There were also many that considered drums superior on unsealed roads, theory being not much gets into them.

I cannot confirm if this is true but have had a few people say it to me over the years.

As Byron said, options game, many HK Kingswoods that i saw were 186, disc, heater auto. Holden allowed you to choose the options, but they also pre ordered a lot of cars because they knew what was able to sell off the showroom floor.

The bread and butter model being Kingswood was kept nice and simple, a lot of people did not trust all these new "things". Back in the 70s and 80s a lot complained about the new cars having more features because "more can go wrong". I put power steering on my HZ Kingswood that my father in law purchased new, he drove it and could not believe how much better it was to drive, he asked why the salesman did not offer it, my response was "you were buying a Kingswood and you would have told him you have armstrong power steering". He conceded that that was his attitude back then.

The basic car buyer is after a basic car, we car enthusiasts look at them differently. For all their faults back in the 60s to mid 80s, the majority of cars sold here were bread and butter Holden/Commodore, Falcon and Valiant, 6 cylinder "shitboxes".

But there are also some well opted cars that turn up, for those who wanted to play the game and order what they needed. My dad's HQ wagon was 253, trimatic, 3.55 lsd, 6" rims, super lift shocks, head restraints (1971 model) sports dash, black cloth trim.

A friend of mine wanted a HJ Kingswood, 308, auto, gts dash, he ended up with a stock order with all of those options plus bucket seats and T bar, they did not charge for him for the buckets and t bar, he also had to settle for light blue, not sure what colour he wanted. Car still exists, his son in law owns it now.

There were also lots of HJ V8s, know another fellow he went in to buy a 6 cylinder HJ Kingswood, walked out with an off the showroom floor V8. Not too sure of the other options.

Warren

Trying to compete with price when the HD came out, if all the HD just went to disc, that would of added to the cost of the car and ford and Valiant would have an advantage in price that the majority would not relate to the benefit as to the disc brake advantages.

Now if the XP and AP6 Valiant all went Disc all would be fine, keeping things on a equal footing like.

Like when cars all became Air-Con, in the end no one buys a car with out Air-Con now do they and it would not sell well in the second hand market nowadays.
But with cars in 1965 you would not get an advantage on resale with disc brakes because the public were ignorant of such a thing.

Hey I bought a XG Falcon ute as soon as they came out I ordered it, but when I went to sell it, boy the ignorance ! most did not fathom that the XG was a way better car than the XF shit box and the resale was the same for both and I lost badly with it, but with my VS ute the resale was fantastic that I could not believe it.

So one has to look at things in such light of such.

Sports dash is option U21 on HQ, Was standard on HQ GTS and later standard on SS and Sandman. Only difference is GTS and Sandman got a 140mph speedo whereas everything else was 120mph (or metric equivalent).

I would never say drums were better than discs on gravel. They fill up with dust that becomes mud in the rain. They seize up and the handbrake never works. Unbelievably my 2011 Hilux still has rear drums and no doubt the current ones do too.
My brothers WB Statesman series one has a 3:08 diff as standard and I doubt that was a factory built floor option? A lot of WB Kingswood utes got sports dash’s, they must have been building them as non ordered cars too surely?

It probably varied from state to state but by HG discs were standard for all V8s & a very common option for 6-cyl cars.

They were standard for all GTS (186S) in HK/T/G. They were also standard for 6-cyl HQ Premier from early 1973 on & all Monaro LS from day 1.

Fully motorised hearted/demisters were an ADR requirement from early 1971 onwards. I don't believe Holden sold an HQ in Australia without a heater/demister, even the most basic Belmont or One Tonner..

Head restraints were an option for 1971 HQ & standard (again an ADR requirement) for all cars 1972 onwards.

Dr Terry

An optional rear axle ratio is a sure pointer to a retail order car. GMH rarely built stock order cars with any ratio other than the normal one. 3.08 wasn’t even optional in WB at all so the car must have been a special order or an internal car. WB Statesman were all 2.6 or 3.36.
The sports dashes were fairly common in HZ and WB, GMH may well have snuck them into stock order cars to get a few extra bucks on the sale. There always seemed to be a lot of HZ Premiers around with the sports dash.

Mine is October 1983 and it shows G70 as standard with both M38 or M40. They must have changed at some stage.

I have two test of the WB Caprice one is 2.60 diff and the other is a 3.08 diff.

I believe many of the last of the WB utes had the GTS dash especially the V8's.
A mate had a GTS dash ordered in his 253 WB 1 tonne.

My HG 253 Premier I never had a problem with the disc on it, but boy did I go through the pads Hardie ferodo pads I used in that, but come to think of it I have never had noisy brakes ever, but I always fit them myself.

Drum brakes car would get total brake fade on the highway on the first emergency attempt from 100 mph and then end up nothing from about 35mph as she would just sale on by with nothing at all left, talk about junk !

I do not like the rear postie drum brake inside the disk for a hand brake system, they were as weak as piss, if you lost brakes going down a hill you could kiss your arse good by.

Not to mention that the stock pads and 4 wheel disc on my XG ute were crap from 200km/h and hit them hard and they were totally gone by 60km/h, I found that out dragging off a VR Highway patrol one night, I had just had a run with a 351 XY GT up to 210km/h we were neck and neck all the way and I had just plodded along at 160km/h when the radar went off and I went back to 4th and into it and seeing them come out of there hideout, well I hid lights out behind a big tree as they went by flat out, them there disc would of been glowing tho, haha ! so then I got Bendix metal king and that fixed that brake fade problem.