VF Sandman wagon and ute

[wbute]

What's this HG Be-ute??? Got any pictures?

[HK1837]

What's this HG Be-ute??? Got any pictures?

Not really, only photo I have is from one of Norm Darwin's early books. Joe Felice (possibly at John Bagshaw's request) asked Leo Pruneau to design up a sports ute for one of the 1970/1 motor shows, so Leo ordered a purple L31 M21 bucket seat HG ute (I think it was a Kingswood) and also had it fitted with GTS front sheetmetal and instruments. He lined the back with timber. The end product was essentially what a HG Sandman optioned with 308 would have looked like.
Leo reckoned the Sandman name was spoken even from 1969 when he arrived here, but isn't sure why it wasn't spoken of with the Beute. With that in mind I still can't find out why it took so long for the prototype Sandman to be built in 12/72 or why it wasn't until 1974 until Sandman was available. Nothing on it was unique or special other than stripes, but even those were essentially GTO stripes as we saw fitted to the 3/72 concept ute.