Holden's decision to go with the VB Commodore and ditch their true blue Aussie designs was a great pity. Just as they got those local designs to be very capable cars.....they dropped them to rely on the Commodore. The UC Torana and Sunbird were well praised in the press (apart from the Sunbird's two engines) and the HZ series Holden's got good coverage as well. So what did they do? They dropped the UC Torana and Sunbird, can the HZ Kingswood replacement only to leave the WB commercials and the very good WB Statesman to do battle with Ford. Then in 1984, just as the Statesman was making good inroads into luxury car sales they canned that too along with the commercial vehicles! Their gamble with the Commodore probably made sense to them in the early 70's looking at fuel prices and such, but they introduced a smaller car with antiquated six cylinder engines that gave the same or less fuel economy of larger family cars available at the time that had bigger engines. The result was inevitable, Ford Australia cleaned up and got market leadership with their larger and roomier family cars that equaled or bettered the Commodore in regards to fuel economy. To make matters worse for them, Chrysler Australia were busy cleaning up the four cylinder market.
Have a look at the later Japanese 4's over a Commodore.Unless you were in the taxi business or carried three adults/teens in the rear,You often in the period 1983 to 1988 went to buy a 626,Telstar,Sigma and Later Magna and until they went Upmarket Accord plus a Bluebird or a Pintara.Better featured,better economy and it didn't suffer the bogan mobile image.Often more of a pleasure to drive than a chore.I have driven as a test drive a Calais some 18 years ago now and it was horrible when evaluating replacements for a W202 Mercedes C200.The worse part was I tested both a day apart or on the same day.it was for my mother I went with Mercedes as it felt like home and was the better car.
@@franzchong5889 whatever you do, don't get people started on the four cylinder Commodore! It was an absolute joke. The Starfire aka backfire four cylinder engine was pretty much an antiquated 2.8 litre six cylinder engine with two cylinders chopped off! Never really provided any gains in power or economy compared to the Japanese and some European cars. To make things kinda worse and even hilarious was the fact Holden sold a batch of Starfire engine blocks to Toyota for their then new XT130 corona. Dubbed 1X. Toyota put their own crossflow head, carburettor, inlet and exhaust manifolds and other components to the Starfire block and made that engine an absolute gem, therefore disguising the fact that it was a part GM Holden engine, only the block was supplied to Toyota. That's exactly what the Starfire engine should've been. Although the 1X Toyota engine was a little noisy at idle, it was smooth and quiet once you got going and possibly made great gains in power and fuel economy compared to Holden's half arsed Starfire engine being an old red/blue six cylinder engine with two cylinders cut off. No changes to head or carburetion design from what I know of. Not a crossflow engine either compared what happened with Toyota's 1X engine although they were both overhead valve engines and not more modern overhead cam engines. That's the whole irony of the Starfire engine story and how Holden's sold batches of engine blocks to Toyota and Toyota dressing those blocks right up and turning them into more stunning engines using their Japanese expertise and know how. A story worth looking more into in case you're interested.
@@jamesburke9101 Ah righto. I was kind of thinking that could've been the other possibility. Yeah I thought the carburettor would've been different. I presume it was a two barrell carby with automatic choke??
@@BlairSauer it gets a little messy, Holden used the varajet as per contract but when supplied the starfire to Toyota-- they had to source a different Carby.
Oh how i wish the LC, LJ and UC had been available with V8 power. At least the earlier cars had triple carb hotted up sixes. The UC got nothing.....and buyers walked away. Best Torana was late production LX, when you could pair up RTS with V8 engines. That was Torana at its peak.
shame the commodore was only months away.hence it died,the rubbish we were subjected to after that with the exception of the vectra which was great was not the same.camira,apollo,epica and malibu.
Still got my UC. It was my first car bought second hand in 1988. Lots of fun to drive!
This is the best looking Torana since the LC Torana.
