Street Machine Australia — January 2018

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FTER retiring from a successful career
in earthmoving and transport, Andrew
Beale decided to invest his money
wisely – in muscle cars. They’re mostly
Holdens ranging from the 70s to the
2000s – with a couple of Yankee GM
classics thrown in for good measure – plus
one very rare and desirable Charger. Oh, and
that white Torana? Yeah, that’s the one Street
Machine gave away back in 1987, and it looks
like it’s in very good hands.

So, you didn’t like the idea of throwing all
of your money into a super fund?
The accountant kept telling me to do super,
but I don’t like it, so I bought the cars instead

• I’ll do my own super, you know. It’s paid off
  pretty good.
  It’s not just about the investment,
  though?
  No, I’ve liked cars all my life. From when I was
  17 I’ve had good cars.
  What was the first cool car you had?

I had an EH Premier – it was actually Mum’s –

and I got that just before my licence and started

mucking around with it. Then I swapped that

for a 307 HT Monaro.

There’s been quite a few since then?

I’ve had a lot of cars – shit cars too — but I think

the next car was an HT Kingswood with a 253

and four-speed, then an XA GT coupe. I had

shitboxes for a long time because I bought a

house. I bought an A9X for $23,000 about

15-odd years ago, I suppose. I’ve still got that

A9X; it’s a four-door. I was actually looking

for a Charger, but I couldn’t find one. An E49

came up on eBay and I bought that, but it was

Hot Mustard and I didn’t like the colour, so I

sold it about three years ago. I’ve accumulated

the other cars over the years.

You’ve also got the last A9X ever built?

Yeah, the red road car. There’s a book out by

Eric Blair called Holden Torana Performance

Handbook. It lists all the A9Xs that were built

and it’s the last one listed in the book. It’s still

got the original paint on it, but it had Simmons

wheels and a drop tank in it, so I took all that

out and put the original stuff back on it. It

had wiring everywhere – burglar alarm, radar

detector and all that shit. I took it all out and

threw it in the bin.

It looks like most of the collection is

Holdens; do you only collect GM stuff?

I had an XY GT a fair way back, but it drove like

a heap of shit and I didn’t like it. I had the VK

Group A at the same time – I had the GT first

then bought the Group A – and it drove 100

per cent better, so I got rid of the XY.

There are a couple of American classics

in the shed as well. Are they any nicer

to drive?

Yeah, the Chevelle doesn’t drive too bad, but

the Camaro’s a heap of shit to drive as well –

like the XY was – but it’s because they’ve got

shit tyres. The GT had Aquajets on it and the

Camaro’s got Polyglas rag tyres on it, but it’s a

matching-numbers 396, four-speed car.

How about the Chevelle?

We bought that when we were in America from

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THE ACCOUNTANT KEPT TELLING ME TO DO SUPER, BUT I DON’T LIKE IT,

SO I BOUGHT THE CARS INSTEAD. IT’S PAID OFF PRETTY GOOD