I
N BUSINESS, it’s a good idea to get out there and show
people what you do. And that, folks, is the fundamental reason
this mountain-motored Torana exists. It’s a blown, big-blocked
business card for chassis, suspension and brake hardware
specialists Castlemaine Rod Shop, north-west of Melbourne.
The Torana’s build has taken a few twists and turns since The
Rod Shop’s Heath Waddington brought the car home a decade
ago. Seeing a few ‘before’ snapshots of this little Torana, it’s easy
to agree with his honest summary: “We should have chucked it
away and got another good one.”
You’ve probably heard a similar story – and read about it in Street
Machine – dozens of times over the years: A project car so munted
due to rust or damage that there’s little more than the chassis
number and roof skin remaining at the end of the build.
Heath bought this project in Ballarat when he was a 16-year-old
apprentice. “At first I wanted to do an XU-1 mock-up,” he says.
“Real ones were worth a fortune; this one was a two-door shell
that was reasonably priced.
“I had it sand-blasted and when I got it back from the blasters
there was nothing left! Put it this way: If it was a customer car, we
would have told them to go find another vehicle. That’s how bad
it was.”
But looked at with a glass-half-full attitude, the Torana was an
ideal project-starter for a more comprehensive, ground-up build.
“I put mega amounts of time into it,” Heath says. “I decided to
build a car that would win at MotorEx, so quality was a priority.I’m a coachbuilder by trade, so I got into it after work and on
weekends. I’ve done a lot of time on it, but it was good fun just
tinkering around.”
The car now rests on a custom CAD-designed chassis, with each
rail laser-cut in four separate sides (left, right, top and bottom)
and welded together to form one piece. It’s a considerably sexier
alternative to the usual box-section rails, and allowed the Rod Shop
team to customise the chassis to virtually any extent imaginable.
The main rails taper significantly inward and upward at either end
to allow for huge 295-wide tyres on the rear and maximum steering
lock at the front, especially with all four airbags deflated.
The floor has been raised 100mm to get the car right on the deck,
which meant some lateral thinking was required when routing the
car’s various systems. The custom oval-shaped exhaust system
travels through portals in the chassis’ transverse members for
optimum ground clearance and runs inboard of the main rails, while
the brake lines, fuel lines and wiring all run outboard of the main
rails, keeping them away from the considerable heat generated by
the exhaust.
The car’s wild underpinnings have remained a constant, but the
objectives for the project shifted once more midway through the
build. At first, Heath wanted the end product to be an Elite-level
show car. It was displayed at Summernats 29 with two blowers
straddling a GM LS V8, and with Heath’s oh-so-smooth bodywork
ready to be drenched in top-quality paint.
“At first I wanted to keep everything under-bonnet,” Heath says.HUGE CUBES, 14/71 BLOWER, AND A COUPLE OF THOUSAND
HORSEPOWER; WE WANTED TO BUILD SOMETHING NOTICEABLE!