The A9X package was the ultimate performance version of Holdens small car the Torana. For such a compact car, it had a huge 5 litre V8 which gave it a huge power to weight ratio. It also had the distinction of being the first Holden to be offered with disc brakes on all four wheels as standard.
It was introduced in August 1977, but with almost no publicity. The reason for this was Holdens reluctance to promote a high performance car in the safety conscious 1970s. Holden was only concerned with selling enough A9X Toranas to enable them to homologate the car for the Australian Touring Car series, with Bathurst wins being the ultimate goal. At an original price of AUS$11,000 the A9X package was considered very expensive at the time. In fact only 380 A9X Toranas were built making genuine A9Xs very valuable indeed today on the Australian classic car scene (making the original price seem very cheap indeed!).
The "A9X" name had no particular meaning, it was just the project name. Holden projects were prefixed with an A, just like Chevrolet (a sister GM company) prefixed it's projects with a Z (as in Camaro Z28).
As well as having a high output 5.0 litre V8, the A9X had bolted on wheelarch extensions (to allow for extra wide race tires) a large bonnet air scoop to feed the engine with as much air as possible, and a neat ducktail spoiler on the bootlid. The interior had a pair of deep high backed bucket seats and did not even have a radio (in keeping with the minimalist spartan race car nature of the A9X package).
AUTOart made this Torana exclusively for Biante Enterprises, a specialist Australian model company which has brought several great models of Australian cars to the market. As a model it has a good standard of fit and finish (especially the great white paintjob complete with matt black bonnet-very much a 1970s thing!), a detailed engine bay and interior plus great looking wheels. It is a hard model to find as the limited production run in 2001 sold out very quickly. I got mine through a specialist Australian website (www.gatewaymodels.com.au/index.htm) that seems to have a good stock of hard to find models but at a premium price (according to how rare the model is).
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