HZ HOLDEN KINGSWOOD

Someone I know has a T-shirt with a picture of her HZ Kingswood on it, with the legend on the back: “The country hasn’t been the same since they stopped making the Kingswood.” She has a point.

For many families, it was the last of the full-size chrome bumper cars – the Commodore simply didn’t cut the proverbial mustard for this group – that would grace their shed. And a Statesman, which was to carry on as the WB series for some years? Unthinkable. Too much car and money.

Of course Holden got as far as building a WB Kingswood (you can see it in the Birdwood museum in SA), but it never got past prototype stage.

So, for many the HZ has real significance. The shape isn’t as smooth and elegant as the original HQ, but had by now picked up some American inf luence with the squared-off panels in the nose and rear.

Anti-pollution controls were in full force, which did the engines and their performance no favours as the initial engineering response was fairly clumsy.

What more than made up for those deficiencies was the Radial Tuned Suspension (RTS) handling package. This was more than just a handy marketing logo, but a rethink on how this series was set up. Gone was the legendary understeer, replaced by a package that stacked up pretty well at the time and (with good bushes and suspension underneath) remains a fairly capable unit. Body roll was minimised and you were dealing with reasonably tenacious grip.

The story of this car is extraordinary. The Valencia Orange is