Mini Muscle
Weston’s Humpy sports sedan from the ‘70s.”
Good old Matchbox was good for some early Holdens too. There’s a panel van in its normal size (about 1:76 scale) that’s seen a lot of use as a promotional model for many, many companies – I think I have one somewhere with ‘Gowings’ on it – a legendary menswear shop in Sydney, now sadly departed.
Matchbox did a set of three cars in about 1:43 scale commemorating the 2000 Sydney Olympics. There’s a sedan, ute and van, with the Sydney logo on one door and the Melbourne ‘56 one on the other. They made 7,500 sets – I wonder how many are still around. I see them on Ebay for $150 or so, so probably plenty are still in captivity.
Trax has made heaps of early Holdens, as you’d expect. Road cars, taxis and replicas of famous racing and rally (or trial) 48s and FJs, including Des West’s 48-215, the similar car of Spencer Martin and the Geoghegan black car with the wild aerodynamic front. Trax did a couple of 1:24 versions, including a very nice road car with just about every box ticked on the accessories order.
Classic Carlectables did some 1:43 scale ‘early girl’ Holdens about 20 years ago – they turn up occasionally second-hand. Most notably, Classics did the Holden E jy. This was a motor show concept car, meant to highlight Holden’s design and engineering and to be reminiscent of the FJ. While it never went into any sort of production, such was the interest that Classics did a run of 1:18 scale models – which soon sold out. I see a couple on Ebay for $600 and one for $1500 (tell him he’s dreaming!). I guess there’s still interest. You can also get a 1:10 scale Radio Control body for a lot less, but you have to get the rest of the hardware to put under it. When I said ‘a lot less’, it’s still $260.
Biante did lots of 48s and FJs, in all three of its main scales. Now, if you really want to annoy the living daylights out of a rusted-on Ford fan, show them the Dick Johnson FJ Holden. They’re out there in 1:43 scale for under $100. The bigger, 1:18 cars are in the mid-$200 range – up to maybe $300 depending on when you look. Interestingly, there were a couple of FJ road cars that were asking rather more than the Dick Johnson one. Draw your own conclusions from that.