1978 Bathurst A9X

[Graeme]

Nostalgia time again; I've dug up some more history lessons.

Fred Gibson teamed up with his wife to run an ex-Brock A9X hatchback at Bathurst in 1978.
The car preparation budget, including initial purchase, was approximately $25,000.

The A9X race car wasn't as highly modified as the 1980's Group A touring cars. Gibbo's car featured an Ian Tate built 308, with the L34 specifications carried over to the A9X. Still, the race prepared engine cost around $6,000. It breathed through a 830cfm Holley carburettor and was good for "about" 283kW.

Brakes featured standard A9X rotors with Girling racing calipers and specific Hardie Ferodo pads.
Wheels were 15" diameter / 10" wide Aunger Hotwire alloys, fitted with Dunlop 592-compound slicks.

Front suspension featured very stiff coil spring replacements and a thick anti-roll bar, with Koni brand double-adjustable shock absorbers. The rear suspension utilised coil springs that were relatively "soft" with a tubular anti-roll bar and Bilstein gas shock absorbers.

The standard Holden gearbox was used, but the differential was a "Detroit Locker" with 3.08 ratio.

Other variations from the road A9X included fully welded body seams, integated roll cage, additional dashboard instrumentation, a Recaro driver's seat and centre floor mounted fire extinguisher, and the big 130 litre alloy fuel tank with quick release flip cap mounted in the usual Torana location.

The car's interior still featured the standard front passenger bucket seat, with the rear seats folded flat and cargo area carpet still in place. Even the steering wheel was the standard SS/SLR/GTS item.

Quite different from today's V8 Supercars.

[Nick Short]

Quite an archive you have, Graeme! I loved the "good old days" when Bathurst cars were recognisably road cars - on my '75-'85 tape, when Brock hands over to Harvey in the pits you can see the nice brown vinyl door trims and dash, and skinny steering wheel! And in the AMC magazine feature on Brock's '79 A9X, the thing's still carpeted and the rear seat is folded down to make way for the roll cage! Aussie motorsport, eh?....

[Graeme]

I can recall my apprenticeship days at City Motors in Perth and the arrival of the HX LE Monaros and LX A9X Toranas.

A couple of well-heeled customers didn't like the gold poly steel wheels that came standard with the LE and opted for the genuine Holden chrome wire wheels that featured at the time as an option on the long wheelbase Statesman models and later in 1977 on all Holdens ( although never seen on a Kingswood ).
These LE's looked great at the time ...real traffic stoppers.

When the A9X was released I was a seventeen year old working in the dealership's specific brake work department. My foreman assigned me a blue four door pre-delivery Torana which had a "soft" pedal and was "pulling" to the left ...he asked me to initially check adjustment of the rear brakes and I told him I couldn't do that. He started to go off at me, and wouldn't accept my protestation until I convinced him to look under the rear end of the car, whereupon he witnessed the holiest of holy's of the time ...rear wheel disc brakes !!!

We also had a regular wheelchair customer who was still a hoon at heart ...he bought a new 4.2 V8 auto SL Hatchback Torana with hand throttle/brake controls ...we all loved taking that one out on the road test circuit.