SKIP TO MALOO
IT TOOK GM-H 42 YEARS TO COME UP WITH THE MALOO; PETER WOOLVEN TRIED TO RIGHT THAT WRONG BY BUILDING THE V8-POWERED EK UTE HOLDEN SHOULD HAVE MADE BACK IN 1962
Aproperty, an hour south of S WE walk the dusty driveway to his all began. “I had the vision Perth, Peter Woolven tells me how it at Holden in 1962, that if they had me as a design engineer as he throws open the putting together a Maloo...” He pauses be my version.” door to his sizeable shed: “...this would and are warranted; Peter’s EK ute sits spotless The theatrics and dirt bikes, Polynesian gunbarrel-straight amongst the tractors a shard of vibrant afternoon Green metallic paint glimmering beneath chrome grille throwing sparks of sun. Nose toward us, bonnet up, a disco ball. light to every corner of the shed like took 10 years to get the EK didn’t always look like this; it Of course, a pre-hsv V8 hay-hauler. the ute to fulfil Peter’s prophecy of
I NOW KNOW WHY THE PREVIOUS BLOKE THOUGHT IT WAS TOO FAR GONE. STILL, I THOUGHT I’D GIVE IT A TACKLE AND LEARN ON MY JOURNEY
it out of a paddock,” he says as “I paid 400 bucks for it and pulled “When we put it on the car we circle the now-immaculate machine. trailer, the front bumper just fell off!” the tray, floors and tailgate The subframe wasn’t the only issue; on top, but I now know why were all crunchy oxide. “It looked okay far gone,” Peter admits. “Still, I the previous bloke thought it was too on my journey.” thought I’d give it a tackle and learn for someone who was then That’s an admirably gung-ho attitude EK is Peter’s first major restohottie a novice car builder. That’s right, the and mechanical apprenticeships project! Sure, with sheet metal basics, but nothing he’d done under his belt, he already had the before had required a decade of dedication.
That being said, Peter’s unique plans for an EK Maloo, complete with V8 power and acceptable brakes, didn’t materialise right away. “Originally I was just going to build a hot six, so I put in a 186 running twin Strombergs and an Aussie four-speed,” he says. He’d already fixed the rust, sourcing a decent subframe from a stalled project as well as whacking some patch-panels in the floor. Five years and an HR disc-brake front end later, it was good enough for the WA authorities. Believe it or not, it was those same authorities that encouraged the bigger, badder motor. “I was happy with the 186, but when I went to the police licensing department to have the engineering signed off, they suggested I get approval for a V8!” Following that fateful appointment, Peter’s epiphany struck: the General had never built a Maloo before 1990, but what if they had? The EK returned home for another birthday; the slow bits were sold off and Peter started afresh – which included ditching the HR front end for a narrowed Jaguar set-up. Despite knowing the ratty patina and patch panels were no longer going to cut it, Peter sorted the engine and driveline first, grabbing himself a brand-new Chev crate motor and dummy-fitting it. Anyone who’s inserted a V8 into an early girl knows that the headers can cause a major migraine; some people choose to just punch a hole in the inner guards and be done with it, but not Peter. “I just tried to make them nice and neat; like they were supposed to be there,” he says. “They’re the first extractors I’ve made; they took a while to get the bends nice and tight so they hug the engine block.” With a 350 up front, nine-inch down the back and a Turbo 350 in the middle, Peter then got serious on the body; naturally he started by disassembling everything again! Mounting the body to a rotisserie ensured he had access to all areas of the ex-yard art ute. “The only thing I didn’t have to touch was the bonnet and the driver’s-side door,” he says. “I reckon another 12 months in that paddock and it would have been fully rusted out.” Saving old metal from the brink of destruction is one thing, but getting it back on the road as a trophy-hauling something attention monster is else altogether. “I had to make the front fenders – the lower half of the right one and all the left one,” Peter says. Asked whether he reused the factory headlight buckets, he nonchalantly replies: “Nope, made that too! I used an English wheel, MIG welder and angle grinder. It took me three months, working every weekend.” It’s indistinguishable from a factory job, although Peter concedes it took him a few goes. “I had to scrap it a couple of times; I was welding along the edge to match the gaps and got a little too much heat in it.” Craig Holmes at Holmes Panel & Paint in Byford took on the job of spraying up the car, applying liberal amounts of Polynesian Green across not only the body and engine bay, but also the tray, undercarriage and all over the dash, followed by lashings of clear. Gotta love old cars with more metal than plastic! Final assembly occurred back at the homestead, with Peter reinstalling all running gear, brakes and suspension, along with his own custom-made wiring loom. The interior, stitched off-site by Matt and Johnno at Byford Motor Trimmers, was the last part of the process. Having finished his story, Peter opens the driver’s door and sinks into the deep cream HR Premier bucket seat. A picture is worth a thousand words: Firing up the big 350, it’s time for the EK Maloo’s long overdue photoshoot under the fading West Australian sun. The General didn’t make a Maloo in ’62, but Peter Woolven’s V8 EK ute goes a long way to sorting that oversight, s and he’s pulled in plenty of tinware for his trouble.
I WAS HAPPY WITH THE 186, BUT WHEN I WENT TO THE POLICE LICENSING DEPARTMENT TO HAVE THE ENGINEERING SIGNED OFF, THEY SUGGESTED I GET APPROVAL FOR A V8!