Holden, 1965 HD Utility

The humble Australian ute. For decades the workhorse vehicle for many a business and a dead set Aussie automotive icon. While pick-up trucks such as the Hilux and Ranger may have usurped the utes position as the tradie’s choice, there are still plenty of utes about and, occasionally, you can come across a real classic from the model’s heyday – a time when they were built to be tough, reliable and the working man’s best friend.

Take this 1965 Holden HD, for example, which is still going strong and as the daily working vehicle for Steve Jeffs and his business, Bob Jane T-Mart Toombul.

“I use it for many things,” says Steve. “It is my daily driver come rain, hail or shine; it’s a great promotional vehicle for our T-mart; our customers love it; and we use it for general duties like picking up tyres, dropping off customers and so on. It is not a show pony and does what it was built to do.”

Not bad for a 53-year-old vehicle. Perhaps even more so when you consider that the HD was not, so the story goes, seen as big winner for Holden when it first appeared.

The public, it seems, were not completely enamoured with the design of the HD and, in particular, the front and rear wings that sported ‘fins’ jutting out beyond the rest of the body. It was a styling quirk that looks interesting and cool today but was met with a frown in 1965.

And that disapproval was manifested in production figures, with about 180,000 HD models making it to the road. In contrast, production numbers of the HD’s predecessor, the EH, and its successor, the HR, ran to more than 250,000 units.

While its styling raised questions, mechanically the HD was a solid build and an improvement on the EH model it replaced. Disc brakes were available for the first time on a Holden and the engine choices received a tweak – while the inline six-cylinder remained available as 149ci (2.4-litre) and 179ci (2.9-litre) options, Holden introduced an ‘X2’ version which added an extra 25hp.

Steve’s HD, nicknamed Heavy Duty, is a 179ci X2 and while he has had this one for only a few years, he also owned one in his youth. And it was fond memories of that car that made him determined to own one again.

“I had an HD in the 1970s when I was a young mechanic and I always wanted to get another one,” he says. “Then, about four years ago, my son Daniel, who is manager of the Bob Jane Toombul shop, was looking on his phone at cars for sale and he said, ‘Dad, take a look at this, it’s an HD ute!’.

“The next day I was at the shop in Toombul at 9am, rang the guy selling the ute at 9:01 and was on his doorstep at 9:45. That was on a Saturday and I picked the car up on the Sunday on the trailer and brought it straight home.”

Though the HD was not driveable at the time, Steve says it wasn’t in terrible condition and needed just a bit of care and attention to get it back on the road.

“It wasn’t too bad,” he says. “It had been sitting there for a few years and had issues with brakes, tyres, wheels and oil leaks, as well as an issue with overheating, but my son and I discovered that someone had put the wrong thermostat in and once we fixed that it went like a Swiss watch and has ever since.

“We also lowered the car and, as we are in the tyre and wheel business, we put some custom steel wheels on it. We also have a modern radio hidden in the glove box.

“We were able to all that stuff at home and it was a great father and son project. We got it roadworthy and it flew through. We are very proud of it.”

Ownership has not been without its dramas, however. At the end of last year, a nasty collision with a Camry put the HD off the road for weeks.

“The best way to describe to accident was that it was like driving a block of wood into a besser block wall – there was no give,” says Steve. “And one thing that did show me was how far vehicle safety has come since the 60s and I would hate to crash that car at 100km/h. Crashing at 60km/h was enough – there was no crumple, just ‘bang’!

“At the end of the day, we had damage to the right front guard, bonnet, grill, left front guard and the bumper.”

Getting the repairs completed on a 50-year-old car would, you might think, be something of a headache, with parts especially difficult to come by. Fortunately, the interest and passion shown for older vehicles by thousands of enthusiasts around the country meant that finding and securing the parts needed to repair the HD was not as tricky as it first seemed.

“With the internet and social media, it was a bit easier,” says Steve. “There are a number of groups that you can contact – including one Holden group that has about 2000 members – and when you post some info, it reaches thousands of people. That’s what we did, and we ended up with parts coming from deep in NSW through to Nambour.”

Now fixed and back on the road, the HD is once again Steve’s daily driver as well as the business’s workhorse vehicle and mobile promotional banner. And in every respect, it’s a head-turners and conversation starter.

“I can’t go anywhere in it without someone saying, ‘My dad had one of those’,” says Steve. “People wave as I’m driving and come up to me to ask a question when I’m at the shops. And the encouraging thing is that I have had a couple of young blokes – blokes in their 20’s – who have told me that they are working with their dads and building HD sedans. It’s good to know there are still some young people who are interested in these older cars.”

Barring any more major prangs, the HD will be around for a good while yet, providing solid, reliable, and pretty darn comfortable, service to Steve and his team at Bob Jane T-Marts Toombul.

“Although it is low, it is very smooth, quiet and a pleasure to drive,” says Steve. “Really, there is only one thing I would like to do to it, and that is to put in air conditioning so that when it rains, the windscreen doesn’t fog up so much!

“The HD is very handy, it’s different, has a good payload in the back and I think it looks great.”