Australia’s Greatest Muscle Car – You voted. And so did we.

Let’s get one thing straight. It’s not that we didn’t agree with your assertion that the Ford Falcon XR6 Sprint is Australia’s greatest ever muscle car. It’s just that we thought we’d give the assorted bunch of experts, malcontents and closet anoraks in the Wheels office their say on what they thought should carry off the crown.

Being rather useless at building suspense, I can let you know that it’s the Holden LX Torana A9X.

Of the ten staff who would proffer an opinion, the Torana claimed fully half of the votes, and with good reason. Its legend was built on two successive Bathurst 1000 wins by the Holden Dealer Team, with Peter Brock taking a starring role.

Brock was such a force at the helm of the A9X that he still holds the record for the largest winning margin at the Great Race – 6 laps in 1979, with a lap record on the last one. Underlining its Mt Panorama pedigree, the A9X also has to its credit two Australian Touring Car Championships and dozens of individual race wins.

Road-going A9Xs came with a 5.0-litre V8 producing 186kW and 434Nm, following the formula of big engine, small car. A larger 10-bolt Salisbury diff’ and rear disc brakes were fitted, with the option of a Borg Warner Super T10 four-speed manual. The hotter L34 engine went into racing cars.

Only 100 genuine A9X two-doors were produced and about 60 of those are believed to survive. They’re thin on the ground but our staff loved this True Blue muscle car from the golden age of the Aussie chrome bumper more than any other.

Sharing the remaining five votes amongst them were the HT Monaro GTS 350, the VK Commodore SS Group A, the HSV W427 and the HSV GTSR W1. We had a much smaller sample size than you guys with your eye-poppingly Ford-heavy selection, so we’re making no claim on this being as valid as yours, democracy manifest and all that.

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