22 replies to this topic

[dattoman]

L34 narrow flares
A9X flares are wider

[REDA9X]

No such thing as SLR flares.
L34 rear flares are smaller than A9X rear flares and bolt holes are in different positions.
Front flares are the same on L34, A9X hatch and sedan.

[GML-31]

I'm glad I saved this pic ages ago from here....
 comparison.jpg   72.05K   110 downloads

[Litre8]

To my knowledge the L34 flares were fibreglass too, there are/were some aftermarket plastic versions.

[Heath]

Same as any aftermarket stuff, fibreglass or metal. The cheaper places typically have products that fit poorly in comparison.

The places with good reputations make good gear generally.

[dattoman]

The factory ones were crap too .... so they remade exact replicraps

[REDA9X]

Genuine Holden flares have always been fibreglass, the racing laws of the time stated they had to be fibreglass so in order for Holden to have them homologated they had to have the same thing on the road cars. Front spoilers were plastic and so where the rears on sedans, but hatches were fibreglass.
The A9X's you see with smaller rear flares are just left over L34 flares, so there are only 2 types of rear flare. The easy way to work out which ones you have is the A9X flare the lowest bolt on the front part of the rear flare (on the door) is resessed into the front of the flare, the lowest bolt on the L34 is in a step right at the bottom of the flare.

[Ruts]

There is a guy on ebay at the moment selling A9X flares who I have been buying from for years. They are quality items and fit well. His name is Andrew and his location is Taren Point. Just punch in 'flares' for your search on ebay and you will a picture of a green torana in his add. Good luck

Ruts

[REDA9X]

One thing people always seem to fail to remember is these cars are 30 odd years old, whats fitted to the car today may not be the original component, peoples memories fade and the facts get blured, but here are a few facts.
Fact, if you went through the Holden spare parts system and ordered a set of flares when the L34 was new, you would get fibreglass flares.
Fact, if you ordered a front spoiler through the Holden spares system to suit an L34, LH SLR5000 or A9X you would get a plastic 2 piece front spoiler. Off the top of my head when the LH was released you could only buy a complete front spoiler, however with the release of the LX range, the front spoiler was able to be ordered as 2 seperate parts. However, on top of this, some dealers would sell you an aftermarket fibreglass front spoiler made by places like GS motor bodies as they were much cheaper, this is one of the reasons some people think their fibreglass front spoiler is factory original, because it came from the dealer. Don't for one minute think that spoliers did not get broken on these cars on delivery or at the dealerships, because they did. Gordon Mackley at Warrington Motors broke the front spoiler clean off the Bond HDT L34 putting it on display at the dealership and I can tell you for a fact an aftermarket front spoiler was fitted to the car as the dealership fixed it before Bond arrived with a GS one that was in spare parts at the time.

Fact, Group C regulations of the day required the flares to be fibreglass, so it made sense that Holden would have them supplied in fibreglass.

Now, these ad on components were made by outside suppliers, just like many of the specialist components were. There is always a possiblity that supply problems may have caused some vehicles to have had items supplied by another supplier. In the case of the L34 however, it was the first of the Toranas to have flares fitted, so it's not like there were 100 suppliers out there as there are today making flares for these cars. The only possibility (as with any contract) is that Holden enlisted a few different suppliers to make these flares initially and chose to go with one or two of these suppliers. At some stage supplies ran low and they had to go back to one of the original bidders to make extra flares, however again, why they would be plastic makes no sense considering what these cars are built for.

As for A9X's leaving the factory without plastic front spoilers, aagin this would come down to a simple supply issue. Considering the factory supplied all the parts and these were fitted by an outside dealer (the high majority being Pattersons), it's more likely if no plastic ones were on the shelf, the dealer fitting them was simply asked to source one. I seem to remember someone arguing black and blue with me at a car show their fibreglass front spoiler was the original fitted to the car and despite the fact it was even fitted incorrectly it was the original. Later the truth came out the original had been broken when the car was 6 months old and a new one fitted by a panel beater, so I hold bugger all credibility with memories and peoples word anymore.

[Litre8]

Yhe factory LX front spoiler for the 5000 and SS was much shallower than the L34 and I recall it was one piece plastic.

[REDA9X]

Yhe factory LX front spoiler for the 5000 and SS was much shallower than the L34 and I recall it was one piece plastic.

Correct, it was one piece and plastic. It was changed because many SLR5000 owners were breaking them. My family had a GPACK with the LH SLR500 spoilers front and rear fitted new by the dealer. The front was broken off so many times it wasn't funny, in the end it was removed. Replacements were always bought through the dealer buit they were always GS motor bodies ones, not the plastic ones.

[REDA9X]

Wayne, I've seen plastic ones as well with Holden part numbers, however the person who had then admitted to me a few years later he had the decals made to sell them off to people as genuine. He had several sets of them too, and i know this has been discussed on here before, i had a good laugh when I saw them. A guy tried to sell a set to Greg at a swap meet a few years ago. Again, I don't believe I ever said they didn't exist however did I? What I said is I fail to understand why it is Holden would even go down the route of getting them made in plastic knowing they couldn't be used by race teams, specifically when the L34 was made to race.
Again, I don't believe I ever said Mike was wrong did I. I've spoken to Mike on several occasions and the fact is he's not a young man and some of the information he has supplied to me in the past has a few facts that aren't correct, but as I said it's been over 30 years.