New Ve Sandman

[sanman]

Saw a new VE ute with canopy today at a Holden dealer in Cranbourne Victoria. Canopy looked good. It even had stripes and sandman decals like a modern version of HX/HZ. I thought this was interesting as the Holden dealer had made it look like a Sandman. Then I thought, I wonder what they did with new HX HZ Kingswoods. Took photos but it seems a lot of stuffing around to post an image. phpBB forums seem so much easier to upload images or is it just me.

Geoff

[HK1837]

Holden do make a modern Sandman. They've been doing it since VSIII. It's called an SS ute!

Plenty of dealers made "Sandman" vans up from HX and HZ V8 vans. Normally they would have got hold of an Ambulance pack (BO6) and added stripes as most of these had GTS dash, buckets and many were Kingswood based too. In both series they also got a Premier front and Premier door trims & armrests. Remember that ALL Sandman stripes were dealer fitted, so plenty would have been left behind by owners not wanting the ugly things! I know if I bought one new I'd have opted not to have them fitted. When a friend of mine bought his HZ Sandman it was something like a 6 month wait. There was a local secondhand car dealer (I can't remembr his name right now but he had a yard next to Energy Australia Stadium) that used to buy them new and modify them for sale for a premium. At the time he had 3 for sale, and my friend opted for the Windsor blue example. When he got it it already had aftemarket wheels and sunroof from memory, but was zero kM. The other examples had bubble windows added. This will give you an idea how hard they were to get, and why a dealer would have modified normal vans and BO6's to make a sale.

[Blocker]

Sanman - it's very easy to upload, link or share your pics here.

Just have a look at the 'How to' section that's a start or you can use the simple image uploader... finally there is a Gallery section where you can create your own album and upload your own personal pictures.

If you have trouble just let someone know what and where and you'll get some help.

[wbute]

that would turn some heads.

--- Updated ---

Allright, I am going to say what I really think...... why dont Holden pull their thumb out of their arse and build a sandman ute based on the commodore. How hard would it be? Smash out some stickers and base them on the basic SS ute and make sure their is some really hard to identify unique part combinations to completely stuff up restores in 25 years time.

[HZSandman]

Looks pretty cool. Would have stuck to the Sandman decal on the back though. Looks a bit funny on the side.

[Robbo]

Does look ok, but as per the "Myth's", once again they are only doing the "Van" replica's. I haven't seen any ute's as a Sandman yet.

[sanman]

There was a small decal on the tailgate from memory. I was impressed with the canopy. I think they are made by the same people who make the canopies for the police utes in Victoria,

Geoff