Austral HJ - Project

[wbute]

There has been heaps of discussion on here about silver facia in HJ. I don’t think it was ever resolved definitely, but it appeared they changed from silver to black in 76 HJ. So HJ had both silver and black and it wasn’t an option you could pick.
The symbols changed because Holden updated to ISO standard symbols in HZ. HZ/WB also have variations in the number font on the odometer too. Some had thicker numbers for some reason.

[Sandaro]

Both HJs in our family one 75 the other 76 have plain black dash, although silver is also widely known too. On ours early one only the outside 2 vents, 76 has all 4 and not air conditioning

[wbute]

I think the extra vents were for forced induction that became standard on HX. This is from the HX owners manual

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[axistr]

I could be wrong but I thought it was only the four door HJ GTS that had the silver dash. My original HJ Sandman had a black dash from the assembly line.

[pj350]

I could be wrong but I thought it was only the four door HJ GTS that had the silver dash. My original HJ Sandman had a black dash from the assembly line.

a friend had a hj sandman panelvan with a black dash ..another had a hj gts with a silver one back in the early 80s ...I'm thinking there's something in that. The extra vents if it had air-conditioning in hq/hj ?

[maxsandman]

I could be wrong but I thought it was only the four door HJ GTS that had the silver dash. My original HJ Sandman had a black dash from the assembly line.

Good theory... Maybe that's right, (and coupes) the silver HJ dash I have came out of a sedan. I have seen silver facias in utes & vans, but could've been changed any time in last 40 years.
I will keep that in mind when I'm looking a car shows

[Sandaro]

The dash is shown in 2 brochures in HJ that I'm aware of. The Oct 74 one (with the red van and yellow ute at the dunes) and the Feb 76 one (Son of the Beach). Both feature silver dashes and the middle vents. That's not to say the images for the brochures weren't lifted from a HJ GTS file.
Point is if I was restoring one in the last 40 years I might have used that as a reference point and gone silver.

[Valencia]

Another one of GMH great mysteries we will never know for sure

[wbute]

If you go back through the threads, you will find that both Byron and Sean never resolved when they changed, but there was a general trim change in HJ in 76 and that appeared to be when they changed from silver to black. HJ Sandman has both silver and black facias from the factory.

[Absinth]

The change seems to be some time around August 75, there were a lot of changes around this time. Early HJ the Portland grey GTS dash was used as that was the only style available. Around 8/75 the black sports dash and a woodgrain sports dash were introduced and from this time on the Portland grey was GTS only, black was Sandman and could be optioned in Holden and Kingswood. The woodgrain sports dash was optional in Premier, LS Monaro and Statesman.

base model Sandman had the 2 air vents on the outside only and were the barrel type unless fitted with factory aircond. In which case it had all 4 vents in the louvre style. Kingswood Sandman Ute came with forced air ventilation and had the 4 louvre style vents.