OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Finding and Swapping Wanted Victa Monaro

Looking for a Victa Monaro lawn mower complete,if anyone got one to sell

You'll have more luck getting the Holden variety.

What is a Monaro? I have one that arrived here on Saturday and it is an alloy high arch full crank, but I'm sure I have seen a Powertorque with a Monaro sticker on it. Boy did they use a lot of different stickers on the Powertorques over the years, somebody must have had a full time job just dreaming up new names all the time

Monaro ??? that's new !, I'm surprised they didn't call one a Fairmont, or even worse, Sigma / Colt !

Victa also had the Cortina, Corvette, Commodore and Mustang.

G'day folks,
The 'Monaro' mowers were not actually a model in the main 'Victa' range, but seem to be one of Victa's many 'storebrand' series of mowers, so labelled for a retailer buying group called 'NARTA'. The earlier ones had 'Made exclusively for NARTA by Victa Ltd' on the deck decal.

A few examples of 1970's-80's vintage Monaros have popped up on ODK. E.g. https://www.outdoorking-forum.com.au/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/66711

We haven't been able to identify what 'NARTA' stands for, but one of their retailers was the Young's department store chain in the Southern NSW/ACT region.
Some of their 1970's ads are available through the NLA's Trove archive; http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110602591?

Norm,

Just for you this is a Monaro, hope this helps, BTW these are worth far more than the ones with handles attached. LOL !

I remember this daft lotteries ad featuring a guy replacing an HT like the one at the top with one of those insipid modern Commodore based ones. Even then, I thought it should have been the reverse.
Gadge, that's very interesting. I have a feeling it is the same story with the low arch Victa Commodore from around the same period. I, personally don't go for the Monaro's styling with it's wierd cowl, red base and the slab sided style thumb latch catcher. But evidently, it sold well as I have come across many examples in the past.
One thing I'll say in favour of the the Monaro type catcher, is they seem to have been the least prone to cracking.
This topic has an older Monaro with no specific Victa label and showing the NARTA name. I wonder why they disguised it as a full Victa model later on?
https://www.outdoorking-forum.com.au/forum/u...victa-monaro-new-addition.html#Post88395

Thanks BB, I did in my younger days have a 307 HK Monaro and my son had an HQ 2 door and an HJ 2 door both of which I spent million hours on the bodywork replacing rust sections and damaged pannels. Still a few bits kicking around here, I think there is probably a pair of HQ Coupe doors in the back shed

Just for you Norm, a 307 GTS Monaro,


Ah ............memories.................



Now well over a $100,000 worth of memories

I could have acquired the green Brougham as seen in Dirty Deeds starring Brian Brown, Toni Collette, Sam Worthington and John Goodman.
It was out the front of a house in Sydney's Northern Suburbs for just under $5000 in the early 2000s.
Imagine what it would be worth now.
Also had a chance to get a beautiful well cared for XY Fairmont with 4.1l six from a Ford dealership around the same period. Asking price? $7000

What is it about 1970's cars ?????

A lot of iconic models that plenty still remember have virtually disappeared and become curiosities now.
They were the last to have steel bumpers and were from a very interesting and revolutionary time in our history.

Lucky enough to have owned a HK and HT monaro while a friend of mine had the pail yellow bathurst monaro,those good old days of yesteryear

Google showed a variety of Victa shapes and colors of mowers bur realistically just finding one is a start

BB the HK I had was a silver mink 307 GTS great car I put new rear quarters in it,, got them for about $15 each from memory and then traded it is on an SS Torana for the missus and I was happy with the fact I got $1000 for it as a trade in. Then I sold the SS about ten years ago for $500. Couple of dumb mover there but live moves on

You would get a five digit amount now. What a bummer. You're not to know, which is why they fetch those prices.

If we all had a Crystal Ball then we'd all be millionaires wouldn't we ?

I just cringe when I remember all the HK,T,G parts I threw out as they were just common things that wouldn't wear out in a 100 years, now those bits fetch around $150 each, unbelievable ! and don't start me on HQ, with the 467,000 Taxi cabs built and now for a flogged out 202 Trimatic Kingswood full of rust you can easily pay $6000.

25 years ago you couldn't find a hole big enough to bury them all in.

