The story behind Asian-made Holdens

The reach and volume of Holden exports at the time was staggering, even by todayʼs standards.

In the early 1970s, GM-H was not only exporting Holdens to 71 territories throughout the world, but the company also had its name on seven overseas manufacturing plants.

By 1972, Holdens were being built in Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, New Zealand and South Africa. The cars were exported as CKD (Completely Knocked Down) kits, that were then assembled locally.

These exports were done using Holdenʼs own ship.

Toranas were mainly assembled in Malaysia and Indonesia, but were sold widely through the region. The LC Torana SL six shown here was photographed in Hong Kong. These sold particularly well in Asia, because of theircompact size and reliability.

What this means for Aussie enthusiasts is that there should still be quite a few Toranas around in this part of the world. Not surprisingly, we hear that some local classic car importers are already hot on the trail of any surviving ʻAsianʼ Toranas.

Meanwhile, we canʼt help wondering what happened to that Holden ship? It would be one hell of a restoration project.