MARCUS THOMAS
SYDNEY, NSW
CAR ownership can be a funny old thing. Some people are all about crazy variety, punting an RX-3 coupe one week and some sort of 50s Yankee wagon the next. Then there are those with devout and outspoken brand allegiance who will never stray from their chosen manufacturer and have all the apparel to match. But there’s another group of car fans who mostly love that one particular model that’s seemingly entrenched in their DNA. Sydney’s Marcus Thomas falls into this latter category. A firm love of Holden’s HJ-HZ range has seen a number of them pass through his hands over the past quarter-century, with only the occasional ring-in along the way.
01: MARCUS bought this HZ sedan as his first car back in 1997, and soon hit the streets sporting thongslapper 253 V8 power backed by a Trimatic slushbox. A sunroof, two-tone paint and rare factory-option Dunlop wire wheels added some class. As it turned out, this HZ planted the seed for Marcus’s vehicular future. “This is definitely where my love of owning Kingswoods started,” he says. “I even picked up my baby boy from the hospital in this car; he is now 23 years old and has the love for the trusty Kingswood too!”
02: FIVE years on, it was time for Marcus to mix things up a little, so the HZ was sold and replaced with this 308/Trimatic LH Torana that he bought out of Katoomba for a whopping $2500! “They were the days, weren’t they?” he laughs. “That $2500 got me a beast of a car, really; it would beat nearly everything away from the lights and had a full SL/R interior as well. Unfortunately, it went a little too well and I lost my licence, so I sold it to my cousin for $3000 in 2004.” 03: BY 2006, Marcus was back in the saddle and picked up this HJ Kingswood wagon for $1500, rolling on a set of old-school chrome Elstar wheels. The 253 V8 ran on both petrol and LPG, and was backed by a five-speed conversion for great highway running. A Premier front added some bling, and the wagon also sported plenty of GTS gear including the sports dash, guard flutes, steering wheel and badgework. “It may have looked a little ragged, but this was a great car that went everywhere, and even took bush trips to the Blue Mountains in its stride,” Marcus says. “I sold that a little later and moved on to my very first 4WD, which was probably a bit more appropriate to use for those kind of adventures!”
04: AS A young kid in the 80s, Marcus got to cruise around in the back of his uncle’s Chrysler Drifter panel van. “That was it; I was hooked on vans from that moment and dreamt of owning
one for years,” he says. “I finally got my own panel van back in 2011 – this windowless HX Kingswood running a dual-fuel 202 six-cylinder and three-speed column-shift, along with a bench seat. I found it in Victoria and shelled out $4500 for it, and I especially loved its look with the Premier front end.”
05: WHEN it comes to the question of his favourite panel van, Marcus firmly acknowledges the legendary ‘XX308’ HJ Holden built by the late Stephen Ellis in the mid-late 1970s. It was featured in the very first issue of SM’S forerunner magazine, Van Wheels, and has been through a number of guises and owners over the past 40-plus years, but this version built by Gary Waghorn in the early 1980s is Marcus’s favourite. Gary bought XX308 after it had been stolen and recovered; it was badly damaged and missing many of its original identifying parts.
The 308 was long gone, so Gary replaced it with a 327 Chev, while the missing custom Monza front was toned back with a Statesman front using the once-popular XC Fairmont/gxl headlight conversion. “It was a beautiful mild custom van under Gary’s ownership,” Marcus says. “The Deville Blue paint looked a treat, and it just screams iconic, period-perfect Australian panel van.”
06: MARCUS still owns the HX panel van, and he and his partner, Jada, have done it up over the years. “We repainted it Impulse Blue and as a contrast blacked out the chromework,” he says. “We also redid the front interior, adding a yellow-needle GTS dash along with an original radio, and decked out the rear in true panel van style. It still runs a 202, but we removed the LPG, and it features a Stage Two camshaft and 350 Holley.” 07: JADA enjoyed working on the HX van, so Marcus bought her this Kingswood ute back in 2019 as an early wedding gift. “$8500 bought us a pretty tidy HJ, also running a 202 but this time backed by a four-speed,” Marcus explains. “We had the bench seat retrimmed in leather and fitted a set of Cragar rims, before selling it on in 2021. It was a sad day to see her go – the ute, that is; Jada stuck around!”
08: HERE is the pano doing wedding duties for Jada and Marcus’s nuptials in September this year. “It was held at the Winbourne Function Centre in Mulgoa, and we were honoured to have Karen Davis let us use her beautiful HX van too,” Marcus enthuses. “Karen’s van is a genuine Tuxedo Black Sandman, which is a rare colour combination for one of these, and made for a great pairing with ours.”