1978 HOLDEN HZ SANDMAN UTE

WE’RE THE fourth owners. We brought it down from NSW. I think it had a rough life early on. It had a few modifications and needed a fair bit of work. The third owner tackled a lot of that and we finished it off. We’re very lucky to own it – we’re happy to have it and love driving it.

It has the 308 V8 and a TH400 transmission, which is a good combination.

We’re part of a Sandman group on Facebook which helps people identify what’s what when they’re looking for one, plus some of the fixes – that sort of thing. It’s called ‘My Sandman’ and we’ll be starting up a club soon.

I always liked the HZ utes and we were looking for something that was original with all its books. Of course it looks really nice.

There are a lot of vans around but not utes.

It sounds good and stands out.