Muscle Vans

[Robbo]

The 70's was a great time for buying car's, you could literally go in to your dealer and build your own car. I am referring to ford, if you bought the vehicle through certain dealer's, you could order all manner of performance modification's. Unfortunately, my father only bought his car's off the showroom floor, he was not interested in lairy fast ford's.

[jennie285]

We ordered an EL Falcon in 1997, dark green almost black, we didn't like the red strip so ordered it with Fairmont colour coded door strips...and they painted the bumpers etc. we ordered manual, and a sunroof...paid a fortune, drove it all over the place, it was my daily...sold it for next to nothing 8 years ago and wish we had kept it....or rather Rodney does....so you must have been able to get special dealership and factory orders from Ford still in the 90's

[low75]

Hi.
Sorry for taking so long to get back to this, shed stuff comes first.
For me, US muscle cars with light weight bodies, with the biggest and most powerful,
engines available. Option this with a drag pack and do some Two Lane Blacktop action.
Or buy a drag car off the showroom floor from GM,Ford or Chrysler.
So Sandman vans and utes
muscle cars = no
To me they are
hq = the legend
hj = the most horsepower
hx = best decals and the blackout around the windscreen and doors.
hz = as above , great handling and v8 only

[1BadVan]

I worked at Ford dealership panelshop. We would quite often get brand new falcons up at the panelshop remove door handles, external mirror backs, body mouldings etc and paint them. I remember one brand new falcon or fairmont , coming in with full leather interior sort of red in colour and absolutely gastly I had to remove everything that was plastic in the car so it could be painted the same colour as the leather. It was special order. Lots of things went on that customers wanted before they picked up their new car, not from the factory but what the dealer would do.

Cheers Dave

[low75]

Hi.
It's August 1974 Wednesday and you are having a sickie.
You walk into your local Holden Dealer to buy a Sandman van.
The salesman shows you three vans, one six and two 253's,
but you want 308, 4 speed. The next one not due in for another three
weeks. You are really sick of riding your push bike or bumming a
lift every where.
The salesman starts asking some strange questions and you answer
them truthfully.
He has a second hand Sandman van, that I mite be interested in.
You really want a new one.
But it has very low ks, like 150km.
You reply, that's all right.
So he takes you around the back, to the detailing shed.
You see it "wow"
Saffron paint, white decals, no windows, lowered two inches all round,
sitting on 15x7 prosprint's fitted with pos-a-traction tyres.(black side out).
You walk around it, a couple of times and it's in perfect condition.
How much is it.
The salesman replies, $7900.00
Wow mate, it's second hand.
This Sandman is a special order, as he goes around and pulls on the bonnet
cable, walks back around to lift the bonnet.
A factory fitted 350 chev, muncie, and 3.36:1 lsd diff.
You say, I have $5000.00 save up, can you do finance for the rest.
He replies. Yes.
You shake hands(deal done).
You fill out all the paper work and pick it up Friday.
As you walking back to your push bike, you realize.
The Holy Grail of Sandman Vans

[HK1837]

Great dream! Shame they never built one like it though.

[low75]

Hi.
When I bought my hq back in 98, I rang Holden customer service, to see if I
could get a verification letter, the guy that I was talking to, said they only do the
verification letter for car's that were related to racing.
He then ask if I had the xx7 on body tag.
I replied yes.
He then ask if it had all the original pop rivets.
I replied yes.
He replied, that is all the verification I need, as there is owners of sandmans that don't
have xx7, but they are genuine sandmans.
I then ask, could you order a hq sandman with a 350 chev engine in it.
He replied, no, as it was not part of the production line up.
I ask, was it possible to special order a sandman with a 350 chev.
He replied, highly unlikely, but not impossible.
What would that possibility be.
Fleet buyer, they would purchase 50 to 100 vans at a time, if they ask for something
special, then Holden would make it, but highly unlikely for the vehicle that am I asking
about. ( a double, highly unlikely, game over.)
This is where the title for my story came from.
The story that I posted is a shorten version of the original, I use the fleet buyer as a
trigger for the van being built.
When I chose the colour, I was not sure if this was right, so when I was looking for the
wheels and tyres in some old Wheels magazines, August 1973 they did a feature on
the panel van craze. One of the things they mention is the colours. " The brighter the
colour, the more easily it will sell". I stayed with that colour. They talked to the sales manger
of Holden dealer Muir's Motors, As far as new vans are concerned, we are selling more 253 v8s
with a four-speed floor shift than anything else. Fifty percent are 253s. About the only option
they don't seem to keen on, is side windows. On another page, Rumors have it that GMH is
examining the practicability of producing a special van or utility for the youth market.
I was not sure about those pos-a-traction tyres only having the white lettering on one side.
So if the rare sandman colours are mainly not so bright colours, that mite be why.
What I would like to now is, how came up with the xx7, as this is coolest option number going.

[HK1837]

I can guarantee you there was no 350 Chev Sandman made. There were hardly any 350 HQ's outside of Statesman in 1974, and even then most were XW8 Kingswood sedans (GTS350 4 door). There were 2 x 350 powered HQ commercials: the Sandman concept vehicle (the Ewe't) and another built 2 months later. These were both 1972 HQ Kingswood utes. And all 1974 powered HQ's were TH400, there were no manuals.

XX7 is just an option code. Sandman became XU3 mid HJ, prior to that XU3 was neutral headlining in HG and HQ. There is nothing that cool about XX7 really. It is no different to XU1, A9X (we all know these). HQ SS was XV2. HQ GTS sedan was XV4 (359 version was XW8). B06 is Ambulance. XY7 is a dressed up 1-tonner. XX8 is a HJ Deville done up as a Isuzu for the Japanese market. Also note that XX7 really means SPORTS UTILITY or SPORTS COMMERCIAL, it doesn't just mean Sandman. There were XX7 option coded vehicles that were not Sandmans.

[low75]

Hi.
I realize this, back in 98. (game over)
I am sorry, to not convey this clearly in my last post.