A rare piece of Australian automotive history has been discovered in the United Kingdom, and it might yet have a chance to come home.

Classic Car Auctions will be putting up this LJ Holden Torana GTR XU-1 Bathurst Special for sale in March’s Practical Classics Classic Car and Restoration Show, expected to be the only Australian-made vehicle in the show.

The car is a 1972 model, with the engine number JP103447. As can be seen in the images, the car requires a full restoration. Or the new owner could halt the decay as far as possible and enjoy it in all its crusty glory!

The Torana’s owner of 29 years reportedly hasn’t fired up the 202ci engine, seemingly not started since 1985.

Claimed to be the only XU-1 in Europe and it looks about as unloved as you’d expect for a car which hasn’t had the chance to run since it was just 13 years old.

It was aboard a Torana GTR XU-1 that in 1972, Peter Brock took the first of his record-setting nine Bathurst victories, a feat which is as yet unbroken.

With Classic Car Auctions valuing the Bathurst Special at anywhere between £45,000-55,000 (AU$85,000-$104,000), this example is still a long way off breaking the road-going XU-1 auction record, reset last year by a “Purr Pull” LJ which sold for $348,000.

Update: It has emerged that while the Torana was originally delivered by B.S. Stillwell in Campbellfield, Victoria to a Mr. A. W. Boyd of Christmas Hills, it was taken to Europe by Grahame Ward – who then offered it for sale in the advertisment above, circa December 1972.