How about old Holdens. They never die, just rust away.

Sometime after the Morris Minor passed into history I decided that a bigger car was the order of the day. My parents owned a 1954 FJ Holden which I virtually destroyed on night in Burnie outside the then Burnie Technical College. My popularity at home was sub zero for the period it took it to be repaired. Then I was banned from driving it till I learnt better sense.
Just great, so I bought a FJ of my own. In this case it was if you can't join them, beat them. Now the strange thing was that this was one car that never experienced modifications save for a replacement muffler and tail pipe. I kept that car till 1961 when I was lucky enough to drop onto a mildly worked 1958 FC.
This car was to eventually get the full treatment.

• Lowered suspension x 50mm = 2.000" c/w reset springs.


• Brakes were upgraded to the latest specs.


• Cylinder head: This included oversized valves in both inlet and exhaust. the head was blue printed and this included porting and polishing. The head was planed to increase the compression ratio then fitted with dual valve springs, then carefully put aside while the rest got a touch up


• Engine block: The original block was bored to 3 1/16" and the only way to get a 3 1/4" bore was to track down an Opel block as was fitted to the early 48/215 FX cars. Fortunately my cousin had or found one and it was bored out to the desired diamater and fitted with Ford Zepher pistons, and rings. To add a bit more sting in its tail a Mervyn Waggott 15-55-55-15 camshaft was fitted with an alloy timing gear as the original fibre gears were prone to stripping off teeth.


• If it had horsepower, it needed a clutch that would take it so it was rebuilt with heavier springs. the gearbox was retained as Riley boxes were scarse at the time. Rear axles were replaced with new units. there is nothing worse than taking off and BANG! goes an axle.


• Finally, twin Stromberg Carburettors, a Warnerford inlet manifold, and a full Lukey Myers 2'' exhaust system was purchased.

When the engine was finally assembled, the heart transplant took place and was completed early one friday night. One proud owner fired it up and drove into Burnie from Penguin at around 50 MPH. [It was accepted practice in those days to run in a new motor.] Outside the Old Burnie Hospital was the local Police Patrol car, I gave him a friendly wave, what did he do but follow me till I pulled up, and promptly booked me for undue noise. Snr.Const. Wakefield and I didn't see eye to eye on this occasion and it went to court and I won, but lost a days pay defending the alleged offence.

The car stayed in the family till February 1964, Joan and I married in April 1963 and by February she was unable to handle it due to expecting our first born. During the time we owned it, the car was known all along the coast. Pale Blue with a Dark blue 200mm GT stripe from front to back. Strangely prior to selling it one of the local Penguin policemen bought the carbies, and exhaust system off it, but it didn't sound anything like mine, nor did it perform like mine. When I fitted the standard manifolds etc. to the FC for trade in, I thought I had tied the back bumper bar to a telegraph pole, it had lost so much power output.

Many years later I was to go through a similar exercise with a 48/53 series Holden, but I never got the same result as the original. just the same the kids loved "Hildegard the Holden" and cried when I sold it for $3500.00 in 1970. It wasn't a bad return on investment as I bought it as a basket case for $150.00.