Austral HJ - Project

[Sandaro]

That's some good explanation on the dash colour situation, I do however disagree with the vent theory. My father's a 4 louvre vent dash no air. I wonder if 308 got special treatment?

[wbute]

I thought forced air was optional in HJ and standard in HX onwards?

[Absinth]

That's some good explanation on the dash colour situation, I do however disagree with the vent theory. My father's a 4 louvre vent dash no air. I wonder if 308 got special treatment?

Not a theory, it’s fact. HJ Kingswood came standard with forced air ventilation so 4 vents. As WB mentioned forced air was optional on base model so if your fathers car is a base model and has been optioned with forced air it will have the 4 vent dash, was extremely rare though.

Pretty easy to figure out, turn the fan on while stationary and if air blows out through the dash vents you have forced air ventilation.

It was also easy to retrofit by going to your local wrecker and getting the plastic vent pipes from a Wrecked car that had it.. plenty of wrecked HX,HZ and WB vehicles back in the 80’s to molest and the wreckers rarely charged us for behind dash plastics.

[Absinth]

There ya go, it’s listed under options in the HJ Sandman brochure. Top right, fan boosted assistance for your flow through ventilation.

5F02A44C-A82F-4501-B277-8295B931063E.jpeg

[Absinth]

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.

Dash pictured is of a Kingswood, other pictures in the brochure show Kingswood door trims. This is typical of car manufacturer advertising, using higher spec models.

Read the red outlined green box in the brochure, all brochures have this type of disclaimer.

Brochure pictures should never be used as resources for a specific model restoration project as they cannot be relied upon for accurate representation. A perfect example is the HZ Sandman brochure that pictures a retro fitted Absinth Yellow HX Sandman, you would think HZ Sandman’s came with The silver GTS dash.

B9722CA2-FFAF-45D1-BEBD-1C986F76CA4D.jpeg

[Sandaro]

I'm with you on Holden doing the brochure photoshop, in fact the picture of the van with tailtent the HJ brochure you put up above, I think appears again re-touched as a HX Sandman (maybe in the HX commercial brochure- I can't remeber off hand).

The earlier point I was making about brochures is not to trust them but plenty of restorers would have which would potentially lead to beliefs that something was standard.

Yes Dad's is forced air. I doubt he would have ordered it as a option, but will get him to dig out his order details. I know he also got dwell wipers (supplied standard only with 308 -optional on rest) so I was wondering if forced air falls in the same boat?

[Sandaro]

Here's the photoshop I was talking about in the HX van brochure, same picture as in post #44 above minus the HJ sandman stripes. They got lazy and left the rally wheels and lower blackouts though.

1976 Holden HX Panel Van 7.jpg

[wbute]

Your old mans clearly wasn’t a stock order Sandaro, being 308 and the intermittent wipers (although perhaps they could be dealer fitted?). Was it on the showroom or did he have to wait for it? Forced air would definitely be factory fitted though.
It’s got the side mouldings too hasn’t it? Did he get them to fit the stickers too??
Your in an awesome position knowing your old mans has been in the family since new and it’s unmolested.

[Absinth]

Yes Dad's is forced air. I doubt he would have ordered it as a option, but will get him to dig out his order details. I know he also got dwell wipers (supplied standard only with 308 -optional on rest) so I was wondering if forced air falls in the same boat?

If he has forced air it was an option. Dwell wipers were not standard with 308 engined vehicles, dwell wipers would have been ordered as an option as they were only standard in Monaro, Premier and Statesman.

The only option you got extra when ordering a 308 on a base model was disc brakes.

[Sandaro]

I believe the only things he specified were the colour and the 308 manual. I'm pretty confident no other factory options. He had to wait 6 weeks for it to be built. I don't recall it ever being known to him where the sandman decals were fitted- (the dealer probably asked when completing the order whether he wanted them) when it came out of the dealer to him they where on. Yes the bump strips were added later.

The dwell wiper is a story in itself, that's why it sticks out to me. Normally its an optional extra on HJ. Dad's story is the dealer on delivery wanted to charge the dwell wiper as an optional extra at extra cost. Got into an argument with them, Dad wasn't paying extra than quoted they threatened to re order van and he'd have to wait again for a new one without dwell. He said I'll wait, eventually they saw sense that he hadn't ticked the box and completed the deliver/sale.

Then i remember years ago Byron mentioned an anomaly of dwell wipers being fitted in conjunction with 308 4 speed when optioned on HJ's (not sure if this was sandman only or across the board). So that explained Dad's story after 40 odd years