Tony Connelly owned the Holden Dealer Team car from 1970 until December 1998. During this time the car was used sparingly doing the odd hill climb and raced. The vehicle did however appear in the media in different formats over the ensuing years.
In July 1977 the Monaro appeard in "Wheels" magazine in a feature article comparing the Monaro to the newly established muscle car of the time, the A9X Torana. To cut a long story short the Monaro triumphed and in 1/4 mile times the Monaro was sightly quicker than the A9X and won the day. Surprising considering the A9X was much more modern technology. A copy of this magazine goes with the car.
In 1979 the Holden Dealer Team made a video called "The end of an Era" This video was about the Holden Dealer Team and the domination of Bathurst that the Dealer Team had for the previous decade. The Dealer Team contacted Tony Connelly and used the Monaro in the video. Peter Brock narrated the video and the video starts with Brock doing hot laps around Bathurst in this Monaro. For the video the car was painted up in Bathurst livery (the livery differs to that of the Sandown car) The car stayed in this Bathurst livery from this day forward. A copy of this video goes with the car as well as a copy on DVD.
Here is a photo of Peter Brock doing laps of Bathurst for "The end of an Era" video.
Some of the footage from The end of an Era video features in the official video released by Holden Motorsport titled "25 years of Holden in Motorsport 1969 - 1994" released in 1994. A copy of this video goes with the car.
In 1998 the car also featured in Unique Cars. Colin Bond raced the Monaro in the "Classic Adelaide" Rally. The vehicle was taken to GMH Fishermans Bend for a mechanical "freshen up" prior to the Rally and the article shows the Monaro in the bowels of Fishermans Bend receiving a good going over prior to Bond racing in the Rally.
The Monaro was sighted by the current owners in 1998 at Lang Lang at Holdens official 50th anniversary in a display of significant historic racing cars and the car also took part in Holdens official cavalcade through the city. Discussions were held as to what Tony intended on doing with the vehicle. Tony had being racing with the car and the class had been opened up. This meant that modifications were able to be made to brakes, carburation and the engine. Tony was hesitant to modify what he deemed to be a significant piece of Australian motoring history so Tony indicated he was open to the possibility of selling the vehicle.
Here are a couple of photos of the Monaro at Lang Lang in 1998.
A couple of weeks later a meeting was held at Fishermans Bend where the vehicle was housed and after some serious discussions the vehicle changed hands for the first time in almost 3 decades.
