HDT Owners' Club

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to wherever you are. You're listening to the AllTalk Car Podcast. With me today is Khalil. Good morning everyone.

Ross is not with us today. He's on After Duty Talk last week with Duty Cars. He went away to the Hanoverse. It's over duty weekend, duty weekend.

We've got his cars and painted back. We've got a special guest today. We've got Mr. Robert Blender.

Good morning, Vice President of the HDT Owners Club. Yes, I've NSW. I've NSW. Well, there's more than one.

There is more than one. There is a Car Club in Queensland, HDT Owners Club of Queensland and also of Victoria. And there is one in South Australia also, but it's been behind the HSV Club. Ah, look, there's not enough out there.

No, they just never split from when HSV was giving money away back in the early 2000s. They didn't take the money and they stayed as the HDT Owners Club, incorporating HSV. And what about WA? WA doesn't have a Car Club as such.

But there are HDT cars out there. There is plenty over there and money always has me. Well, there's something that I didn't know. But welcome this morning.

How did you get into it? Unfortunately, it's been in me since I've been about nine years old. A great friend of mine. His father bought a brand new VKSS in 1985.

Wow. He still owns that car to this day and that was the car that used to pick us up and take us home every day from school. They just loved it. And we just lived and breathed HDT Commodore.

With the square dashboard dials. That's the one. You were 90, 90, 85. You're 60.

Thank you. It's not a body program. It's radio. You look like he's 32, he's a spring chicken.

Thank you. So VKs and then what? When you first got your licence, did you then buy... Well, when it started to hold it?

Well, it was always holding. The family was holding. Dad was holding. Dad bought a WB Caprice in 82.

Remember going to three Sydney dealerships on the Bathurst race day. Dad looking for a car and just couldn't find what he wanted. And we were watching the race and it was just always everything was holding. In that buying a car from a very close and personal friend.

Peter May, who was a salesman at the time down at Sutton's Enclave. Is it there? Still there. Peter May is now retired.

Yeah. Cos long gone, unfortunately, it was given to me as a present. And I... Really raised it.

I gratefully didn't accept the present and gave it back to him. I like it. And he then on sold it and... I thought you went to the Hill Hill Driving School.

No. No. Hill Hill's driving school is just not for me unfortunately. It was a WB Caprice.

You read a lot more than me to do anything. You've been on the one bar. You've rejected yourself through the windscreen before any scratches on the panels. Correct.

Well, it's Sutton's Enclave and those guys that probably grew up around that time. That was your... Sutton's Enclave, Sutton's Cholara, Sutton's sign bush in the city metro area, especially. That's where you had your head on HTT car sitting in showrooms.

Or maybe depending on the model outside. There was also Parkside Autos. Cross the road from Sutton's Enclave? Cross the road from Sutton's.

Cross the road from Sutton's car. Yeah, which was Muscle Car, Heaven or maybe HTT, Heaven, for people looking? But HTT was sold through Holden Dilishu. It was that Holden Dilishu.

Correct. Yes. And it was an arrangement where modified Holden's was sold through the Dilishuaps. Yes.

But did Holden ever own HTT? Or was it always Brock's company in the 80s? It did belong to Peter Brock, Peter Brock, that bought the HTT Racing entity from John Sheppitt, when John Shepp had retired. He was actually funded by a dealer in South Australia called Vin Clean, who was United Motors at the time.

He put the money up for Peter Brock to buy HTT Racing and then in return wanted cars to so they could sell in their dealerships. And that's how the birth of the VC, HTT came around. And was that model? That was pretty unique in its day.

Was there any other, I don't remember any other arrangement in Australia? Where Ford didn't have anything like that? Not a factory arrangement with someone outside of their own company. Ford's Randy ESP Falcon, the European sports pack.

But it was all done by Ford. Whereas they have someone, a separate entity building motor vehicles and selling them. And through the GLE, even in America, I mean they had the Gango Camaros in the 60s. But that was a dealer, that wasn't a factory backed.