Holden's decision to go with the VB Commodore and ditch their true blue Aussie designs was a great pity. Just as they got those local designs to be very capable cars.....they dropped them to rely on the Commodore. The UC Torana and Sunbird were well praised in the press (apart from the Sunbird's two engines) and the HZ series Holden's got good coverage as well. So what did they do? They dropped the UC Torana and Sunbird, can the HZ Kingswood replacement only to leave the WB commercials and the very good WB Statesman to do battle with Ford. Then in 1984, just as the Statesman was making good inroads into luxury car sales they canned that too along with the commercial vehicles! Their gamble with the Commodore probably made sense to them in the early 70's looking at fuel prices and such, but they introduced a smaller car with antiquated six cylinder engines that gave the same or less fuel economy of larger family cars available at the time that had bigger engines. The result was inevitable, Ford Australia cleaned up and got market leadership with their larger and roomier family cars that equaled or bettered the Commodore in regards to fuel economy. To make matters worse for them, Chrysler Australia were busy cleaning up the four cylinder market.
Have a look at the later Japanese 4's over a Commodore.Unless you were in the taxi business or carried three adults/teens in the rear,You often in the period 1983 to 1988 went to buy a 626,Telstar,Sigma and Later Magna and until they went Upmarket Accord plus a Bluebird or a Pintara.Better featured,better economy and it didn't suffer the bogan mobile image.Often more of a pleasure to drive than a chore.I have driven as a test drive a Calais some 18 years ago now and it was horrible when evaluating replacements for a W202 Mercedes C200.The worse part was I tested both a day apart or on the same day.it was for my mother I went with Mercedes as it felt like home and was the better car.
@@franzchong5889 whatever you do, don't get people started on the four cylinder Commodore! It was an absolute joke. The Starfire aka backfire four cylinder engine was pretty much an antiquated 2.8 litre six cylinder engine with two cylinders chopped off! Never really provided any gains in power or economy compared to the Japanese and some European cars. To make things kinda worse and even hilarious was the fact Holden sold a batch of Starfire engine blocks to Toyota for their then new XT130 corona. Dubbed 1X. Toyota put their own crossflow head, carburettor, inlet and exhaust manifolds and other components to the Starfire block and made that engine an absolute gem, therefore disguising the fact that it was a part GM Holden engine, only the block was supplied to Toyota. That's exactly what the Starfire engine should've been. Although the 1X Toyota engine was a little noisy at idle, it was smooth and quiet once you got going and possibly made great gains in power and fuel economy compared to Holden's half arsed Starfire engine being an old red/blue six cylinder engine with two cylinders cut off. No changes to head or carburetion design from what I know of. Not a crossflow engine either compared what happened with Toyota's 1X engine although they were both overhead valve engines and not more modern overhead cam engines. That's the whole irony of the Starfire engine story and how Holden's sold batches of engine blocks to Toyota and Toyota dressing those blocks right up and turning them into more stunning engines using their Japanese expertise and know how. A story worth looking more into in case you're interested.
@@BlairSauer Toyota did not adapt a cross flow head to starfire 4 for the corona. However you are right, they use a differnt Carby.
@@jamesburke9101 Ah righto. I was kind of thinking that could've been the other possibility. Yeah I thought the carburettor would've been different. I presume it was a two barrell carby with automatic choke??
@@BlairSauer it gets a little messy, Holden used the varajet as per contract but when supplied the starfire to Toyota-- they had to source a different Carby.
I'd buy a UC Torana if I lived in Australia.
@H HOUR HOTEL I've heard that about the UC Torana.
UC was great until the stepdad crashed it into a parked car like a champion
Oh how i wish the LC, LJ and UC had been available with V8 power. At least the earlier cars had triple carb hotted up sixes. The UC got nothing.....and buyers walked away.
Best Torana was late production LX, when you could pair up RTS with V8 engines. That was Torana at its peak.
If only the video quality was better than this.
@H HOUR HOTEL The video is okay. But the audio is hideous!
@H HOUR HOTEL I've seen better quality, and I've heard better sound.
shame the commodore was only months away.hence it died,the rubbish we were subjected to after that with the exception of the vectra which was great was not the same.camira,apollo,epica and malibu.
It died becausevHolden had too many lines going at once. They had to sacrifice one, and that was Torana.
I loved my UC
The tail lights were the ugliest ever designed by Holden 🤢