Unique Vauxhall Ventora FD 1968 - A Rare Piece of GM Vauxhall History
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- Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
- A 1968 Vauxhall Ventora FD believed to be one of the last remaining Vauxhall Test cars used at the Chaul End Testing Facility prior to its decommissioning. Being a Vauxhall Test vehicle, the car could not be sold so it was offered to the Jim Russell International Racing Drivers School to enter in the 1968 London-Sydney Marathon. Research indicates that the vehicle was tested by triple World Formula 1 Champion Sir Jack Brabham and was driven in the 1968 Marathon by David Walker who also became a Formula 1 Driver with Team Lotus in 1972.
My Dad bought an FD Victor in 1970.Lovely looking cars and very rare now.
This Ventora is lovely,with loads of history to boot!
Had a '68 Ventora back in '81. Green with a black vinyl roof. I was 21 and remember the trip to Mount Manganui with 3 of my mates, 100 mph fully loaded easy.
That is beautiful, I own a 1968 Victor FD 2000.
Lovely looking cars.
I had 1970 FD white with black vinyl roof, I swapped it for a Honda XL 250 motorsport. Lovely looking car always wanted the ventora would love to go back to them days, pre internet and mobile phones didn't have much but they were better times imo.
Wow Laurie, what a fantastic overview of this famous car. I love these cars, my dad had one when I was little and I had 2 or 3 as I grew up. In NZ a lower trim spec Ventora (1968-70) and Ventora II (1970-72) were badged as the Victor 3300SL. You have done justice to keeping the story alive, as it is very difficult to get much information anywhere today on the background of the FD Ventora (original design, engineering). Thank you for sharing. Looks like you're in NSW, I am in QLD. Be great to see this car one day. Thank you!
Thanks Laurie, What a wonderfully preserved piece of automotive history. Ventoras are pretty rare now here in England and a handful have survived in New Zealand and Scandinavia. Great video. Thanks for sharing!
(a small piece of pedantry - the Viva with the black bonnet pictured with the Ventora and Victor at 2:15 is a Viva GT - not a Brabham Viva)
Colin, thank you for the feedback and I stand corrected. I don't know why I said Brabham when I knew it was a Viva GT.
I drove a mate's 1974 Ventora on many a trip. It was 1974 and a 3300 automatic, straight Six. Just 122bhp, I think, from the road test figures. Felt quick to me at the time and was enjoyuable to drive.
Your car has a very impressive history Laurie. Not only a veteran of the London to Sydney Marathon but driven in the day by Sir Jack Brabham.
I passed my test in my ventora back in 73 I loved the engine. Now wind forward to 2023 and I have a 69 PC Cresta deluxe and the same engine, nut and bolt restore and a bare metal respray (not me, an old guy in Yorkshire did it) It's also white and glides along.
Lovely looking car , still looks good today . I knew somebody who had a twin choke weber carb fitted and it sounded superb.
These Ventoras were still sold in New Zealand even when Australian GM-H officially stopped carrying Vauxhall products after the FC Victor 101 and end-of-line HA Viva in 1966.
Wheels magazine (I think it was) went to NZ to test a white FD Ventora and (in a different issue of the magazine) the FD Victor 2000. Both were SURPRISINGLY potent... *the 4-cylinder 1968 Victor wound up to 104mph* in an era when the 6-cylinder Holden sedans (even the HK 186 manual) couldn't exceed 95mph - and the Powerglide Kingswood 'sixes' struggled up to just 90mph.
But wait - there's more!
*The 3300 Ventora FD 4-speed hit 112mph, with a 17.2 sec quarter mile!* Again, to put that into perspective, the range-topping 5-litre "2-barrel" 307 V8 optioned Kingswood Powerglide only ran out to 108mph, with an 18 sec quarter! And, a year later, the LC Torana GTR only managed 105mph/17.5s.
What was special about the NZ-spec FD Vauxhalls that made them so fast? Who knows, but I would be interested to find out if the British spec FD sedans also had those long legs.
To add to the puzzle about those fast 1968 Vauxhalls, a few years later in about 1971 through 1974 Vauxhall OHC 1600 (initially) and 1760 engines could be optioned into late LC, LJ and TA series Toranas. The marketing slogan was "Little Big Wheels", and these engine choices were part of an astonishing range of choices from 1200-ish up to triple-SU 3300 sixes in the LJ XU-1. But the point of mentioning this is that 1600 and 1760 engines were underwhelming - and drew criticism in the motoring press for being slow! So what happened to the Vauxhall slant 4 between 1968 and the early-1970s? Were they deliberately specified as low compression so as not to embarrass the small Aussie sixes (like the 2250) that also went into the LC and LJ Toranas??
