Okay, so there was no two-door bodyshell to be had (Holden ran out the last of those in HJ, GTS form, pictured above), but the basic four-door body made more sense given the car’s otherwise large exterior dimensions.
Okay, so it own’t stay with a WRX when it’s being hustled down a mountain pass but it isn’t too bad, especially if you find one with power steering (which became standard from May 1978) because the non-assisted steering is pretty heavy by today’s standards. In the looks department, the HZ Monaro was very much a product of its time, but has held up reasonably well.
And the market for classic Monaros has reached stratospheric heights, with early HK GTS models fetching mid-six-figure prices when they go under the hammer. A quick scan of one popular Australian online classified site reveals a price spread of around $220,000 to $450,000 for good examples of the earliest GTS models.
Bringing up the rear, much as they do in the Pantheon of Monaro greatness, the four-door only HZ Monaro GTS doesn’t command anywhere the near the premium of earlier generations, with prices in the $60,000 to $80,000 range.
