Viva la Torana! The first Holden small car turns 60

We love anniversaries here at CarsGuide, especially of forgotten and/or unfairly judged models. And this one’s both.

Few have had a more lasting, glorious and devastating impact on its parent, General Motors-Holden’s Limited (GM-H), than – or became as culturally important in Australia as – the launch 60 years ago of what we came to know eventually as the Torana.

This was the genesis of national motoring treasures like GT-R, XU-1, SLR 5000, SS, A9X and most tragically, GTR-X – a coupe that looks as stunning today as it would have if launched as intended back in 1970.

More on those later.

Yes, yes. The first Torana was the HB, and it was released on May 21, 1967. But that was preceded three years earlier in Australia by the Vauxhall HA Viva by GM-H, the car it directly replaced.

The original Torana by any other name.

Fun fact: named by Vauxhall’s hands-on MD, William Swallows, following a vacation in Spain, the Viva was historic, as Holden’s first small car and only its second mainstream model line, although GM-H did sell some global GM models in Australia during this time, namely from Vauxhall, Chevrolet and Pontiac. But most were largely niche exercises.

Why no Holden badge on the Viva?

Back then, Holden consisted of a single range of medium-sized sedan, ute, panel van and later wagon varieties. Right from 1948’s 48-215 original to halfway through the 1963 EH’s run.

But as the mid Sixties approached, soaring competition from the Ford Falcon and Chrysler Valiant was eroding Holden’s market share, along with smaller British (mainly Morris and Austin models), European and emerging Japanese cars that were also gaining ground from below.

The appetite for such cars was palpable. Fuelled by immigration, Australia’s booming population was spreading out into new suburbs, standards of living rose and changing social norms saw more women in the workforce. These and other factors drove the two-vehicle household phenomenon.

GM-H saw the writing on the wall, and went all in on Viva for a mid-1964 launch. It was one of GM’s first world cars, having been co-developed in the UK and Germany alongside Opel’s Kadett. Australians might be familiar with the latter via former Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond’s plucky Botswana-challenge ride that he dubbed “Oliver”, but we digress.

So, the Viva was Holden’s de-facto small car. But bets were hedged by not calling it a Holden because it was an all-new and unproven project as Vauxhall’s smallest car to date, so any potential faults or failures could tarnish Holden. And Vauxhall, which, as GM-H’s biggest seller in the pre-Holden Post-War period, still had a significant dealer network here, and so needed something of volume to sell.

Marketed as “Viva: THE GM-H SMALL CAR” with ‘Vauxhall’ in much smaller print, the not-Holden was brought in from Britain in boxes and built alongside the bigger EH, HD and HR models, with only minor trim and material changes over the English model to better-suit our climate.

The car was inexpensive, nimble, simple to understand and undemanding to drive. It was also endlessly tuneable and quite fun to punt around.

Roomy and lively, its 37kW 1.1-litre four-cylinder petrol engine delivered a decent power-to-weight ratio of 52kW/tonne, to the rear wheels via a slick four-speed manual gearbox, shifting the two-door four-seater sedan to 100km/h in about 22 seconds – which was pretty good for 1964.

Marketed mainly to women with its ‘light and easy’ controls, Viva sold well but not spectacularly, certainly not by Holden standards, so was regarded as a commercial disappointment.

Ultimately, GM-H’s caution was justified, as the small Vauxhall was also half-baked for Australian conditions, with a narrow track and stiff, jolty suspension resulting in a rough ride and, at times, alarming instability, especially at speed over gravel. Modern Motor magazine rolled one during a road test.

Excessive dust ingress and water sealing issues were other problems. Plus, the small Viva looked dowdy alongside the big-selling Morris 1100 and Ford Cortina, as well as the emerging Toyota Corona and Datsun Bluebird that followed. These were also a little larger, more powerful and (the Japanese competition especially) better made and equipped.

By 1967, it – and the Vauxhall brand – was cooked in this country.

