Holden’s lost HO slayer

MIDNIGHT, APRIL 1972. The Great Western Freeway between Adelaide and Melbourne is still, subdued by the heavy blanket of night. A pair of headlights streak across Victoria’s vast western plains, disrupting the peace and tearing into the darkness like a serrated knife through linen sheets.

It’s a yellow LJ Torana, rego KSN 116, with a fresh-faced 21-year-old at the helm, pushing his galloping metal steed to near terminal velocity in a show of youthful bravado. Thinrimmed glasses help him peer into the inky blackness before him as the speedo needle swings around the dial – 100mph, 110mph, 120mph. It’s a relentless climb accompanied by a 308ci V8 bellowing in top gear – a guttural war cry sung to only the empty fields that stand as solitary witness to this high-speed display of automotive grandeur.

Now, some of you might be thinking, the LJ Torana was never sold with a 308 V8,