Yes you definitely could. They would come in PRIME or even painted. How they were identified and what was on the body ID tag depended upon which body plant the shell came from, which was normally Elizabeth but HQ-HJ coupe and HQ-HZ Statesman came from Pagewood as only that body plant made those shells for the bulk of that period. Same with LH-LX bodies but from Dandenong.
If it was a Torana body it’d have a chassis number, like HK-HG. But HQ-WB didn’t have a chassis number as there was no chassis.

I know of an LX hatchback shell and a HT or HG GTS350 shell.

That HG shell is the 7th Belmont wagon spare part shell out of Elizabeth. 2807981 is the part number. It will have a regular HG Elizabeth chassis number.

7428052 is the part number of the 3rd one, not sure what the 1 in front of the 16 is. It’s obviously a ute. Not sure if an Elizabeth build, probably is but could also be elsewhere. There was no Acacia Ridge plant until late HR so could be Pagewood or Dandenong, possibly even Woodville. Just depends who was doing ute bodies when it was made.

The second one is probably the 1st HR 229 spare part shell from Elizabeth.

The first on is I think not from the same plant as the second, it is possibly Dandenong by the M but could also be the 63rd manual.

I just don’t know HD and HR logistics and plant build timeframes as I do HK to HZ.

Very interesting information, thanks guys 👍.

There were 5 HK Monaro body shells at Casula wreckers in 1981. I was offered one of them in 1988 but was moving to Queensland so did not buy it.

I found a HG Monaro shell for a fellow in 1991, it is still untouched.

Know of a painted and trim HQ body, just required driveline.

It is also weird how most of the spare part bodies still had NASCO on the attached tag. Except for Dandenong LX and possibly LH, UC and maybe Commodore bodies if Dandenong did any of those as spare parts, those had GMP&A on them. A fair few earlier LX GMP&A painted bodies were converted into LX L34 race cars as well as SS bodies made into GroupC race cars. Some were even converted to A9X spec race cars before GMH built the painted race car bodies in A9X spec. Funny that the homologation doesn’t even mention A9X though, just an evolution that applied to all SLR5000 and 5.0L optioned SS after a certain date.

Nice one. That would be a great body to make a modified car out of. Probably no point spending big bucks trying to make it original. WOuld be a good one to build up with a HK 307 and Powerglide column shift.

The rivet is meant to be like that I think, so you can paint underneath the tag. I assume it has no chassis number? Normally that went on after the engine bay black paint.

That's as good an idea as any other! It will be built late in the HR time frame, that seems to be pretty normal that when a shape is finishing they build a few bodies. The highest Elizabeth HR chassis number I have is HR56625A which was on A80029 (a 235) sold on 15th December 1967. There may well be ute and van bodies with a higher number as they were assembled for a little while longer than sedan and wagon.

It’ll be 10 x 81837 manual shells. There will have been auto ones as well. GMH most likely made a few of each part number right at the end of a shape so the part existed for at least the warranty period for the last ones sold. They did this for HJ coupe, and there were still some around in 1980. That will be why this HR shell was made right at the end of HR, it may have been one of a few for NZ. The HR parts book shows HR 215 and 235 prime shells, also 219 and 2106 (also listed as HD)

Edited by user Monday, 4 December 2023 6:34:36 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I meant to add a comment about the Elizabeth chassis number. Only those bodies had a chassis number as Elizabeth always stamped the number on the steel panel prior to the body shell being made. If the shells came from elsewhere for whatever reason there was no number, although in theory all replacement HD to HG shells should be Elizabeth (but never say never). Even Elizabeth HQ replacement shells would have a number (but not chassis number) up until a time later in HQ, up on the cowl near the body tag as that too was stamped on prior to body assembly, the exception being coupe as these only ever came from Dandenong (later Pagewood) and later Statesman will have been Pagewood bodies. Neither of those had numbers as Dandenong HQ bodies never had numbers regardless (they had the body tag from bare steel for tracking). And Pagewood only put their firewall tracking number on post final paint on the firewall, thus Pagewood primed bodies had no number.

Thanks Ronnie!


Its pretty exciting to finally have one of these mysterious bodyshells, I've heard so much about over the years