Value of a Sandman or The Never Ending Story

[HK1837]

Rightly or wrongly, to me anyway, barring finding a van with a documented history, having an XX7 tagged car is the undeniable proof of it being a Genuine sandman... So having the original motor was less important to me.... My HJ is 5/75 so I wanted the real deal.. Not a maybe... Have since sourced an early 75 date coded 308 and whilst not the original engine will still be a nice fit for the van

In my younger days a sandman was an icon of the surf culture and was totally seperate from the van scene.... Its why more than a few sandmans were heavily modified back in the day.... In a van you could store a board, catch some shut eye and play hide the sausage... Try doing that in a ute without getting arrested.... Blockers sells the "sandman - still your fathers worst nightmare" stickers.... Not sure not many dads quake in their boots when a ute turns up for the first date.... But if we were all the same it would be a boring world...

On your question of an XW8.... Of course it doesnt matter where it was built..... It is what it is.... With a sandman, as you know more than anyone, unless it has books or XX7 tags claiming sandman status is not as easy to prove authenticity.... And in the collector car world provenance is everything.... For me when someone says "is it a real sandman" its far easier to pop the bonnet and point to the XX7 tags than to pull out the centre console to show the original welds on a centre console bracket....

All fair enough. Just interested as I have to put together a section of the book about what spawned the Sandman. From my eyes the utes were equal or more inportant to the culture of the day, but it looks like to many others the vans were.

My point about an XW8 should really be about early XV4's and XV2's that aren't from Acacia Ridge. You have to look elsewhere to know it is a GTS or an SS. Like TRIM line, and console mounts on an SS. Similar to a Sandman. Of course with the XW8 most have L30 or MC7 or M41 on the BODY plate, but some don't!

I guess that most people, excluding Sandman and the majority of Holden enthusiasts will immediately picture or assume a van opposed to ute when 'Sandman' is mentioned. Vans are a more prominent visual image for most. Do a google images search on 'Sandman' and look what shows up.

I think that Adam has nailed it the more desirable specifications that draw extra attention and value. Condition, colour - rare or desirable, window/less, drive train combo, model and XX7 plated will influence different buyers as everybody has different preferences. With the identification resources at our fingertips, the Brisbane built 'XX7' plates are less influential in the vast majority of cases. However if you had the choice of two identical vehicles but one from Brisbane and the other not at the same price, you take the the Brisbane built one. I'll split the difference between Adam and Byron and say HJ's and HZ's are equal. Model and colours tend to be driven more so by personal preference, although HQs Are rarer adding to their market value and HXs seem to be less desirable.

There have been a lot of vans around with rather large prices tags lately, they arent selling at their ticketed prices.
However what is expensive today, may not necessarily be expensive tomorrow as I too believe that values will continue to climb. I believe that the mysandman site has considerably attributed to the desire for these vehicles and their increasing market value!

My reason for the HJ over the HZ is it is more "sporty" than "pretty". Plus a HJ 308 is the highest performance Sandman.