Happily, for Holden, though, the Viva’s overseas success – particularly in the UK – prompted GM in Detroit to invest big on the HA’s heavily re-engineered successor.

Legend has it that, after frumpy proposals from Vauxhall, GM asked its rising Detroit-based designer (and future Holden styling boss), Leo Pruneau, to have a crack in just three hours, resulting in the pretty and far-more contemporary HB of 1966.

This time, GM-H spent two years undergoing prototype testing, since new suspension, a wider track and stronger body came with the changes. With small-car sales rocketing generally, Holden was confident enough to put its name as well as a fresh badge on the new Viva, and Torana (an indigenous term meaning ‘to fly’) was born.

And flew Torana did. It stormed up the sales charts, and remained a top seller right through subsequent restyles and facelifts.

Launched in October, 1969, the replacement LC’s biggest news was the availability of six-cylinder power. Stuffed under an elongated bonnet and stretched wheelbase, this move ushered in the iconic high-performance GT-R and fabled XU-1 grades that went on to dominate motorsport.

In retaliation, Ford stuffed the Falcon’s big sixes in the TC Cortina, igniting a compact-sedan power war.

Holden went one further, creating the XU-1-derived GTR-X for production, complete with brochures. But it was pulled in the 11^th hour because GM-H concluded the market wasn’t big enough to support Australia’s first volume sports car.

Pity, as its wedge-shaped silhouette, and pop-up headlights years before anybody else have already made this the most beloved Holden never made.

Meanwhile, the shorter-body four-cylinder Toranas soldiered on alongside the more-glamourous and popular 6s, while the LJ update of 1972 refined the formula.

However, the mid-‘60s HB Viva origins and tight packaging were becoming increasingly problematic against newer competition, and with the smaller Gemini pencilled in for 1975, Holden took the opportunity to upsize the next-gen Torana to the medium class with the 1974 LH.

The thinking here was to emulate the dimensions of GM-H’s storied EH of a decade earlier, as the HQ Holden had also grown, while capitalising on the Torana’s track victories with V8 availability, culminating in the SLR 5000 flagship.

LH also spelled the end of the Viva connection, though the earlier LJ continued in four-cylinder guise as the cheapo TA for a year while Gemini gestated.

Other notable Torana developments included the chic but sadly slow-selling hatchback, released with the LX facelift of 1976, introduction of Radial Tuned Suspension that transformed Holden handling starting with the rebadged Torana 4-based Sunbird range later that year, and, in 1977, the arrival of the venerated, Bathurst-bred A9X.

Even when new, the visceral, race-ready A9X was considered one of the greatest Australian supercars of all time, and is probably easily GM’s best performance model of the 1970s worldwide, period.

Perhaps that’s why the badge was exhumed for the Torana TT36 Concept of 2004, having died all the way back in 1980 during the short-lived early ascension of the first Commodore.

Misunderstood 20 years ago as a cheap shot to gain publicity, in this post-Holden world, a badge that’s surrounded and infused by the mythology of those era-defining GTRs, XU-1s, SLR 5000s and A9Xs seems perfectly appropriate for what was in store.

You see, today, the Torana TT36 – so-called because of its 3.6-litre twin-turbo V6 ­– is now a haunting reminder of GM’s international ambitions for the coming, promising VE Commodore’s Australian-engineered Zeta architecture. Along with previewing the radical new look of Holden’s big family car, this was an exercise in what a smaller, lighter sports sedan in the mould of the BMW 3 Series might look like. Some say it was going to go global, and going to be premium.

Of course, history had other plans for sedans generally and Holden in particular, and just the single concept car was produced.

Such a heartbreaking end. Hindsight suggests that Holden should have abandoned big-engine performance cars like this the moment sales of Toyota’s pioneering RAV4 SUV and its clones started subsuming vehicles from multiple segments – not just sedans, but hatchbacks, people movers and sports cars.

Instead, Holden wanted to recapture past glories that, to a big degree, started – 60 years ago this year – with its humble first small car, the Vauxhall Viva by GM-H.