A Belmont in flash trackies

ONCE THE POORER BROTHER TO MONARO GTS COUPE; NOW RICH PICKINGS

- MICHAEL STAHL

THESE DAYS, NO automotive niche is left unplugged. So it’s surprising to reflect that, at the beginning of 1972, when Holden and Ford between them held 55 percent of the market, Holden’s new HQ range had no V8 performance sedan to counter Ford’s mighty Falcon GT. Conversely, Ford had no V8 two-door rival to Holden’s Monaro GTS.

It had been this way for five years, since the Bathurst biffo began with the Falcon XR GT in 1967 and Holden counter-punched with the Monaro GTS 327 in 1968. Yet to come, in June of 1972, was the ‘supercar scare’ that snuffed development of Bathurst homologation specials.

Ford’s XA GT hardtop arrived in March 1972; fully a year later, Holden would add a four-door Monaro GTS (in part, to help arrest the already accelerating slide of the Monaro nameplate down the sales charts).

In the meantime, in September 1972, came this intriguing Holden HQ special, dubbed simply the SS. Ironically, this nameplate would be more enduring than the glamorous Monaro, being briefly affixed to the V8-engined Torana LX before an almost unbroken series of Commodores, starting with the VH in 1982.