:thumbup: Thanks for the input, A-BomB, and welcome to HAN. It's great to hear input from reliable sources. I do wish ours had climate control, but in the whole sceme of things it's not a big deal. Sounds like you know your Holden. Do you work for them or sell them?

 

No he lives in Australia.

Over there, the muslce car culture is alot like ours. Over here, you have the Camaro and Mustang, and there you have the Falcon(Ford) and the Commodore(GM). So, depending on whos product your a fan of, you know your shit about the company.

I want to see the Maloo/Ute(A-Bomb knows what Im talking about) become the next El Camino...especially the 6.2L edition..mmm...Go Holden!

 

the reason the gto is a rebadged monaro is because bob lutz wants it yesterday. if you remember, he only came to gm a couple years ago. the next gen gto will be out in a couple years, i'm pretty sure as a reworked version of the cts (sigma) platform. sorry if i'm wrong about that, i read about it a while ago..

also, the differences from f bodies are the interior (obviously), the exhaust (which is true dual, instead of y pipe to dual outlet muffler), the higher lift cam, and some nice looking fuel rail covers!

 

Outside of the block and pistons, I don't think there's anything the GTO shares with the old F-bodies. You want to know how well concieved this GTO is? The exhaust is tuned, via computer, to the exact harmonics of the 1965 GTO with a 427, and the engine itself is near silent! I swear, the idle was flawless with my head under the hood, but the grumble of the exhaust let you know otherwise. I could not believe it. They must have a good combination of engine mounts, balancing, and machining internal components. Because I've never experienced a GM engine with a smooth idle, especially a pushrod 350. So I doubt there's more than a handfull of parts shared with the archaic F-bodies. This ain't the GM of yore.

 

my engine was so quiet i had to put a magnaflow catback on it... i hated the quiet sound.

that's pretty crazy about tuning the exhaust note with a computer though. i knew they tried to make it sound like a v8 should (ie not like ls1 f bodies), but damn!

 

Yeah, they took a factory numbers right (true origional, not a single mod or non spec part) 1965 GTO hardtop with the 427, recorded the exhaust from idle to top engine speed on to computer, and then designed the new GTO exhaust to match it note for note. He said they even recorded the ignition hot and ignition cold sepparately. I guess they really paid attention to detail.

 

I'm not an expert on the old pontiac GTO's but i heard the motors where either - 389 , 421 or 455, and yeah, they did try to emulate the exhaust to sound like the original.

did it sound sweet ?:naughty:

 

A bomb -

You're very close.

The company the eventually became Holden was established in 1856.

In 1923 they signed a deal with GM to produce bodies for GM mechanicals.

Unfortunately they spent a bunch on expanding just before the depression and ended up deep in debt. In 1931 GM purchased the company for 1,111,600 Australian Pounds.

First all Australian vehicle was produced in 1948.

Some trivia for you all...

 

It sounded very :naughty: ! It was like everything you wanted in a muscle car (exhaust note, balls) and nothing you didn't (engine knock, body rattle). You may be right on the engines. I don't know myself..... he said a '65 with a 427. Perhaps he did mean a 421.

 

some pics of the cars getting loaded onto ship

click on pics for higher resolution-