Regular seniordriveraus.com contributor and confirmed car tragic Ian Crawford recalls some Holden memories that we can probably all relate to.
While I haven’t owned a Holden for around 30 years, the demise of the once great, certainly historic, brand touches me and many Australians old and young.
Being the old bloke that I am, my memories of Holden go right back to the first one … the one erroneously known as the FX but correctly known as the 48/215.
In 1948, my father was deputy manager in the Commonwealth Bank in Devonport, Tasmania, and one of his clients – Sammy Slater was his name – bought one of the first examples of the new Australian car to arrive in the town.
Even though I was a very small boy at the time, I was already a petrol head and seeing the new Holden and sitting in it at Mr. Slater’s house was a major highlight of my early years …especially because the Crawford’s family car at the time was an A-model Ford.
I can even remember the colour. Don’t know what it was called but I reckon it was a burnished bronze hue.
After the A-model, Dad didn’t buy a 48/215. The first new car we had as a family was an Austin A40 … a yellow tourer with green vinyl trim.
Fast forward about five years and Dad was transferred to the Victorian Murray River town of Echuca, this time as manager of the Commonwealth Bank.
A short time later – partly because the local Holden dealer, Alf Lynch, was a client, the Crawford family became proud owners of a brand-new pale-blue FJ with blue vinyl trim.
I was seriously pissed off because Dad bought the standard model, not the “Special.”
I was even more pissed off when the Bank of New South Wales manager (he lived across the road and I was mates with his son) bought a “Special” – a yellow one with burgundy upholstery.
Dad and the aforementioned Alf Lynch became great mates and when the strikingly different FE – the FJ’s successor – was released, I had a sneak preview.
In those days, and for many years thereafter, the release of a new Holden was a huge event.
Dealers covered their showroom windows with sheets of brown paper or curtains so that the cars could not be seen until official launch day when dealers revealed the new car to invited guests and then the rest of the punters.
To keep one of the new FE’s hidden away from the dealership, Alf asked Dad to hide a “Special” in our lock-up garage for a few days.
I was over the moon and every afternoon after school for about a week I’d go to the garage and sit behind the wheel pretending to drive the car and studying in awe all its features.
Despite my best efforts, Dad didn’t buy an FE but he did subsequently buy an FC “Special”.
Until then it was the blue FJ and it was the car in which he taught me drive, sometimes out in paddocks on clients’ farms and then out on the open road.
In those days there were no such things as L plates and learners’ permits.
Therein lies another chapter in my Holden story.
The FJ followed us from Echuca to Burnie, Tasmania when Dad was appointed manager of the Commonwealth Bank and on the morning of my 18th birthday, Dad and I went to the police station to fix the licence.
The FJ had been traded on a new FC – a two-tone white-and-grey “Special” with two-tone red and light-grey upholstery.
The duty sergeant said: “You can drive me home to lunch.”
Having successfully done as I was asked, he said: “Go back to the station and tell them I said to give you the licence.”
Things are, thankfully, a bit more exhaustive these days although as I always say, kids today are taught how to get a licence, NOT how to drive.
The FC was the first car I was allowed to drive without Dad being in the front-passenger’s seat and each Sunday I was allowed to borrow the car for a few hours.
It was the car in which my then girlfriend and now wife did our first courting and major events like our first night at the drive-in.
One other memory of the FC fills me with horror.
Soon after I got my licence, Dad was appointed to manage the Commonwealth Bank’s temporary branch at the Royal Melbourne show and he and Mum went to Melbourne for the duration of the big event.
My elderly maternal grandmother moved in with my brother and me to look after us while they were away.
Nana was given instructions that I could have the car on the odd occasion but as she was a lovely old softie, I had it constantly.
What now fills me with dread is that I used to drive the car up behind Burnie near a township called Ridgley where there was a great stretch of straight bitumen at the bottom of a hill.
They actually used to hold speed trials there in the old days.
I used to go to the top of the hill, turn around and flatten the FC down the hill to see how fast I could take the corner at the entry of the straight.
The speedo would go off the clock.
How I’m still here is a miracle.
The first car I actually owned was a Mini, the second a super-rare twin-cam MG-A roadster, the third was a Falcon Futura hardtop and the fourth – my first Holden – was a brand-new HK GTS Monaro V8.
A couple of years later, following the arrival of a large Old English sheepdog (like the one in the Dulux paint commercials) and our first child, the Monaro was replaced by an HQ wagon.
Fortunately, at the time, my secretary’s father was a Holden director and he arranged for my HQ to be fitted with all the GTS bits – the dash, steering wheel, grille and wheels.
It really was a one-off.
The HQ was our family car for quite a few years before I became a Ford man and after a succession of Falcon wagons, we bought a Territory Ghia – a car we still have to this day.
Like many people, I am sad to see the demise of a once-great brand that was a huge and important part of Australia’s motoring history and economy.
There is, in my view, a raft of reasons for what’s happened but here are a few key ones.
I reckon it’s a bit rich for a lot of Australians to blame governments for the Holden’s passing.
The fact is that fewer and fewer of them bought the company’s offerings and having been to Holden factories and its Melbourne head office on many occasions, I can tell you that there were fewer Holdens in the employee car parks than Japanese and Korean products.
Holden (and its GM masters) didn’t see the SUV thing coming like Ford did with the Territory, the company’s Korean-sourced vehicles such as the Captiva and the Epica, weren’t very good and the fact is that Australia, with around 70 brands, is probably the most competitive car market in the world.
Chuck in the fact that we’re right-hand drive and development costs for moving the steering wheel across are prohibitive and no wonder it’s “bye-bye Holden.”
If you’d like to share some of your Holden memories, send them in to seniordriveraus.com and we’ll publish the best of them