Xu-2??

[paranoid]

A friend of mine was telling me that holden had plans in the 70's for an XU LJ torana, to be dubbed the XU-2; that was to have a V8 engine and other upgrades.

he says that the plug was pulled as the government took objection to what one minister decribed as 'bullets on wheels' and was only about 20 examples were completed.

is this at all true, or just myth.

could someone shed some light on it??

love one it if were, it'd fly...:)

[wacpt]

It was true, but i think there was only 5 made with only one actually hitting the roads.

[paranoid]

holy schmoly, i want it...:D where r the others??

[wacpt]

I remember seeing one in Street Machine magazine a few years back that was in mint condition, as for the rest, your guess is as good as anyones.

[Nick Short]

XU2, Phase 4 Falcon GT and any other planned Bathurst supercar all went down the tubes because of a newspaper article hyping the dangers of fast road-going racers. State governments made veiled threats to withdraw fleet contracts from manufacturers, and the cars were dropped, the Phase 4 after only 4 cars had been built, and the Torana after a similar number. Shame, but lucky for those owners who have them, as they're rare as hen's teeth!

[the_goldie]

Check out the Australian Muscle magazine latest edition. It has an article in there on these cars.


Cheers.

[Highlander]

Have Read conflicting reports but There is two versions reffered to as XU2.

The X stands for Experimental
The U stands for Unit
The 1 was for 1ST

Experimental Unit 2 is test fitting 308s in LJs
The other is 350 Chevs in What became L34 LHs
They were test prototypes.

Cheers David

[SCOTTT]

I have an original LH Torana owners manual at home and it shows XU-2 stickers where the SLR 5000 ones ended up going. From that I would assume the LH was going to be the XU-2, but with super car scare of the time the LH ended up being the SLR 5000 so as to be not indentified with the original factory super cars being developed, eg. XU-1 V8's and GT phase IV's. The books were obviously printed before the change, so it must have been a last minute decision.

[Senator1]

From what i've heard the XU2 is at Holdens own premises on display & another is at a museum down near Swan Hill (i think)

[Dazz]

I have a book at home I bought about 10-12 years ago (maybe more) on basically the history of the Torana. It also shows an LH prototype with XU-2 on the front gaurds.

It does mention the Pink V8 LJ prototype that a Mr P. Brock was driving around and developing, but from memory does not refer to it in any way as an XU-2.

That is not to say that it was not going to be called that, but the photographic evidence supports the LH as being the true XU-2.

If I can find the book I will scan the pic and post it up.

[VRSS]

I recall seeing a picture of an XU-2, silver in colour. Reminded me of a Datsun 260Z body style. Very long nose compared with the passenger compartment. The leading edge looked like it would cut a pedestrian in half!

[Yogi]

VRSS,
The silver Torana with the sharp nose you are refering to was actually the experimental 2-seater GTR-X, of which three were made in 1970. It had a fibreglass body and ran the 186ci XU-1 engine.
An even more interesting prototype from 1971 was the one-off Holden Hurricane (code named RD 001), an even lower sleeker 2-seat car, again with a fibreglass body and running a mid-mounted 253ci (4.2L) V8. It was supposed to be fitted with all sorts of advanced electronic features including a closed curcuit TV for rear vision, as there was no rear window. I saw this car when it was on display at a Holden dealer in Canberra.

Peter

[ausdiver]

XU-2 was the factory code given to the project that was eventually released as the LH SLR5000 L34

[jamiemann]

hi
xu2 were v8 Ljs. 3 were built and then converted back to 6 cylinder xu1s they had twin tanks and 308s etc yes the super car scare did cancel these as the phase 4 gt and the V8 charger. F#*K the pollies

[SWRT]

Other than the Phase 4 GTHO or Torana XU-2 there was a third Supercar that got banned.
The Valliant R/T V8 Charger or E52.
I found this in Australian Muscle car issue 3.
Do any other members know if any hit the road or which museams they would be in?

[Highlander]

E55s with 340 V8s, were the basis for the V8 RT version, they were toned down when released.and are a shadow of there original developement

They were originally to be a 340 V8 ,with triple 2 barrel holleys,
huge 3' header exhaust system,Dodge Dart Gearbox ,Dana Diff,
and under the sills had a thick rubber skirt .and a flat raised bonnet intake.

have only seen one E55 with the triples and some of the bits,it was suppose to be original but who knows.

[SWRT]

From what I know about the E55,Valliant did release a V8 engine car but with a weak V8 but If the Pollies at Canberra didn't take notice Valliant would have had a Super V8 engine in the E55.
Also in Feburary this year on my way back from the Butterfly farm hire go-kart track near Windsor, I saw a GTHO phase 4 and it might have been the one owned by the Sydney dentist and on a day most suitable to take out the old girl-Sunday.
Another story is when I was at Canberra for the inagural GMC 400 I meet Alan Moffat on the saturday and on sunday when we were looking round town we spotted old Moffat driving his old state of the art Transporter out of town.
Moffat must still have owned it in June 2000,maybe latter the guy who owns his 1973 GTHO phase 3 bought it from Ford Australia.

[XR6WGN]

Originally posted by SWRT
Also in Feburary this year on my way back from the Butterfly farm hire go-kart track near Windsor, I saw a GTHO phase 4 and it might have been the one owned by the Sydney dentist and on a day most suitable to take out the old girl-Sunday.
Another story is when I was at Canberra for the inagural GMC 400 I meet Alan Moffat on the saturday and on sunday when we were looking round town we spotted old Moffat driving his old state of the art Transporter out of town.
Moffat must still have owned it in June 2000,maybe latter the guy who owns his 1973 GTHO phase 3 bought it from Ford Australia.

1. How did you know it was a phase 4 GTHO, they were painted just the same as a standard XAGT with 15" Globe Bathurst wheels, the one owned by the dentist is Calypso green with a white interior - I doubt it would be that one due to the fact that the owner is 100000% anymous and also wants the car to stay that way.

2. The transporter is owned by David Bowden up in Queensland - He had it at last years Clipsal 500 (along with his GTHO Phase 4)

go to http://www.fouronthefloor.com.au/ for further info.

Paul B
XR6WGN

[squirtlbi]

Holden were going to produce an XU2 until a fued started from the Sun Herald June 25 1972. It was suposed to be fitted with a 308 mounted right up against the firewall and was said that during testing it handled considerably better than the XU1 and only weighed approx 65lbs more. No exact figures were posted on performance although it was said to be good for 120+mph in third and was going to have a theoretical top speed of 160mph, 8mph higher than the legendary GTHO phase four.

In an Sun Herald article of June 25 the NSW Minister for Transport Milton Morris said he was appalled at these "Bullets on Wheels" being sold over the counter.

June 29th another article came out saying the government was going to ban all cars that exceed 130mph.

June 30th the secretary of Australian Motorsport, Mr D Thompson announced that they were going to scrap series production car races which was where these cars raced. They even said they thought about modifying Conrod straight so the cars couldnt achieve such high speeds.

After that all three manufacturers (Holden, Ford & Chrysler) chucked in their towels. All in under a fortnight.

[VRSS]

I can still recall the phrase that was used a lot around that time.

"Ban LOW performance drivers not HIGH performance cars!"

Image where our cars might be now if all the government rubbish hadn't surfaced at the time. We may well be making double the export dollars that we currently make on cars.