I saw an interesting HX Kingswood van today. It is a factory 253, 4 speed in Aquarius green with 18V trim. Also had factory bucket seats and Sports dash. I spoke to old mate who owned it. He bought it new from the Nowra dealership as a builders van. I asked why he didn’t just buy a Sandman as all that was standard on them. Apparently he originally just wanted a van, but he was working building the new Nowra Holden dealership and he got in well with the salesman. So the salesman just kept ticking the options box and that’s what he ended up with. $8300 new price and it was a 6 month wait from order to delivery! Insurance was a a lot more on a Sandman too obviously.
It was still original with just a respray, no rust at all and still had the hubcaps on it. Not many one owner ones like that left.

Edited by user Saturday, 26 March 2022 12:19:47 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Yeah old mate said exactly that about insurance. Still makes little sense to me though, surely you could have found a stock order Sandman and just pulled the stripes off? Not sure why everyone didn’t just do that to save the money.
What was the price difference between a Kingswood optioned like a Sandman and Sandman?

A lot of people didn't want them due to bright colours as well as the stripes. Insurance companies would figure out what you had after an accident don't forget. And getting the stripes off could damage the paint, assuming it had stripes. However buying a DL7 stock vehicle was hard, my mate tried to buy one in 1978, couldn't get one anywhere. There were vehicles with stripes but he reckoned (like me) that they were "gay" (you were allowed to say that back then!) and didn't want stripes. He ended up buying a DL7 L31 optioned Sandman XX7 in Windsor blue with 23C trim from a local used car dealer, who used to buy them in groups new off GMH and customise them. This one had the N67 wheels replaced with some aftermarket wheel and I think dual exhaust added. It was built just on the cusp of the paint and trim change with VB Commodore release, and it got the full cable clutch setup as well as the N67 alloy rally rims.

I don't have a lot of pricing info, and it is often hard to get it straight as there was so much inflation in the 70's that they changed quickly. However Dr Terry has HX Kingwood van listed as $5023. The options you'd could add to make it close to a Sandman would be as below, hard to find HX pricing but I have late HQ commercial pricing so increase those a bit:

U17 dash. In January 1974 HQ this was $48.42 rec retail
XS6 buckets. As above, $85.22.
N66 wheels. $107.49.
M20 4spd. $99.74.
M11 console shift. $29.40 (this is passenger pricing so will have more tax on it than commercial pricing, example XS6 was $92.40 on passenger and $85.22 on commercial).

You couldn't get the mirrors or the steering wheel, but you could spend a few bucks with satin black paint for blackouts, grille and headlight surrounds if you wanted to. You'd still have the side rub strips though.

So add up the above about $365. Using an escalation of 1.69 from January 1975 to HX release (I used HQ Belmont van price $2900 rec retail and HX equ. at $4888 to get me 1.69), so $365 x 1.69 = $615.

Then add $615 to $5023 gets you $5638. That is an estimation for a HX Kingswood van with 3.3, 4spd, buckets, console shift, sports dash and rally wheels. If you can find standard HX Sandman van pricing it'll give you your answer. The closest I can find is in Van Action from early 1977. It lists a 5.0L Sandman van as $6241 but says after that the Sandman "pack" is $1073 and the 5.0L V8 as $290 which sounds pretty close to the base $4888 I quoted above. So I guess that means a stock HX Sandman van was $4888 + 1073 = $5961.