What you have mentioned Lingus are normal options available, well documented and advertised. The Ambulance was a "special" work car so they probably thought that ambo officers deserved more than a spartan 1 tonner. But it is documented that you could order them. When you get the guy who then comes out and tells you he has a non ambulance tonner with the Premier front because he the original owner wanted it and Holden built it.

And as Byron said, the GTS options, you could order a Belmont/Kingswood/Premier with many of the standard features of a GTS such as Bucket seats, sports instruments, engines (186S, V8s) 4 speed gearbox, disc brakes, console shift for auto, wheels and hubcaps and so on. But you could not order the guards, bonnet, steering wheel (except in HZ). Some package cars got them, but that is the nature of package cars.

Warren

..so are we in agreeance that a perceived "factory built special" is more than likely a "dealer cobbled" new car, with the myth of being "factory built" perpetuated from the day it was sold by a fast talking dealer / salesman to a very unsuspecting, wide eyed purchaser ??

Edited by user Wednesday, 21 December 2016 10:01:22 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Factory built is always going to be easier to confirm than what a dealer may have done after manufacture ... the build plates on the car tell a story, as does the original Owner's Manual / Service Manual, as does an original customer copy of the Offer to Purchase ... and you can also apply to the manufacturer for a letter / certificate of authenticity.

As for special build cars from Holden, I recall Modern Motor magazine commissioned the build of a unique car in 1968 and followed its progress along the Elizabeth assembly line ... I have the particular magazine tucked away somewhere, but one of the unusual aspects of manufacture reported in the magazine story involved manually cutting into the floor pan to facilitate fitment of the transmission ... the car was a HK Premier station wagon optioned with the 5-litre (307ci) V8 engine and a 4-speed manual transmission.

I've also read input at other forums from a fellow who apparently owns 16 Brougham sedans from across the HK-HT-HG series ... he has suggested that the 350ci Chevrolet engine was factory fitted to some Brougham cars of both the HT and HG series and that he owns one example of such in a HT Brougham sedan.

Not on this car. Remember it is an earlier 1972 HQ V8 Kingswood, that is all the plates tell you.

That Premier wagon was ordered by Modern Motor magazine as their run around car and as Byron said, all options were straight out of the option book for that car, anyone could have ordered the exact same car. A large number of cars turn up with interesting combinations, that are straight out of the available option list for that vehicle and then people start making out as if it was something even more special.

What you have to remember is what Byron has already pointed out, all cars must be ordered and then added to the schedule. The schedule is set weeks if not months in advance. If you are making 200 cars a day you have to plan all the parts for those 200 cars well in advance, from the panels, trim, engine, gearbox etc. (Holden has stopped V6 engine manufacture but every one of the stockpiled engines has already been assigned to a car, so you would no longer be able to order a V6 Commodore you will have to take one from the scheduled). So in most cases the dealers rang around and found a car that was close to what you ordered.

A friend of mine ordered a Blue HJ Kingswood, 308 auto, sports dash. He did a lot of caravaning etc and ordered his tow vehicle. When it arrived a week later it had bucket seats and T bar as well, he did not want buckets so the dealer through them in for free.

My dad purchased a HQ Kingswood when they first came out and he waited months. He ordered a White wagon, black cloth trim, headrests, 253, trimatic, 3.55LSD, 6" rims, superlift shocks, Sports Instruments.

The option game was well on by HQ and some dealers embraced it and there are some real nice cars out there. Real "Personalised" transport.

Warren

I remember that article well & how they made a huge deal about them having to cut the floor pan for the Saginaw shifter. But I believe that all HK/HT/HG floor shift holes were manually cut, other than perhaps those pressed especially for GTS production.

Virtually all HK/HT/HG floor shifts that I've seen have been oxy cut & this is the case with Fords of that era also.

Dr Terry

Edited by user Thursday, 22 December 2016 1:06:26 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Spelling

...which makes the whole notion of a factory built "special" car even more incredulous. They were ordered just fine, but ultimately fitted out by the servicing (and ultimitely warrantied) show room dealers ....

I have purchased two brand new cars in my life .. An XF Fairmont Ghia wagon in 1987, and the very late build CV8-Z in May 2006.

...I could not get "premium sound" on the XF Ghia being a wagon, and the CV-8Z was a dealer purchased car for the summer months into 2006 ....A show off car till Winter kicked in...then the dealer principal at Preston Motors tipped her out. In no way was it a Demonstrator as that model/series was quite finished at that point.

The car comes up on Holden records as a factory 350 engine and 4 speed gearbox. It also has the books, however in saying that if the microfiche records for the HQ did not exist then this car would most likely be consider a mock up, as today it is so easy to reproduce owner manuals with the details that you want, or to put it down to a dealer built car.

I do love the secrecy around the tag and engine numbers, when you consider it had its bonnet up at Warwick, how many people out there would already know the numbers and those in the know about how to "forge a car like this" would have the numbers of it.

Warren

The tags do also tell you that this Kingswood was manufactured with bucket seats, but that in itself doesn't confirm whether the car had a column shift or floor shift transmission.

Looking at images of this car's interior, as displayed on the AMCS website, can anybody clue me in on the floor console ? ... no doubt the car originally featured colour-matched lap/sash seatbelts of the non-inertia type and the buckles would not have been fixed to a stalk but to belts that allowed the buckles to be stowed in the recess at the rear section of the console ... between that recess and the gear lever you will see a perforated section that suggests to me a speaker grille ... I don't recall seeing this feature on any HQ consoles and wonder if it represents a 'police' specification ?

.....the HQ seat belt buckles sitting in their console pockets were to do with earlier 1971 ADR's.

The introduction of the later on 1972/3 spec inertia reel seat belts were another tweak on the safety aspect... .a fixed stalk female end with the tongued male end on the reel.

Edited by user Friday, 23 December 2016 9:10:01 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified