Brand Loyalty?

[jennie285]

My parents had a kombi for camping, and a bug for everyday driving, we brought the kombi with us from UK. When dad passed, my mum found it hard to find anyone to fix the vw's in Forbes, so she bought a boring old xc falcon s/wagon. My stepfather had a boring Toyota corolla wagon, and mum kept her falcon I got my license in that old tank...my love for old Holden's comes from my teens when we all drove around in Holden's, A9x's, and monaros, EH's, HR's and the odd XY falcon, not to mention panel-vans, will never be sure if they were sandmans, as stripes were not the go back then in our town...Then Rodney came to town in his HZ yellow sandman complete with stripes, and the rest is history....we had to sell the van to accomodate for kids, and we bought a HZ 80model kingswood wagon, which was a lemon by all account, wherever we went we blew hoses off, rear main seal went, air conditioner constantly played up, oil light sender had issues, hence filled her up with oil in every town from parkes to Mildura.. put a Holley on, then took it off as still used a tonne of fuel....then when the baby was 5 days old the motor which we had just completely rebuilt had the valve stick open and hit the piston and a week later the other side went as well...the guy that did the heads had never seen that happen before, and re did them at no cost except we had to put it all back together. Once we had paid off the house we bought a brand new EB Falcon XR8 which was the first ford V8 in 10 years, cheaper to run, powerful, and a dream to drive, and never broke down....since then we have bought new xr8's and traded the old one about every 6 years....now we have a GT falcon. We dislike commodores although we had them for wedding cars, just never really got the go of them. We did however buy a cross 8 which was great for 4wheel driving, ute back for Rodney's work, fitted the kids in the back for holidays, and had a load of power, sounded great once we modified the exhaust. It did have transmission issues which was replaced under warranty. Sadly the middle east crises put an end to paying for all that fuel, so got a 6 cylinder ute...and I have a jeep, the GT is too nice to have for a daily, and I did suggest we sold it, but got shot down in flames. To sum it all up we loved our original sandman,it never gave an ounce of trouble, and have bought two to restore, and will drive them about once finished, we can see fix most problems with the motor, but after 1978 we have gorrn to the dark-side. I willl be wearing a Ford Shirt at Bathurst but might have to borrow one from Richard davidson coz I still love the good old holden.

[HK1837]

Doesn't matter which car you follow at Bathurst. You are only supporting the badge! Neither "brand" resembles the road car. May as well wear a Plymouth T-shirt as it is as close to what is racing as a road going Falcon or Commodore is.

[jennie285]

Yes I realize that HK they are only a shell,sometimes I wonder whether was better when they produced about 500 muscle cars in order to qualify at Bathurst, as at least you could drive the car that raced at Bathurst....

[HK1837]

I'm a Holden, Torana, Sandman etc history nut. Love old stuff. I don't even watch or take any interest in Bathurst, except to watch the historic tourers and if i'm lucky get to see some production car racing. V8 supercars have got almost as boring as F1. It's not a race anymore on the track, just in the pits. Shame.

[wbute]

Yeah touring cars have lost the plot. I want to see more than two makes racing in more than one class. I want to see the great driver who can flog the pants off everyone even when they are in a slow sh$$tbox. i want to see real racing where the race is as much between the driver and their car as it is between the the drivers. I hate pace cars that change the real result of a race.

[agr071]

I prefer holdens by far, and have had heaps of them.
Having said that my current daily driver is a Laser.
Would have prefered a Gemi but the TD - TG are too small for me and the RB isn't easily found.
I would also gladly own an XA-XC pano or coupe.

[HZSandman]

All Holdens for me.

Started when dad got a great deal from a mate going overseas and took ownership of this blokes one owner HT Monaro. We learnt to drive in it and drove it it my Late teens and early twenties. Was the only "good" car my folks ever owned and what a ripper.

That got me into Bathurst etc, but same as most people, I don't even watch it anymore as I struggle to even tell the cars apart without seeing the badge. Would prefer more production cars racing with lots of makes/models.

That was it. Holdens all the way from then on except for a Subaru WRX about 10 years ago for five years. Back to another Monaro now.

So I have owned many Holdens over the years and one Subaru. Now I love Holdens but the best car I have ever owned was the Subaru. Nothing ever broke in the 5 years we owned it. Regular servicing and that was it.

Wish I could say the same for any of the Holdens I have owned including the current Monaro. Problems here there and everywhere. The build quality is just not the same as the Japanese cars. We may be going back to a Subaru very soon as we have been thinking about an 07 Liberty GT by STI at the moment.

[adam perth]

GM or Toyotas for me.

i think the interchangability between the holden models has partly lead to them having such a good following. lends itself to actually being repaired, not scrapped.
and so the love begins!

[agr071]

I was fortunate enough that my old man used to work for a local Holden dealership in Newcastle.
He was service manager so he used to bring home some of the latest demo model cars.
This included the HG Brougham, HQ GTS 2 door, HJ & HX GTS Monaro (including the LE),HJ & HX Statesman.Just to name a few that i can remember (saw pics of the HG & HQ).
During this time he may have kept it for 2 or 3 months, so it was good to go on holidays with these vehicles.
He used to have Holdens from his FC until he sold his VS back in 1999.
He started his apprentiship with the Holden dealer in Singleton, then moved to MKL in 1955.
Needless to say i gave him shit when he sold his VS to buy a Toyota.

[wbute]

That would have been cool Agro!