This is an unusual spec HJ. Belmont, bucket seats, 308 and on radials.



Jim

Could be a HX but the car facing the camera in the distance has a HJ grille by the looks of it.

Boot and front guard badges are where HJ's had them placed

HX have a script badge above the belt line on the front guard also HX engine size and script are swapped onto the opposite with script on the LH side of the boot.

It isn't a HJ grille, as HJ and HX Belmont (and HJ and HX Holden in commercials) share the same grille other than those with XU3 or XX7 option in HX which use a HX Kingswood grille painted black. However as Anonymous says HX have the Belmont badge and if a V8 the size badge swapped compared to HJ. I'd guess they are going to NZ, they had limited options in driveline compared to what we could get here.

Did Belmont badging stay identical from HJ to HX? Just wondering, because Kingswood became cursive script for HX, silver with black outline. I've never heard of a HX Belmont - did they really produce them?

This might be a consular fleet order.

We had one at the Australian Commission in Hong Kong in 1979. It was a HZ Kingswood (not SL), so it looked a bit like what taxis in Australia looked like back in the day. Hubcaps, not full wheel covers, no side rubbing strips, no bumper rubbing strips. Bench seat, column shift auto.

And 5.0-litre V8 and air-conditioned. I still have the owner's manual for that car, not filled out unfortunately. I have a pic of the car somewhere, I'll see if I can dig it out.[img]null[/img]

Edited by user Saturday, 3 December 2016 5:58:59 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

HJ-HZ used the same metal badge, WB had a plastic one from memory that looked very similar.

Yes, Phil, the HZ Kingwood (non SL) was basically the replacement for the old Belmont, which was last made in sedan & wagon form in the HX. Where a lot of confusion occurs is that the Belmont utes & vans (which were far more commonplace than sedans & wagons) were last seen as HQs. Most A9K Kingwoods I saw were Taxis or Govt. cars, wagons were very rare.

As HK1837 has said, HQ-HX Belmont were not uncommon in the 70s, but they are a bit thin on the ground these days. Again, something like a 308 Belmont with bucket seats & a 308/5.0 V8 was usually a special order & as can be seen by the pic above, for export.

Having said that, I can remember from my days working as an installation tech. in the Sydney Taxi industry during the early 70s, quite a few of the private operators did order Belmont V8s with air con, p/st & buckets, back when petrol was around 50c a gallon !!

Dr Terry

It is a 5.0 litre HJ Belmont sedan and appears to mirror the specifications of W.A.'s police Traffic Patrol cars of the period, prior to the government shifting over to 5.8 litre XB Falcons ... this coincided with the creation of W.A.'s Road Traffic Authority and a change in fleet colours ... the HJ's were dark blue with white roofs, the XB's all-over white with specific RTA graphics replacing generic Police signage.

The 5.0 litre Belmonts were kitted out with bucket seats and 4-speed manual transmission and an extended instrumentation cluster with coolant temperature and oil pressure gauges ... the interiors were otherwise basic, right down to the standard rubber floor matting. Uniroyal Wildcat radials were the 'new' performance tyre of 1974 and these were a fleet fitment on the W.A. patrol cars.

What I don't recall in the patrol cars was factory air-conditioning, and this feature on the Export car in this topic thread suggests to me that the car was likely bound for an Asian destination where air-conditioning would be a very desirable option (as opposed to a temperate situation such as in New Zealand).

True my mistake.

I checked the HJ features manual, and for 5.0L in HJ Belmont sedan and it was available for Australia and export excluding: GM-Malaysia, GM-NZ, GM-Thailand and GM-S.A. So it could be Fiji as already stated, Korea etc. The Reefer ships were PO freight from memory and went everywhere around the Orient and the Pacific. You can see on this link the Italian Reefer was a 1968 acquisition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Lauritzen_A/S