In 1993 I was offered a beautiful straight looking silver 1980 CM Valiant Regal with an unusual dark blue cloth trim for $200 with a blown engine. I was a poor student with no driver's licence. I have never seen one with that blue trim since.
I remember finding an HK taillight in a council curbside collection pile in the early 2000s and just placing it back on the pile!

HQ was an amazing bit of engineering the entire front clip could be removed and replaced as a complete unit (guards,nose cone and bonnet) in a very short time because the entire unit was held on by half a dozen bolts, once you knew where they were it was dead easy, in fact my son knew of a WB Statesman that was parked on the nature strip outside a blokes house and when he came out in the morning the whole front clip had been stolen and nobody saw anything, that is how simple it was.

^ Which is why I'm glad I've got a Fairlane with 302 V8!!
The closest I have come to Holden ownership was my 1995 Buick 3800 powered Toyota Lexcen on LPG.

Yuk !, anything before the Ecotech version is awful. They perfected the Commodore with the Nissan RB30 powered VL and then again with the current VF styling in either V6 or V8.

Hi Norm,

The HQ was based around mix and match, this way the engineering costs were lowered and the production line was simplified, remember they had 400 market gardeners climb in and out each and every single one before they came off the end of the line.

G'day all punters.
Many thanks to Glo Mod Gadge for pointing out that 'Monaro' was first used - as a brand name - to
replace the stencil brand, Mayfair, for mid-arch lawnmowers sold to mass retailers.

Monaro was certainly used, as well, on high-arch alloy-base machines.

My best guess is that 'Mayfair' was too upper-class for egalitarian Australia - at that time.
'Monaro', like 'Torana', captured the Australian spirit.
Mower followed automobile.

------------------------------
Jack

It was the T4 model and that came with the Ecotec series.
The VP and VR were not bad and I liked their exhaust much more than the quieter but dull Ecotec series. Good low to mid range performance though.
If you like the VL, you may as well just get the even better Australian built Nissan Skyline from the same period, diff noise issues notwithstanding!

It was indeed; here are a couple of Trove ads for those.
Eric Andersons 25/1/77 http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/224511532

Young's 4/10/79 http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110602591 Interestingly, this ad claims the Monaro is 'Made by Victa exclusively for
Young's'!

These are listed as 'Store Brand High Arch' models when they first appear in the VictaCode 'quick reference parts book 1970-1991', for the 1977-78 model year.
Later on, from 1980-83, they were listed as the 'Mayfair High Arch' model.

Well, the Mayfair series was the 'generic storebrand' which was sold through department and hardware stores who didn't order large enough quantities at one time [i.e. for 'single drop' delivery] to qualify for their own 'house brand' labels.

They weren't sold through Victa servicing dealers, as far as I can recall.

As retailer buying groups gained in supply chain dominance [from about 1970 onwards] within the appliance trade, the Victa 'house brands' proliferated; at the expense of the Mayfair branding, I'd think .

Would the Pace branded Victa high arch from the late 1970s been a result of a similar arrangement as the high arch "Victa Monaro". My late gran had one of these Pace branded high arch mowers. The Pace "banner; was also imprinted on the thumb latch catcher itself.

"We haven't been able to identify what 'NARTA' stands for" National Associated Retail Traders of Australia.

I can't get my mind around an organization like that generating an impostor Victa model.
How would the average punter know?

G'day folks,
Thanks for that, maxwestern. That mob looks like the right one, and they were well established by the 1970's.

Not quite; Pace was by the 1970's a 'second tier' brand like Mayfair, and sold through non-dealer retailers.

Well, the machines were made by Victa! IIRC, Victa themselves encouraged the proliferation of storebrands, as the minimum order to qualify for 'house brand' labelling was only about 200 mowers, taken as a single delivery.

Were there any other store brands in disguise like Victa Monaro?
Two from the late 1970s early 1980s era I have come across that I suspect were at least non dealer retail models like the mid price positioned high arch Pace mentioned, were the low arch Victa Commodore and the 125cc Victa 2 Stroke High Arch and possibly the Victa Corsair (which I believe ended up being the same as the Victa Corvette at the end).
It would seem that the mower dealers in the "Monaro era" only sold models from the official Victa catalogue such as the Corvette, Silver streak, Mustang and self propelled model.
There was also the MSAA mower dealer store branding to add to confusion, as well as Victa catalogue models probably available in some non dealer outlets.
It was certainly a different era back then.