/R5000 in the same colour and before that a Mini Clubman GT.

The kids were brought up in this and we even brought them home from hospital in it. It even got used as an ambulance when one of the kids broke his leg in a skateboard accident and needed to be brought home with his leg in plaster.

It’s a really, really, well-used car. At the time I owned a nursery, so the back was often loaded up with plants and I’d head off to the markets. It got driven on dirt, snow, through sleet – you name it.

My husband and I started doing it up, but he got ill and we packed it away in a shed in about 1993. Some years later, one of my sons – who reads Unique Cars – asked, "Do you have any idea what that thing’s worth? Why don’t we do it up?"

So we dragged it out of the shed and across the snow and into a shipping container and started work.

It wasn’t too bad. There were a few scratches, like the ones from the sheet of corrugated iron that got caught up in a mini cyclone. Eventually we built a new shed and put in a hoist so we could work on it in there.

Lots of the work was done in Melbourne, We were lucky to find a trimmer who still had the remnants of a roll of original seat material.

What I love about it is that it’s a real car. When you drive cars these days, there’s no soul. With this, you can feel what’s going on. I much prefer to drive something like this than get in something that does it all for you.

It’s not perfect, but you can see it’s got a bit of history. It was never going to be sold, and never will be. It will be cremated with me!

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