I bought a HQ ute ex Qld which many of you would have seen advertised. Whilst every bit of research I did indicated to me the ute is a HQ Sandman, at the end of the day I could not determine the exact originality of the vehicle. Either way I will have either a genuine Sandman or a very nice Kingswood ute with all the right bits, and a rare combination to boot.

What did help me was some photos of the vehicle taken in the very early nineties where I could see the original colour of the vehicle on the insides of the doors and the firewall.

As the vehicle has a resonable paintjob now, all work I will do will be in the correct theme as I love originality and I would like to do a full resto and back to original colour down the track. A rough budget has been done and I am over 4K on interior alone.

I know I don't have an original motor, gearbox or diff, so over time I will have money to spend to get back to a semblence of an original HQ. But then a LSD and rear discs would be attractive. I would dearly love a 308 or 350 in it, but I would always keep the correct motor etc if i decided to sell it or revert to original spec.

What I do know is that I will get a great deal of satisfaction driving this ute on a Sunday arvo, going for a cruise and seeing heads turn and it will increase in value, and yes it does have Air Conditioning and power steering fitted (non original but factory setups) and these swung the deal for me.