Yes, that's great. So the Gango was a dealer he did himself. So that's quite unique. So you see a lot of the Rangers now with AMG, which are now being bought out by the factory, but I think HTT is one of the first.

Any favourites out of those collections? I'd have to say his collection. Thank you. We've probably been the VL director, which was the car that split Peter Brock and Holden.

With the polarizer? With the polarizer? It was a very polarizing. It was?

It was a polarizing story. With the polarizer? Is that the sports pack? Is that it?

With the polarizer. That's what it was called. The plus pack was the... The great.

Was for the group bait and wasn't just the polarizer as such. There were sway bars, springs, a fuel system, water cooling changes to the engine. What's quite my scar? It made a little bit of a difference.

Polarizer unfortunately, the jury is still out on that one. What? I don't know how to ask hypotheticals. I've been asking you your questions.

Polarizer or not? If the operation continued past the year... Could you picture the VN and on? Would it have kept going?

I mean it was a successful business at the time. Okay. The business did continue and still continue to this day. Under the HDT banner, it was sold in 1988 to a family called the Coravis.

They ran it for five years and subsequently went well at the start. Too much red tape and ADRs put them in a bit of a position with the Australian design rules. What was holding back in them? No, holding back in.

Holding and starting their own with the advent of HSB and Tom Wokenshaw being the front man. Basically they had to buy Holden's or they pick a particular model and modify it. Yes. There are VN HDT's there.

There are VN's. There's VN arrows in the... I'll do this one. And then they did the Magna Mute later on.

It was probably a tough time to be transitioning to... Without the... ...as a secondary. Well, even not so much that.

It was probably a tough time in that late 80s because not only was it ADRs, all the emissions, everything was changing. So you had recession coming on, you had carbon motors on the way out, you had the VL coming in, which had the injected engine and the turbo motor. You had the VN coming, which... You know, so it was probably a tough time for someone to try and fill some very, very big shoes without factory bucking and sort of like your race track landscape changed as well because all of a sudden you heard 40 eras, you had skylines.

So all of a sudden these guys picked up what they thought was probably great brand. We got HDT, but all of a sudden the... ...body filled that showroom did it... Was it what it was two years ago, the line five years ago?

Can I just stop you there, Hal? The biggest issue was, and people don't realise Holden sent a car directly to HDT to be modified, then sent it onto the dealer. So the dealer would order the car from Holden. It would then be sent by Holden to HDT in Port Melbourne, modified and then subsequently on-scene to the dealer, and HDT never had to actually pay for the base vehicle.

Now, when you don't have to pay for the base vehicle, you don't have a lot of capital outlay. And you're getting paid when the car leaves your shop, you get paid by the dealer for the modifications done. Problem was, once Holden had left HDT, once they'd stopped their backing, HDT had to buy their vehicles from dealerships, thus strangling their cash flow. That is what subsequently finished the business in the last ten years that it was.

Which takes money out of development costs and the rest of the managing that such a business. And going back to that era when Hal was not able to block struggle with the Falcon, not the other good base to work with. There's much you can do with that, that EA body. The EA went down into his finger very poor falcon.

Great looking, but just, I think the larger might have just been better. The larger than he said he had. We can't take shots at the wrong. But a close and personal friend, Peter Chimping, actually has one in his collection.

Very unloved, hasn't been washed in many years so far. Peter's out there listening today. Maybe throw the hose over it, Peter. Give it what it deserves.

It's all part. Possibly. The rust. That rust steel was probably came through China back in the late 80s.

It was great. It was great. It was a high grade North Korean steel recycled from rust. And then fast forward to ten years ago the retro series came out.

I love those cars. Yeah, H.E.T. brought out the retro series on the VK Group A, the VC and the VH. Based on the VE body shapes series one and series two.

That was a good look. Quite a nice car, it really made the wheels. The aero look wheels, the urnshillip wheels and they were. They were a good thing.

And still after this day, it's not very poly-soil after. People do tend to hang on to those sorts of cars and they have very, very limited volume cars. Yeah, they're holding the values. I'm not assuming they're so kind of certificate or an official number with those as well.

Yeah, all cars can be authenticated through H.E.T. which the business is still going today. You can always look on one. H.E.T.

.com.au and have a look at all the different models that we're made. And still being reduced today. We're talking about values. That's a big process for some of those cars.

J.E.T. values seems to be the talk of the town unfortunately these days. The first thing people talk about when they talk about H.E.T. Comerons is values.

And it sort of takes away from the actual car itself. It's just that the money is just getting in the way. And people either A by these cars and don't drive them or they just can't afford to touch these cars. I know I keep an eye on prices and everyone I email each other regularly.

But I noticed two spikes. When Peter brought past away, there was a massive, they doubled overnight. And then I noticed since the Australian will hold and shut down production and will be known for yet. Comerons over again.

I noticed prices have sort of started to rise. Yeah, you're correct there. I don't know exactly how it happened. And I think it's more of a, I'm not a skit campaign, but people get this false sense of, they're never going to make one of them again.

If you ever hear that story and I've heard it that many times when people are trying to buy any early car, any early holding or comical and they say, oh, you might be able to get one of these anymore. But they were never going to make another VL V8 so to speak or a V8. Once they've not finished it finished. So saying you'll never get one of these again, well, you were never going to get a new one from holding anyway because they weren't making them.

So people don't build these anymore. No, not like they used to. No. And two years ago, if you had a ball for every person that said, oh, when holding closes, this is going to be a doubling value.

Wow. Really? Well, social media, and we touched on this one one about earlier, social media has a lot to do with pricing because you've now got a much bigger audience and a lot more people. You've got people that don't know each other, talking about it at all hours of the day.

I was going to bring social media up and we're going to get to clubs in a minute because you'll see a lot of cars for sale. But that's the price that asks, you don't know whether or not they're sold for that much. Well, some very high profile auctions recently have seen the numbers. That's what you pay.

It is what it is. It was public. It was stream live on, I think it was on 7.8 on Channel 7, one of the auctions stream live on Facebook. If it wasn't stream live on Facebook, someone was streaming out live themselves.

So you have all these people who don't know each other with a common interest the more out of the country that are talking about these cars. And in one way, yet it's driven prices up. In another way, it flushes out a lot of imposters and background on cars that you wouldn't have known because there's some guy out in the middle of nowhere that knows something about a car and someone else was talking about in a Facebook group. And he knows history.

And all of a sudden, this so-called car that is being passed off as what it's probably not. Well, there you go. You didn't have that probably five years ago when social media was still today's standards. It was probably in its infancy.

But in the old days, you would join a car club. Whether it's HD2, whether it's Ford, whether it's Van Gert, whether it's Pick a Car Club of New South Wales or National, depending on how popular each car is. And you would join the club guys. And they'll know Jon O'Dow the road, so he's the pre-Monaro.

But not everyone joined the club. But correct and more people are saying that. It's true. With the advent of social media.

First place people go these days is to social media to ask you to be able to car. Whereas back in the old days, you would ring a car club and say, hey, do you know about a car? Do you know anyone selling car? Car clubs would be the first to know.

And if people wanted to sell their cars, they'd like them to go to enthusiasts, usually when they're a collectors car. They would tell a car club. These days, it's Facebook, social media, Instagram, there's all these things that people go to to put their car. You've been involved in clubs for a lot of years?

Well, yeah, since I was nine, I've been going to the HD2 only club in the South Wales car meetings with good friends' father. And I've been, I've seen it all and watched it all go there. And it's really changing the way things have happened. Because in the last 30 years, we've got nearly 40 of Commodores now.

The historic rego is what's really starting to drive these cars again. People can put their cars on your historic rego, which you couldn't do 30 years ago. You can now put Commodores and most people think of their historic car as being something from the 1920s. They don't actually think that a VK 1985 car is now considered a new South Wales historic.

Victoria is 25 years and older, so they're getting more cars on your historic rego. But it's bringing more cars out of the woodwork because people can actually drive them, have a cheap registration, and it's enough to keep them going. They get to take them on club runs, whatever they need. You can sort of touch on it and that is, have you seen an evolution or change?

Like you see the old newsletter folding half, is it now web based? You still have your settings. You've had the bottom boards, which, so it was a different way to communicate. Email chat.

Well now you are correct. That has been the biggest changing factor in car classes, though. It's nearly all now done on web based stuff. But that's just the communication.

At the end of the day, you still have to meet up at this location. You do get your cars together and drive it. You do it, but it's all done through the internet text messages. Easier?

A lot easier. You do a electric patellar train. You have a newsletter and newsletter. You don't have to have print media these days for a book.

We used to wait for a printed book to arrive in the letterbox. Don't you get mine? The problem with that is also cost. The massive cost that is to print a book.

Unfortunately, car clubs seem to get carried away. Getting to watch this turned a pissing contest with another club. Who's got the best magazine? Unfortunately, it doesn't do anything for the club.

When a club should be for the members, not for who's got a better magazine, then we can take it to some other club and show them. That's all full colouring. That just unfortunately costs the club money, which could be sent back on the members through discounting the membership. Or they could put on food, barbecues, Christmas party, whatever that may be, with that money that isn't spent on a club magazine, because they are still very need to produce.

Is everyone welcome? If I turned up, you know, set the HTT club, say I had a VK. I'm looking at Rob's face and he said, my name is Hyliel and I had a... 24.

You're up. Can I join the club with my VK? If the build numbered vehicle, you can join our club. If not, we could always put you in touch with another car club.

That would take a vehicle like his. Is everything OK there? You're on the line. You haven't joined the...

You're not allowed. I wasn't allowed to have a build number car. I didn't get rid of it. No, no, no, no.

It's all done. Well, again, with social media and the way the values of the cars went up, I think Hyliel sort of capitalised on the... At the right time, on the chance to make a few dollars, which a lot of people do, and I say nothing wrong with that. Of course.

That's where the markets go on. If you don't need your car, you might not use it. You feel that love or attraction? You do.

It was going to need work. Well, no, actually, I didn't really... And Rob knows the car is a very good car, but it's going to need work. What was it?

The VK director. Nice. It was going to need a bit of work, and it needed someone that had the time and the space to get it done. And the market was still on the move.

It's probably not going to be able to... I could have held it for another 12 months, 18 months, and paid my club regiote. And made more money. So, I wasn't about that budget.

I didn't have the room anymore. But you're right. You have to drive them. You need to move these cars.

You're right. They're worth a lot of money now. Some people are just collectors or... They're almost like art, some of these cars.

But they're living hard. You have to start them. You have to move them. If you don't look after them, they're going to...

That's why I get a habit chuckle to myself. Sometimes when I say these cars that apparently have got... Like, there was that... to run and that's all with 4-inch kilometres on it.

It's a museum piece. That's 4-inch kilometres. 4-inch kilometres is... I think that it's never been driven.

You know, by sticking in a museum. That car could have had 4-inch kilometres on it. What about the same, mate? Very true.

I mean, it's always a great... The car is what it is, and someone to buy that car or has bought it, will sit in their shed in their collection and happy to look at it. And that folks they vote. For me, I like to drive cars.

They need to be used. It keeps them running. It keeps them in good condition. You don't use them.

Things start to go wrong. Seals go hard. They start to corrode. You'll have how issues.

You make radio as the brakes go. You want to do all those cars. These things all need to be replaced. And, it's cycling in car is very important.

Historic regiote gives you 60 days a year. That's what you want to do. You want to just drive the car. Even if it's just around the block.

You want to do that. Once a month, maybe once every two months, start the car. Make sure it runs. Keeps in good condition.

Do you think that's the biggest change in the historic cars? Do you think it's in your southbound city? Are you aware of any other states? Yeah, there isn't.

I do know, of you. Do you think that policy, that registration has renewed an interest in the historic cars? What it's done is it's brought different people into the historic category to bring their cars here. Like I said, 30 years ago, I would never have ever thought of a VKB old.

Even today, I don't see it as being a historic vehicle. But it is by the letter of the Lord. It's 30 years old. Plus.

And people are now starting to use them. Whereas you always think, you're growing up by an old car. It's something very, very old. You'd see old big and driving them.

We grew up in the 80s. And then the 80s was an old car. You think now that's a 25 year old car in the 80s. You look back 25 now.

Yeah. Well, you're going to get another coming into the next couple of years you're going to see probably, because Victoria has 25 years. So, but in New South Wales, which I think you'll find cars like the early Giacke lines, and stuff, you'll see a lot more of them start getting out now. Because you're going to have the same ripple effect where sort of like those 89, 90, 91 cars can go on to Club Richard.

You're going to see a lot more of these non-HZ data and Aussie cars coming on. Because a lot of people don't buy these cars. And probably some of them have the means to do it. But if you're going to have a couple of cars and you're paying $3, $4, $5, $6, $6, $6,000 a year in regiars and insurances.

Whereas once you go on to that historic registration, we're going to have the modified one, if it's an older vehicle, and it's not original, you're paying less than $100 a year for your regiars in CDP, your new South Wales. Your comprehensive insurance gets a nice healthy car because it's not classified as basically being a car that's driven every day. You've minimized the risk of something happening. That's right.

Sorry, I beg you, sorry. You're using it a lot less. That's right. And I think you'll see again more.

So which is good for car culture, the people that wait cars, because you get pretty much every weekend. There's an event on now where you go see some nice cars. I think it's such a meeting of all the cars and coffees and all different areas. The official club ones are different.

But you've got these mixed ones and a lot of people drag their cars out and go to these... We do kids to meet their families. Early morning, Sunday morning, coffee runs, Saturday morning, Saturday night, Friday night. Early from cars and coffee to cars under the stars.

That also, I'm happy with what the government's done. That is allowed left hand drive. You don't need to. Are they over 25 years, I think, as well?

If you bring a left hand drive, go on older car, you can register it without modifying it as well. I'm not sure myself on the laws, but they do know people with left hand drive eagles. They're registered in the rich. So that's also those who are interested in over 30 years old.

I think it's 30 years old. I think it's 30. Same as the historic. Maybe when you listen to that.

Well, we've got a topic coming up about importing overseas cars as well. So that might be of interest. But that's where, again, into that is made America and Europe closer to Australia. It's easy now to be affordable to bring in a car and leave it as is and you can always sell it to an overseas buyer.

If you leave it original and stop, where do you stay on the stock versus modification? Well, I believe you won't. You do what you want with it. But there's some cars you just, I believe you shouldn't touch and shouldn't modify.

When we talk HCT vehicles, these days, if you have a modified car, when I grew up, every single car in the club is modified. Very seldom did you seek out at the standard. They change the wheels or the radio, or the PCB in it. They do engine work to them, five-speed gearboxes.

Anything was the norm back in the last 20, 30 years. These days, people frown upon modifications to genuine vehicles, so to speak. Which in turn brings out people building replica cars, like the wheels. Very good car, very high standard of replication.

And it's a car that you can use and do anything with, guilt-free. But these days, you get a genuine car, say you've got a real group A, your bike, plus pack, and it's very, very local. You want to go modifying it, doing that really just detracts from the value because people frown upon it these days. But again, it is your own personal choice.

But when you're looking at value and if you're ever thinking of selling down a track, that will hurt your value. Any horror stories, if you see something you've thought why, mate, or give it away. Peter, I've seen quite a few over the years. I've probably never broke out singing YY2Y on now.

