WB Sandman

[wbute]

I was just looking through my service manual supplement for WB's and noticed they actually mentioned WB Sandmans. It is April 1980 so they must have been close to producing them. Oh well.

[ozbox]

its also interesting to note that in the parts catalogues there is no reference to 5 litre motors in utes,vans or tonners... but there is referance to the wt prefix engine number which is a 5 litre in a ute van or tonner only...
wb statesman was prefixed with 11wt for deville or 12wt for caprice..
in nsw the rta paperwork issued for blue slip inspections show that there was no 5litres in wb commercials so therefore usually want an engineers certificate...
also found an xu4 option which was the weight derivitive for vans with passenger tyres..

[wbute]

I heard a rumour (which no doubt is an urban myth) that the last 100 WB utes had 5 Litre motors in them and were all painted silver.
Yeah its interesting to see how close they came to building some cars only to pull out at the last minute.

[Robbo]

During 1980...81, I used to walk past a local holden dealer on my way to work. A ute was put on display once, up on stand's to get your attention,and it was painted metallic brown. It had a light brown interior and had all the sandman feature's the same as my sandman, which I had at the time. It also had the N67 wheel's which mine came with. It was a V8 manual, but I don't know what size engine. The brown colour sound's terrible but it didn't look to bad, it was a kingswood. A Sandman by any other name.

Cheer's

[Absinth]

[kaido17]

Not a fan of the colour coded bumper

[jennie285]

I wonder if there are any left anywhere....it would be very collectable wouldnt it.....

[Sndman77]

Hi, the picture shown here, is there an article or story about this, why WB Sandman was canned?????
I'm rather interest why did the Sandman came to an end (were sales figures were falling).
When I got my licence in 1981, sandman were still very popular (second hand market), by the end of the 80's, van was not a trendy look, but i do remember the ute's were sort after (if I'm correct, Holden stop making ute around this period????).

Bill

[wbute]

84 was the end of the Australian Holden ute until the VG Commodore was built. I suppose they canned it because the projected sales figures were not high enough? I notice in the manual that I scanned in that the Sandman was the only commercial that was offered with a V8.
There must have been bad communication between the book people and the management for them to go to print. Its interesting though.

[ozbox]

I heard a rumour (which no doubt is an urban myth) that the last 100 WB utes had 5 Litre motors in them and were all painted silver.
Yeah its interesting to see how close they came to building some cars only to pull out at the last minute.

dunno about that ...but i have wrecked a couple of L31 tagged wb 1 tonners which were fully loaded and ive got a customer with an L31 tagged 84 1 tonner which again is fully loaded and a factory 4 speed...

they were definately produced its just that the authorities dont believe they were..:knockout: