HQ Monaro GTS 4-door 253 Auto Review (Part 2)

HQ Monaro GTS 4-door 253 Auto Review (Part 1)

As predicted, the 4-door Monaro sold like hot cakes. It appealed to a wider cross-section, including the family man who once owned a GTS coupe yet still desired to be the envy of other drivers now that he had tin-lids to taxi around.

Unfortunately for purists, this base specification Monaro GTS 4-door was rather dull in the performance stakes. An SS would blow it away big time given the benefit of dual exhausts and the 3.36:1 axle. But it got worse.

HQ Monaro GTS 4-door 253 front view

The optional Trimatic automatic version was even more of a slug.

The Trimatic came mated to a towering 2.78:1 rear axle that took the edge (what little there was of it) off acceleration, to the point where a plain- Jane looking LJ Torana GTR could blow it into the weeds.

As car magazines of the day invariably tested the hot versions, we couldn’t find any credible performance figures for the auto 253 version.

HQ Monaro GTS 4-door 253 interior

To get performance on a par with the SS, the buyer needed to choose the extra cost 308ci V8 engine that also came with the high-performance 4-speed manual and the 3.36:1 rear axle. Moving up the ladder further, the top-of-the-line XW8 specification was a GTS 350 4-door with a proper muscle car driveline including dual exhausts and an LSD axle.

An HQ Monaro GTS 4-door with 253 V8 engine and Trimatic transmission in the hero colour of Mustard (yellow), a la Wheels’ March 1973 cover, is quite possibly the ultimate Australian-made image car that didn’t go as hard as its looks suggested. It’s certainly muscular in its stance and appearance, but the thought of referring to it as an Australian muscle car is a difficult one for many. If only looks could kill...

HQ Monaro GTS 4-door 253 wheel detail

The hottest version to buy

The list price of the HQ GTS 253 4-door (XV4) was $3954ể For almost another grand, $4925, buyers could choose a Monaro GTS 4-door with ‘go’ to match the ‘show’ẵ Technically speaking that’s the XW8 variant, AKA the Monaro GTS 350 4-door.

In typical GM-H fashion, vehicle packages were created to remove the hassle out of picking the various items required to build a car. The SS had been a package based on the Belmont V8 sedan. XV2 was the ‘magic’ code used to create the car. All that was then needed was to select a colour. Simple.

HQ Monaro GTS 4-door 253 interior

The Monaro GTS 4-door was the same. On the base vehicle - a Kingswood V8 sedan - the codes XV4 or XW8 were applied to create the desired vehicle. XW8 got you the 350 V8 engine (275bhp/205kW) with dual exhausts, Muncie 4-speed close-ratio manual transmission, LSD rear axle.

This was everything you needed to go out and pick a fight against an XB Falcon GT owner. The fun part in all this was that the XV4 and XW8 were externally identical apart from the exhaust pipes. But as these were painted black it would have taken a trained eye to pick the XW8 on a dark night. The performance of the XW8 was identical to the GTS 350 coupe, while nobody seemed to bother publishing figures for the XV4.