Boyded Holden in Sydney was one Australian Holden dealer who continued their association with Vauxhalls into the FD and FE era. They imported a few now and then and sold them to embassy staff and cashed-up Vauxhall diehards. My family in Newcastle, NSW, made the pilgramage to Boyded one weekend in 1972 and found they had a white FD Ventora in the used car lot for $2250 and a gorgeous British racing green FE Ventora with black vinyl roof in the new car showroom priced at $5800. If memory serves, the FE had a switch on its gearknob to engage the "Laycock de-Normanville" overdrive.
Ross, the FD is more than comfortable on the open road against modern vehicles. Surprises many when I cruise past them. The FD is a far better performing car than an LC/LJ Torana or HT/HG Kingswood. Why GMH didn't offer an overdrive I will never know.
@@lauriemason6395 That's an interesting question Laurie. One answer might be the cost... In Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, 6-cylinder cars like the Ventora were upmarket offerings where buyers aren't so price-conscious. But in Australia, the sixes were family cars and fleet cars. Just a thought. Another idea might be that in the Australia of the 1960s we had a culture of simple, tough cars that could be fixed in Coober Pedy as well as in Vaucluse. A European-sourced overdrive would have raised a lot of eyebrows:)
@@rosskelly8268 😊
But, GMH did have "up-market" models such as the Premier in EH, HR, HT-HG etc so it could have been argued an overdrive could have been an option Ross. Anyway, the FD is for its time a good performer on the road with the panhard bar and coils doing their job well, far better than leaf sprung rears.
Great Laurie, thanks for creating the video with the story of the FD Ventora. A pitty we didn't get to see it while we were in Sydney
3.3 litre straight-six was a torquey old lump, but a bit of a boat anchor. A mate, around 1978/80, had a '67 FD that'd had it's original 2.0 litre slant-4 replaced with a 2.3 litre unit out of a FE VX4/90; very quick car.
In 1986 I did a similar thing to a '69 FD 2000. I found a 'new and unused 1984 2.3 slant four' that a subbie had taken straight out of his brand new CF and replaced with a GM350. So, the 2.3 installed straight into the 2000's engine bay more or less a bolt-up, but with a bit of fiddling around with the starter motor set-up which differed in the CF it turned out. I pulled-off all the restrictive CF 28mm Zenith intake system and transplanted the 2000's better Stromberg CD set-up. It was a totally successful exercise and the top speed rose noticeably and the vehicle could reliably break traction now on standing starts. It was just a 3 speed auto! But wish it had been a manual trans in hindsight.
In NZ the Ventora gave the Valiant 318 V8 a close run for the 1970 Benson and Hedges..! 😉
Remember the Raymond Mays trickery Ford guys had available for their 2553cc Zephyr sixes? Just imagine if that had been available for the Vauxhall 3.3 . . . !
Thanks for this fantastic video, which I really enjoyed. I grew up in Luton where this car was made. Myself and my family have a very long history with Vauxhall. As a lad I would climb the trees at the Chaul end test track and watch the cars go round! I went on to work at the Vauxhall spares warehouse and have just retired after 44 years. We obviously handled all the ventora/ victor spares back in the day. You have a wonderful car and as you say a piece of history. I am proud it came from Luton. Thanks again.
Hi Roger, records show the car as allocated to the Research Laboratory and parts on the car like the differential show peculiar marks instead of production stamps/part numbers. The chassis and suspension was modified with skid plates and protections that also help stiffen the body. I took her for a run the other day up the motorway from Sydney and at 110km/h she just purrs along at 2750rpm, and will sing to over 6500rpm so very easily still does over the old ton in mph. David Walker who drove her on the 1968 Marathon said they had to drive her at over 100mph for more than 10 hours across Afghanistan to make up time. I can believe him.
Hi Laurie, many thanks for the information on your fantastic car.
Love your car mate my dad had a 71 emerald green fd estate in 72 &i loved it ❤
Mine was a 71 with 6 headlights ☺️
Best car I ever had same colour as well
Sorry about the muffled commentary, didn't sound like that off the phone. First time at doing this sort of thing.
Never able to understand why the FD was replaced early by the awful FE.
l'ts about 35 years ago when we had ours a Sienna brown with black vinyl roof auto. did'nt think much of the autobox.
Stop saying "aaaahhhh"