Wish list of factory options for the 1970's Sandman.

[HK1837]

If I could choose Brooklyn Decker as an option i'd want a Sandman van!

Back ontopic, just imagine that Sandman continued into WB, and that WB was updated into WD or WE or WF or whatever. By mid 1988 only just over 3 years after the end of WB we would have seen an injected 5 litre and 4L60 in a proper Holden. Probably a BW diff and rear discs too. Ford did it with the XG and XH so Holden could have done it too. Only downside would have been enduring that awful 3.0L Nissan engine and dodgy auto for a few years, plus a carbied ULP V8.

[Taily]

If I could choose Brooklyn Decker as an option i'd want a Sandman van!

Back ontopic, just imagine that Sandman continued into WB, and that WB was updated into WD or WE or WF or whatever. By mid 1988 only just over 3 years after the end of WB we would have seen an injected 5 litre and 4L60 in a proper Holden. Probably a BW diff and rear discs too. Ford did it with the XG and XH so Holden could have done it too. Only downside would have been enduring that awful 3.0L Nissan engine and dodgy auto for a few years, plus a carbied ULP V8.

The VL V8 carby had to happen as they weren't far enough along with the 304 EFI to release it even though the A9L was one very sweet engine for the time. If Holden had have rushed it they'd have ballsed it up even worse than they did with the Buick V6 introduction in the VN. The RB30/Jatco was a smoother, more refined, quieter and better put together from the factory (the bearing/ring/piston weight tolerances were that uniform you could almost refer to them as blueprinted) than the Buick clunker that used to bleed fluids profusely from every concievable gasket, seal and plug fitted to it, which makes you wonder why as the engine has its origins as far back as 1962! Coupled with the rattling balance/timing chains, coil packs and sensors that were notoriously unreliable when they were introduced, the Nissan donk was streets ahead. OK, they had their fair share of issues with heads cracking down the cam tunnel if not bled properly and noisy distributors if the cam belt was loose but from a mechanics point of view the Nissan engines were a high standard to achieve that the Buick engine had no chance of ever reaching.

Later incarnations of the Buick engine were much better but they never got away from that harsh cabin noise from the engine/exhaust. They never released the turbocharged version here (though the supercharged version we had was beefed-up internally) but from what I understand they were a more reliable engine than the N/A version! It would have been a hoot of a follow up from the VL turbo. Though I doubt that the VN suspension design tweeks from the VL would have kept them on the road very well without FE2 being fitted as standard.

Production and design philosophy (heading towards unitary designs) meant that the full chassis designs of the 70's were never going to continue into the late 80's, but yeah it would have been nice to see just how far the development of the W platform actually could have gone!

[Innuendo]

... just imagine that Sandman continued into WB, and that WB was updated into WD or WE or WF or whatever. By mid 1988 only just over 3 years after the end of WB we would have seen an injected 5 litre and 4L60 in a proper Holden.

Thank god that never happened. The UC infected WB was bad enough! Had they released "WD or WE or WF or whatever" that would have tarnished the great '70's machines even further. There wasn't a Holden built after HZ for the next 20 years that had any decent styling and just about no commercials. A VN/VS fronted WB Van or Ute - the mind boggles with the ugliness. '87 -'97 is just an embarrassing time for Holden and the automotive manufacturing industry in general, especially in styling.

[HK1837]

Thank god that never happened. The UC infected WB was bad enough! Had they released "WD or WE or WF or whatever" that would have tarnished the great '70's machines even further. There wasn't a Holden built after HZ for the next 20 years that had any decent styling and just about no commercials. A VN/VS fronted WB Van or Ute - the mind boggles with the ugliness. '87 -'97 is just an embarrassing time for Holden and the automotive manufacturing industry in general, especially in styling.

UC styling was based on WA which was based on what Europe were doing with whatever the VB was based upon, not the other way around.
I agree that a VN fronted W commercial would have been awful but at least they'd have built a commercial between 1985-1991.