Chronicles: 1976 Year In Review

So complex were the electronics that the release of the Lagonda was set back 3 years...

The HX was released, but little was changed over the HJ...

600 Limited Edition Monaro Coupes would be manufactured to run out the remaining 2 door body shells...

The new Datsun 180B was released in 1976, and quickly became a best seller...

Nadia Comaneci, the star of the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics, scored seven perfect 10's on her way to three gold medals...

The extremely popular "Sullivans" would air on Channel 9, following the exploits of a typical Australian family during WW2...

Howard Huges, aviator, movie producer & billionaire...

The quintessential rock/pop album of the '70's, Frampton Comes Alive!

In 1976 the prestigous UK car manufacturer Aston Martin was to release the much vaulted Willian Towns Lagonda. The bold design seemed better suited to an episode of the Thunderbirds, right down to the all new electronic instrumentation. In fact it was the complexity of the high-tech electronics and touch sensitive controls that stopped the Lagonda being released 3 years earlier in 1973. Each car required 2,200 man-hours to manufacture, and only 25 were manufactured each year for the US market. When production finally finished in 1990, only 645 had been made.

Holden unveiled the LX Torana range, available in both sedan body and the first locally produced hatchback. There was also a choice between four-cylinder, six-cylinder and eight-cylinder engines. Just under 50,000 LX Toranas are produced, including 8527 hatchbacks. Sadly, GMH decided to scrap the manufacture of coupe based Monaros, the last of the line being 600 highly specified "LE" (Limited Edition) models.

Later in the year the four-cylinder LX Torana was revised and relaunched as the Holden Sunbird. Sedan and hatchback variants were offered, both equipped with the new Radial Tuned Suspension (RTS) system. To help cement the Torana's position as Australia's favourite medium sized car, Bob Morris and John Fitzpatrick would take out the 1976 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 in a Torana.

In other motoring news, the 10,000th local Mini rolled off Leyland Australia's Enfield production fine; The first of 25 special Ford RS2000 Escorts anived in Australia - their destiny would lie at the race track. Jack Brabham's eldest son Geoff qualified on the front row of the grid in his first European Formula Three race, while US driver Mario Andretti commited himself to his first full-time Formula One contract by signing with Lotus.

In the US, Jimmy Carter would become that countries 39th President. Further North, Montreal Canada was to host the '76 Summer Olympics, but not before controversy was to take place when some 32 nations, most of them from black Africa, walked out when the IOC refused to ban New Zealand because its national rugby team was touring racially segregated South Africa.

Taiwan also withdrew when Communist China pressured trading partner Canada to deny the Taiwanese the right to compete as the Republic of China. Once the games got started, thankfully the politics were quickly forgotten, and replaced by the memories of a new star, 14-year-old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, who scored seven perfect 10's on her way to three gold medals.

In other world news, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot became Cambodia's Prime Minister (and virtual dictator) on April the 2nd after Prince Sihanouk stepped down, while in Uganda Israeli airborne commandos would attack the Entebbe Airport and free 103 hostages held by pro-Palestinian hijackers of an Air France plane - one Israeli and several Ugandan soldiers would be killed in the July 4 raid.

In a first for Australian television, the ABC, Seven and Nine would combine forces to provide the Olympic Games coverage from Montreal. The Opening and Closing Ceremonies were telecast live, with highlights packages screening each evening. 1976 would also see Channel 9 air two home grown drama series that would quickly gain huge and loyal followings - Grundy’s hospital drama "The Young Doctors" and Crawford Production’s World War II drama "The Sullivans".

The Year of Frampton! If you were challenged to name five rock albums that epitomized the 1970's, Frampton Comes Alive! should probably top the list.

Former Humble Pie guitarist Peter Frampton recorded a few perfectly fine albums with his band Frampton's Camel, but it wasn't until some of those tracks were recorded at a live performance in San Francisco and released as "Frampton Comes Alive!" that he became a household name. Buoyant pop, sentimental ballads, arena rock, this album had it all.

The double LP set sales records and contained three bona fide radio hits ("Baby, I Love Your Way," "Show Me the Way," and "Do You Feel Like We Do?"), one of which, shockingly enough, was over 14 minutes long. No wonder that, to many, the two-and-a-half-minute songs of the Damned and the Sex Pistols felt like a breath of fresh air a year or two later.

Formula One Championship: James Hunt (Britain) / McLaren-Ford

1976 Bathurst Winner : Bob Morris & John Fitzpatrick in their Torana L34

NRL Grand Final: Manly-Warringah (13) def. Parramatta (10)

VFL/AFL Grand Final: Hawthorn (13.22.100) def. North Melbourne (10.10.70)

Melbourne Cup: Van Der Hum (R. J. Skelton)

Wimbledon Women: Chris Evert def. E. Cawley (6-3 4-6 8-6)

Wimbledon Men: Bjorn Borg def. I. Nastase (6-4 6-2 9-7)

The Movies:

Gold Logie: Norman Gunston (The Norman Gunston Show, ABC) and Denise Drysdale (The Ernie Sigley Show, Nine)

The Charts: