Family Heriloom Inherited

[veedubnut]

About a month ago I was given the rather exciting news that dad and I were to inherit my dads uncle's (my great uncles ) very original Holden Belmont station wagon... My great uncle has just celebrated his 101st birthday this month quite a milestone! His health is amazing! He only retired from driving in 2004.

He purchased the Belmont new in 1971 and he has kept all paperwork and books all these years. It is in quite amazing condition but, is now starting to show its age in a few areas and will be given a full ground-up restoration over the next couple of years. Really just needs freshening up nothing serious.

A little frightening but, I am considering making a shift from the Ford camp and looking for another Holden HK or HG wagon.

Told my dad all we need is an old plywood caravan now to go with the Belmont! Mum did not look impressed!

Hope the pics are not huge

Cheers

Greg

[Deleted]

Hi Greg

These old HK, HT, HG kingos and belmonts where a good solid "no frills" car.
Your dads uncles car looks good enough to use "As is".
I was looking at buying one off ebay to replace the landcruiser.
There is a bloke in ipswich with a very tidy pale blue and white HG wagon . He was trying for $2750 starting bid.

Only thing that stopped me was the cost of getting it down to Newcastle . It was unregistered. If your wagon had turned up on ebay i would probably have bought it.

Missus gave me a good talking to about bringing home another old car .......I ended up buying a commodore ute for our everyday hack..


Anyway the wagon will look great out in front of what ever van you tow with it. Good luck with the resto.

Reddo

[carapark]

Greg, Looks like a pristine original example, are the original # plates in storage?, I agree with Reddo, looks like you could enjoy it as is.

The trend seems to be to not restore these days but to preserve these Aussie icons.

We had an original unrestored HK Brougham as a daily driver for a couple of years, sorry to say we sold it.

Good luck with it!

Gary

[veedubnut]

Hello Reddo and Gary,

I must admit with just a small amount of work we could get it re-registered very easily... The paint is very thin in some areas though... My uncle has polished the paint away! There is a smalll amount of rust above right side of windscreen, factory fitted rust in bottom of front guards and two doors have minor rust... I'd prefer to just repair these areas and not lose too much character of the original car... Hmmm I'll have to have a word in my dads hear

Sadly the original rego plates were handed in by family before we received it

I'll do my best to convince my old man that preservation is the way to go... It does need a little mechanical work as well but, motor a 161 runs smoothly... Filled the tank in Moruya $90 but, on arrival at my folks in in Penrith it had only used a quarter of a tank!

[HDTodd]

Very nice looking car Greg. I've always liked the HK/T/G models and have owned four of them in my short driving history. I just bought this HK Prem to replace my Buick which looked too goofy towing my short van.