Australia isn’t short of old Holdens from the 1960s and 1970s and they’re often kept in excellent condition. A 1970 Holden HT Premier wagon, however, is not a common sight, and certainly not in this stunning Verdoro Green.
My dad is no car guy but he recognized this as a HT Holden (presumably not noticing the licence plate). Back in the day, when Holden reigned supreme in the Aussie market, a new Holden was an event. As the market opened up and even Holden’s own range expanded to include various smaller models, the significance of a “new” Holden diminished. In the ‘60s, however, the big Aussie 3 – Holden, Ford and Chrysler – all had fairly frequent model changeovers that brought at least cosmetic tweaks and minor technical improvements. We weren’t at the same level of planned obsolescence as the Americans, though, with their new styling every year. We also kept things trimmer – the HT was the full-size Holden but it was dimensionally similar to the much less practical Chevrolet Nova not sold here. For further context, it was about a couple of inches longer and wider than an Opel Rekord.
The ’69 HT was a facelift of the HK series, which had been an extensive redesign of the Holden line that brought with it the first Monaro and the first “big” flagship, the Brougham. The HK had marked the availability of Holden’s first V8 (actually a 307 cubic-inch mill imported from Chevrolet) but the HT saw it largely replaced by two locally-engineered V8s of 253 and 308 cubic inches. A Chevy 350, however, was newly available in the Monaro line. There were new front suspension bushes that improved ride quality and noise isolation, while a one-inch wider track front and rear modestly improved handling.
The Premier was the poshest of the three-tier HT Holden sedan/wagon range, sitting above the base Belmont and mid-range Kingswood. It was one of the most expensive Holdens, too, priced below only the sporty Monaro GTS coupe and the big-butt Brougham sedan.
The 161 cubic-inch six in lesser Holdens wasn’t available in the Premier. There was, however, a 186 cubic-inch six in either low-compression (124 hp, 173 ft-lbs) or high-compression (130 hp, 181 ft-lbs) tunes; only the high-compression six had an automatic choke. In addition, the aforementioned new V8s were optional – the 253 was good for 185 hp and 262 ft-lbs, the 308 for 240 hp and 315 ft-lbs. Though the Premier was the second poshest Holden nameplate, all four of its engines were available with a four-on-the-floor and bucket seats, which came with or without a console except in the V8s where a console was mandatory. If you wanted power steering, Frigidaire air-conditioning, full instrumentation or nylon Castillon Weave trim, those were extra-cost options.
A new series, the HG, replaced the HT for 1970 because why should these series codes make sense? In later decades, Aussie cars’ series codes tended to be sequential and they’d only skip one if it had some distasteful definition (e.g. VD, EC). The ’70-71 HG Holden was yet another mild cosmetic tweak, though there were a couple of meaningful changes like front disc brakes being rolled out across all V8-powered models and the more widespread availability of the Powerglide-replacing three-speed Tri-Matic.
A HT Holden could be had in myriad permutations. Six or V8. Sedan, coupe, wagon or ute. Manual or auto. Today, a ZB Commodore (nee Opel Insignia/Buick Regal) can be had as a hatchback, wagon or crossover wagon, with a choice of front- or all-wheel-drive, and either turbocharged diesel or gas engines or a naturally-aspirated V6. There’s still a lot of variety and you can still get a posh wagon, now wearing Calais nameplates. Alas, there are fewer buyers and less enthusiasm. And there’s no color available as stunning as Verdoro Green.
Photographed in January 2019 in Wilston, QLD, Australia.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: Holden HG Monaro GTS – Heavy Metal on the Grassy Plain
Curbside Classic: 1969-70 Holden Brougham – A Case Of GM Following The Market
A very cool vehicle, a bit “uncanny valley” to my American eyes, in scale and details. I believe the HR was the last pre-modern Commodore chassis to be produced in LHD, a very small number made it to Hawaii via military personnel stationed on Guam (or so I’ve read).
I would love to see a write up on Holden’s domestic 253 and 308 V8s; they’ve got a unique look about them, like a SBC crossed with a Rover V8
I know only that they were lighter with higher bhp per litre than the Chev sbc when new, and designed by an ex-V1 rocket Phd and Luftwaffe pilot from Latvia who’d come here as a refugee post-WW2. I think (but am unsure) that they have a unique firing order for a V8.They certainly sound distinct, with a slightly harsh barking note the Ford or Chryco V8’s didn’t have. I know too that they kept it for 30 years, and sold over 1/2 a million of them all up, not bad in a market this size. And the only other thing I know (from experience) is that the 253 ci V8 was a super-sweet, revvy engine, easily made even moreso by simple mods.
Pontiac firing order on the Holden V8s the 253 used 186 pistons which kept tooling costs down altering the cam timing one tooth turns the little torqueless 253 into a screamer.
The brain is slow this morning just remembered a friend had a HT Premier 307 auto power steer and power disc brakes so you could have both, he bought his one used but it wasnt an unusual car except it had power windows. and all that was standard on Broughams anyway.
Powe windows were not standard on the Brougham.
Really, I havent seen one without them, then again I havent seen a complete one for a while.
,
I think even the early HQ Statesman’s didn’t have power windows standard. The Caprice of course did.
I used to see a few Premier sedans of the HT HG era with the optional power windows but never the wagons, which of course could be had with a powered tailgate window option.
I once drove a Kingwood or Belmont sedan. It was like driving a soggy truck. The Monaro was probably the best looking Australian car ever, but one wonders how much better a drive they would have been.
Yeah of course I keep forgetting NZ cars were specced up compared to Aussie models example ALL NZ Statemans were 308 auto pwr steer pwr window cars, Broughams suffered the same they threw everything in, anything above Kingswood came with a V8 unless ordered with a six. It was a different market with more in house GM competition, a PC Cresta was a Premier level car in equipment , price and performance, they also had flow thru ventilation 60s Holdens lacked.
I didn’t know Australian cars sold in NZ were usually sold in higher spec but as you say it does make sense as the market was more competitive with more models that Australia (seem illigical as we are a much bigger market) never got.
Great find, so familiar in many ways but also so odd in others. The front end/grille could be an alternate design for the Special/Skylark while the side profile makes me think of Olds.
I was thinking Buick, but I totally see that. Yeah… Olds.
Was this darker green offered by GM in the US at that time? I remember so many of the lighter metallic green, like the 1970 Impala covered by Paul a few days ago, or my own 1973 Vega. But I don’t remember this Verduro Green … quite nice.
I don’t know about GM, but I think Ford (and maybe Chrysler) had a color like that in either ’68, ’69 or ’70.
But I’ll let our resident color whisperer JPC chime in on that. He has an excellent eye (and memory) for colors.
“But I don’t remember this Verduro Green”
dman: Verdoro green was quite common and quite attractive on 1967 & ’68 Pontiac Firebirds and also on 1968 & ’69 Pontiac LeMans//GTO.
GM Divisions seemed to have some flexibility in paint colors then, and it seems that the Verdoro Green offered by Pontiac in 1967-70 (GM code WA3771) was a Pontiac-specific color. Paintref.com does not get into Aussie cars so I cannot say whether the Holden version was identical to the Pontiac, but it certainly could have been.
Those avocado kind of greens were very popular in the late 60s and early 70s and everyone had some version of it at one time or another.
In looking this up, one mystery appears – the GM code for the Pontiac color stayed the same for all 4 years, while the codes on the other paint manufacturers were different between 1967-68 and 1969-70.
They were very handsome as a wagon and downright gorgeous as the Monaro coupe. In fact, I’d put the coupe up there as among General Motors’ best ever. Discuss!
But the HT did not offer improved handling over the HK at all. At some time in ’68, Holden got George Roberts, fresh from Cadillac, as chief engineer. He took the HK front suspension and added a great deal of rubber for this HT, doubtless making Cadillac-type quietness better but the handling a good deal worse.
I’ve driven the mechanically identical HG a lot, and rest assured, the handling was awful. It was only exceeded in roll and understeer by the next model, the pretty HQ, where George was the chief engineer for Holden all through. Infamously, he proudly demonstrated the passive “safety” of that car by taking journalists up to 80mph on the skidpan, and suddenly winding on full lock: it barely deviated from the straight ahead. Whilst understeer is ofcourse a safer option to be desired in mass-market cars, this level of awfulness represented a danger all of its own.
So whilst I appreciate the sweet looks (and sheer ruggedness) of this car, and also feel all sorts of inchoate nostalgia for the days in which “we” built our own, I feel no love for the actual car at all. Essentially because as something to drive for enjoyment, they were complete and utter crap.
Ofcourse, this lovely green machine looks like a Sunday tourer, in which role such stuff doesn’t matter a damn, and I’m sure the owner loves such pottering in it.
As a by-the-by, I vaguely recall that if power steering was ordered (or perhaps a/c), you couldn’t also get the powered disc brakes – they weren’t made unpowered – meaning you could order the heaviest version of an-ill handling car with the biggest motor, but only on drums.
Btw, William, I can’t agree HK-HT-HGs are at all common any more. For the info of CCers, a Premier like this one in this condition would be easily $35K AUD, and if a V8, possibly $50K.
I can’t say why, but American manufacturers did the same thing in the 60s. I almost bought a used 67 Fairlane station wagon with a 390 engine and 4 wheel drum brakes. Not sure if they were powered or not.
Interestingly Justy in NZ possibly due to our terrain you couldnt get front drum brakes on Holdens from the HR 66 model onwards HQs never scared me in OZ but in NZ you did keep your foot out of it.
HQs were terrible. Ugly, slow, gas guzzling, ugly, rattly, easy to break into (you only needed a comb), ugly, and … plain ugly. However, heaps of room under the bonnet to pull a motor and throw another in. Two people could stand easily in the engine bay. I had two HQs in my day. But, man they were plain-jane looking cars. A close #2 behind the hideous 1999+ Australian AU Falcon. Sorry, which car were we talking about again? HT/HK/HG? NICE CAR.
“However, heaps of room under the bonnet to pull a motor and throw another in. Two people could stand easily in the engine bay.”
And if that didn’t work you could just pull all the front end panels off…
What’s interesting to me is what isn’t there; no woodgrain side paneling (the analog of the Premier sedans’ vinyl top); Ford had tried fake-wood wagons in Australia and most of their other overseas markets in the ’60s to little success. GM was likely to have breathed a sigh of relief that it was their rival who had to learn that lesson the hard way.
Lovely find on a generation of Aussie car that I’d love know more about (and there’s quite a long list of them. You can start counting styling cues from the US and Europe, from GM, Ford and others, but as a whole it still works and that green (and in that excellent condition) it works.
When we were in NZ earlier this year, I tried to blag (sorry suggested that as an eminent and respected established customer) we got a Commodore from Avis instead of a Barina. Got as far as a Corolla sedan, so the Commodore in any form remains on the bucket list. Then I can start dreaming of a Kingswood.
And when I get to a Monaro I hope I’d more cheerful than the guys in the advert!
Well, you keep overshooting the country in which they were made, dear boy. You know, the one where all the original blaggers were sent…
Those Monaro folk should look grim. They’ve just driven a rare GTS V8 version into the sea, or at least, bobbed up from snorkelling to find they’d parked in a very silly spot for high tide, and either way, they know that their car is worth way over $100K in 2019 and they’ve just ruined it.
Makes me think of way back in the mid-1960s, when Chevy introduced the new, sleek Impala two-door hardtop. The ad, in my recollection, showed this gorgeous car parked on a rock, with the surf washing over it. All the way over it! I think they were trying to suggest that this gorgeous car washed in via the ocean. I think I heard that a prototype was used for this commercial; maybe it had served its purpose for setting up the manufacturing, but still….
I found the commercial on YouTube.
That is wrong on so many levels! Think of the rust inducing salt water!
Note the missing right rear wheel cover at the 0:43 mark.
And the ocean almost claims her at the 0:50 mark*.
* Right after the narrator says “time cannot wash away”… well, dude, apparently TIDE can wash this Chevy away!
But considering what is spent on advertising, particularly a Super Bowl ad these days, I suppose sacrificing an Impala back then was just the cost of doing business.
Holy Rustoleum, Batman!
I wonder what poor bastard that they sold this to as ‘new’ or as a demonstrator?
It could be interesting to compare it with the 1966 one who was filmed at Fort Macon, Georgia.
Interesting that the wagon still has the HK ‘coke bottle’ styling while the saloon’s been updated. Nice green, very like Vauxhall’s contemporary ‘Goodwood Green Starmist’ (might even be the same colour with a different name).
Bernard Holden did not change any panel between the two models, The PC Vauxhall Cresta was a much nicer faster better riding car NZ had both OZ didnt.
As a kid it always struck me as strange that the HT got such a major roofline, rear door and rear fender rework, after the HK had only been on the market for a year. But the guys down at the pub had accused Holden of copying Falcon with the rear door hipline on the HK, and I guess that must have stung. Only in later years did I realise the amount of tooling that was changed and had any insight into what that must have cost. What price corporate pride? No wonder they left the wagon alone. But then, it’s a beautiful shape, and what would you change?
When I was a kid, I thought the HK looked sort of unfinished compared to the later models, Monaros and Premiers were ok but the base models lacked something, even the wheels had a strange ventilation hole pattern like they had missed stamping some of the holes.
100% yes! The HK Belmonts didn’t even have the tacky fake plastichrome “tailight” extension onto the bootlid (which on the Prem got longer again, ooh, aah, the class). The whole looked insipid. And bald.
But oddy, I now quite like the HK, especially on the Monaro, as that cross-bar grille somehow widens the car. All looks a bit crowded-in on HT’s and HG’s. And I just recalled, on the GTS Monaros the plastichrome fake back taillights went right across, also widening the look, and actually looking quite classlessly good.
I’m there on the HK as well. Mostly for the chromed grille and red/blue centre insignia. Rear lights weren’t as nice at the T/G but that red painted GTS strip did its job.
The ‘new’ HT was certainly an event as a family we had been riding in a HK 68 model in ultima Aqua blue 186 3 speed column shift crash on first wagon, it had been shunted by a Morris 1100 when only a few weeks old and we’d ridden in the badly dented wagon for nearly 9 months untill the parts arrived to repair it, suddenly it vanished and the old manm came home it a beat up FC Holden he’d borrowed from the trade in pile, mum refused to drive it I as a ten year old thought it was cool wide wheels coby equipped exhaust primer grey with matte black accents anyway it was only there a few days and then a bright blue on blue HT Kingswood 186 3 speed manual wagon came home I was impressed with the pressed in pattern on the seats Dad was impressed that finally Holden was approaching Vauxhall levels of refinement in that it had a full syncro gearbox something Vauxhall made standard in 1960, the main changes for the HT were voided rubber bushings in the lower control arms for a better ride at the expense of handling a lighter plastic grille white centres in the hubcaps and they moved the trim around a little and of course full syncromesh three speed trans, Front disc brakes were standard on NZ spec Holdens since the HR model as were colour coded carpet throughout, when our HT disappeared in 71 we got to see what Austtralians were riding in with a OZ assemble HQ Kingswood 202 six 3 speed manual wagon yes it had discs up front as is was assembled for NZ export but it had shit brown hoodlining and plastic on the floor we had to wait till dad tired of it for another HQ this time NZ assy 202 with trimatic carpet etc that you had to order a Premier for in OZ to get standard.
I had one of these wagons in the late 70s, a mid-range Kingswood, 186 (3 litre) all synchro 3 on the tree, disc brakes. It was an HG, 70-71, the last of this shape.
The gearshift had a common design fault – it would jam. One would have to hop under the bonnet, usually in thick traffic, to free it. It only took a few seconds, but still…
After driving it for a while one learnt the knack of avoiding this issue. For those new to the car, it would happen often. It saved this car for me after it was stolen. I found it abandoned in the middle of an intersection a kilometre away with the gearchange jammed.
Criticise it as much as you like, but I loved it and it’s the only car from my youth that I wish I still had. Nice to drive, sweet 186, chuckable (with radials, 40psi all round!), spacious but not too heavy. Vastly superior to the horrible HQ and anything else that followed.
The Falcon’s column gearshift was no better. Mine jammed in the middle of St. Kilda junction in peak hour…
Speco or Impale floor shift conversions were popular I had an Impala shifter on my XY Falcon nearly killed the cluch nursing to a wrecking yard jammed in top it would not free up again.
Gawd, I’d forgotten the gearchange roulette, an advanced ant-theft device that they continued in the HQ too. As for the XR-XY Falc, they had a much sweeter change, but I do recall the XA/B’s would do the gearjam routine. My XR never jammed, but it did break, leaving me to travel home late one night in valve-bounce 1st. As you don’t.
I’ll give you this, Brian: I too reckon that in many practical ways, the HQ was a worse car, slower, breathless (as a 202), heavier, thirstier, and just generally clumsier. The HG felt like a number of its ills might be addressed by some big anti roll bars (and perhaps 40psi, which I never tried!) and harder springs as the hot Monaro versions had, whereas the successor felt so off that nothing would fix it.
That 202 was awful after the sweet 186, and even worse once they slapped the band-aids on to meet the ADR27a emission levels in ’76. A truly awful motor. No wonder Falcon sales soared!
And I’m with you on the HQ being worse generally. It looked pretty, no doubt about that, and it was tremendously popular, true; but there was a certain rock-ribbed honesty and solidity about the earlier generation that the HQ lacked – and that’s without talking suspension.
The worst part about Holdens back in the day particularly the HQ is they came from the factory on traction free cross ply tyres change em onto decent radials and they steer ok especially the utes and vans as they had more positive rear axle location with leaf springs HTs and Gs had leaves out back anyway but they had mushy rubber bushings up front where the HK had metal. Hard to beat the 179/186 engines lengthening the strok to get 202 cubes wasnt a good move as the warranty claims proved.
That is truly a beautiful wagon, and I don’t recall ever seeing one in this green. Such a beautiful shine on it – but is that a peeling clearcoat I see on the roof?
Superb catch William. The premier face is always nicer on the wagons, but I find it harder telling whether HT or HG – the bread and butter (and GTS) single light grilles are much more differentiated.
Hubcaps used to be the giveaway Don black centres on HK white on HT red on HG
Thats right, I remember Dad saying the new HG looked no different from the HT, and as a kid I pointed out all the subtle differences including the hubcap centres, and the fact that the automatics were called Trimatics.
gentlemen, thank you both
So THAT’S where Chrysler got the Volare/Aspen design….
I didn’t know full instrumentation was available as an option. Does that mean you could get a Belmont or Brougham with a tachometer? I’ve never seen that.
Not sure about the KTG models but on the Qs the Monaro instument panel was an option, ex GFs mother had a Q Kingy done like that best part of the car and the most valuable when she traded it.
First, what a great car. I have decided that the Aussies had a great idea in the series designations that changed with every significant redesign. We Yanks have been left to the awkward system of having to group by model years (1946-48 Chrysler, for example) or by having to come up with some pet name (Bullet birds for the 61-63 Thunderbird).
And what a glorious period color! I was not a fan of those avocado greens when they became popular, preferring the “straight” dark greens of the early to mid 60s instead. But I love them now.
Great catch William. One quibble: The 186S was the only six with an automatic choke, using the same WW carby as the 253 V8.