The Southern Early’s FX-FJ Club of South Australia Inc invited the General’s FX-FJ Club of SA Inc and our club to join them for a barbecue at the McLaren Vale Information Centre on what turned out to be a beautiful, mild, sunny day.
Just on 50 Holdens assembled on the pleasant lawned area behind the Centre, most of them being 48-215 and FJ sedans, along with a few 50-2106 and FJ utilities and one FJ panel van. The vehicles ranged from stock standard through to highly modified.
Among the accompanying photographs are some of the interesting vehicles on display. From our club there was an immaculate Lithgow Cream FJ Special, which was making its first appearance since its ground-up restoration. There was also a pillar box red PMG (Post Master General’s Department, forerunner of Australia Post) FJ panel van, one of only three known to be authentically restored and road registered inAustralia. Incredibly, two of the three are in our club. The March 1949 48-215 is the second oldest Adelaide-assembled Holden on wheels. An outfit of a 48-215 sedan and a matching trailer, made from the back half of an FJ panel van, attracted much attention.
The showstopper from the Southern Early’s Club was arguably the most amazing blackFJ Special streetmachine ever made. It has a radically widened and lowered body, which still retains all the essential characteristics of the FJ. A terrifyingly powerful engine sits beneath the bonnet, and the plush interior reminds one of business class in an aircraft.
From the General’s Club there was a multi-award winning two-door FJ coupé, painted in eye-catching metallic green, which demonstrated what can be done when someone with great expertise puts in hundreds of hours to achieve a modified sedan that looks truly professional. Also from that club was Dave Polklaser’s splendidly restored FJ Business sedan, painted authentically in the rarely produced colour of Shannon Green.
The show-and-tell award for the day would have to go to a genuine, period-produced FJ disc brake, one of only a few known to survive from the heyday of FJ racing in the 1960s.
Attending events like this is what makes club membership so rewarding and enjoyable.
