This is a story/video I had a bit to do with. I hope that you might enjoy it as much as I did with my involvement in it.

The last LWB Holden

Can it be edited or is it set in stone? There is a couple of things not right that you might want to fix if you can, nothing major but still not totally right. See below. Good writeup though in any case!

1968 not 1967 for HK Brougham. There may have been a body built in 1967 but no Brougham was assembled until 1968 (same as HK Monaro). I don't think it was even called a Brougham or had a unique model code until 1968.

"there was no volume-selling large-car to replace the HZ Kingswood, therefore no Statesman replacement either." Doesn't make sense. There actually was a WB Kingswood, in utility variety only and a WB Statesman?. Should read "HZ Holden" rather than "HZ Kingswood".

"So the only luxury car Holden offered after the last WB Statesman in December 1984 was the noticeably smaller premium VK Commodore model, the Holden Calais." People will argue otherwise, but the VK Calais was not a Commodore, so the word COMMODORE should be removed so it reads "premium VK Model, the Holden Calais". The general concept is the VK Calais is related to the VK Commodore as the HZ Statesman is related to the HZ Holden, but the Commodore name is not applied to the car, just like the Holden name is not applied to the HZ Statesman.

"The WB’s body was more than just a tarted-up rehash of its predecessor, the HZ Statesman; only the bonnet and the front doors were shared." Essentially true, however the guards are all but the same (they are as different to HZ guards as the WB Statesman front doors are the HZ doors). The floor and the sills plus some other internal panels are the same too. The WB to the HZ is in reality only a small amount of changes more than a HJ is over a HQ, many of which changes are not unique to Statesman - they are on all HJ. One look at WB Holden and Kingswood models shows you some of the things changed over HZ that the WB Statesman got but a WB Holden would have got too, like the guards, radiator support, bumper, frontal treatment, seats etc etc.

"Even though the WB’s 126kW 5.0-litre V8 is pretty anaemic these days – and the three-speed Tri-matic auto has a very clunky downshift – in the early 1980s, the Statesman was pretty quick and refined for a large, luxury car." WB didn't get Trimatic until 1982 model year. It had a TH350 from the start of 1980 through to almost the end of 1981 calender year. And you couldn't get a column shift, bench seat WB Statesman until Trimatic became standard fitment. It would be good to mention the HDT Magnum here too.

"While numbers aren’t available for Statesman exports in the peak HQ years (1971-1974, when Holden even exported the Statesman as a Chevrolet to South Africa and Southeast Asia, and to Japan as the Isuzu Statesman DeVille), Holden was down to 21 WB Statesman exports in 1980-81, to a dribble of primarily Southeast-Asian markets such as Hong Kong." The Statesman also went to NZ as a Chevrolet IIRC. Would be a good place to mention GMH's folly here of not tooling the HQ for LHD which substantially killed its export markets. They built LH and LX Torana LHD but not HQ, despite the original HQ design being a LHD car for the US market.

One piece of info that really should go here, but due to years of brainwashing and clever wording by GMH no mainstream journalist will publish it. It is the HQ Statesman that was the original sedan design for whatever the HQ was before it was sent to GMH to develop into the new HQ Holden. GMH were sent the designs for the sedan (became Statesman), wagon and utility on the normal wheelbase and the coupe on the short wheelbase. GMH designed the HQ sedan off the coupe, and all the advertising and spruce about the "new 100% designed here" etc Holden was always about the sedan. This is why the HQ Statesman, wagon and utility all look like they were designed by the same person or team, yet the coupe is so radically different, and then the sedan looks like the coupe. GMH modified the HG van's turret to fit the ute, and made the HQ van using the HQ ute. Then also made a LWB version, the cab chassis by using the utility's cabin with different quarter panels and a flat panel under the rear window rather than the C-section where the tonneau cover clips. Thus they had a SWB sedan and coupe. Mid or normal wheelbase sedan (Statesman), wagon, ute and van and a LWB cab-chassis. Leo Pruneau always says his first design job when he first arrived here was to "fill in the hole in the nose of the new HQ", ie he did the grille.

The WB guards do have a cutout, but otherwise basically the same. The point was, WB front doors are also different to HZ, probably as different as the guards are.

I do get the “known as” however I think using what the manufacturer intended is the correct way to do it.

Inner skin. They also differ for mouldings as mentioned plus wher mirror goes and bright work around the glass. Nothing major, but more actual changes than what is changed on the guards.

Does the captive nut at the top rear of WB guards change thread like the removable clips?