I had seen one car in particular, which I saw late last year, was a 30,000km wheel. Group A, very highly option, really nice car. And they've got big brakes and big wheels and camshaft and exhausts. And I just thought, why would you do that to such a low-kilometer car?

There's plenty of other cars out there that you could have got. Higher Ks, being used a lot more, would have been more accepting of doing those modifications. But unfortunately, that's, like, they're high before this car. It's day though.

Like, you could get a Golf R and it'll smash it. Yeah, 137kW. High-up would be unfortunate. But I do see what you're saying, but that's just one example I saw and I just thought, why would you do that to that car?

But it's each day around. I've got to say, I'm not against anybody doing anything that they own to their cars that they own, but I do know when they go to sell that car they have an issue. Everybody says, I'm never selling them or I've heard that more times than I've had it on the end. And it just seems that they're the cars that end up for sale.

And they're the people that wins why they couldn't get the good money for their cars. All they start trawling around online trying to find the original parts. They thought they were never going to use again. So they get their car back to the original.

And, you know, it makes it difficult. Companies like RareSpares, things like that. Are they helping the historic car scene? Yeah, they do.

They do. There's quite a few companies and I like to just touch on a subject that people sort of always ask me about and it's restoration work. And people don't understand that I believe Comridos is in the HGT Comridos, followed the GGT Falcons. They were 10 to 15 years later.

But I look at GGT Falcons and you look at the old GGT Falcons that Harry Christian is so in love with, which I think they're great cars for their car. Tip or so too, if anyone's looking at the back car. Very, very nice motor vehicles, very sought after today. Plenty of replicas being built with those cars.

You'll be around the country in the three or four shops making parts for this car. It hasn't been built for 40 years. I just believe the HGT vehicles follow the GGT. So that's the next thing that comes along.

Like, RareSpares, there's some new companies starting up now starting to make bits and pieces. Really, pretty cool. Things are getting easier to source. With advent of social media and internet, the world is a laptop away.

So all you have to do when you want something is you can sit in your lounge room and get something organized, produced and made from another country. Bring it here and sell it. You can even get made in this country. It's just not that hard anymore.

You don't have to know someone or have to go see them personally. You can do it all via the internet. And that doesn't really hurt the authenticity of the vehicle. No, not at all.

Do you love these parts that people are now making a part that were obsolete for so long? A perfect example is I see people paying $2000 for a VHSLE tail light. It's something that's needed. And people when they're trying to find new old stock parts for these cars, because the VHS are starting to get a bit of a cold following.

Now, there's just people chasing so many bits of these cars. You can't get them. If people like RareSpares and HGT and these other companies starting up and start reproducing these things, they'll have a market for them. When I was a kid, I fell in love with the VKKK dashboard.

I just had a thing with Digital Dash. Digital Dash? Very nice. They lasted.

Yeah, they still work or you've got to guess the speed. No, they do still work. They could have a few issues earlier on. But I'll give you a perfect example.

My brother has a VKK Commodore, which he actually wigged it up over many years. And he still has it to his day, brought it in 1988. And he actually put the Kali Dash in that car. And he's still working.

That was in 1991. He put that dash in. And he's still working today, faultless. We had an exit.

I feel more gear. Yes. That was interesting. You were up in the late 80s.

Great cars. Unfortunately, by today's standards, they never had the V8 in those cars. They just didn't get a cold following like the Commodore's do. But that's sorry.

No, a lot of people put the exit in front of their XZXZ. They certainly did. Especially on newts. They used to see a lot of newts.

They used to see a lot of them. But that dash used to flick at night. I'd be driving. And something would flick at night, maybe, quickly.

That was a very early version of the Drone and Fatigue Detection. In all their high-end cars. Okay? It was made...

If you would notice that you would not even go there. They'd make it look around. I like my cars. But there's a place for originality.

There's a place for modifications. I like all cars. I'll pay out all my mates that have got forwards. Mustangs, pedestrian killers.

But you know what? I like those cars. I like DSPs. Especially the XZ.

I love the only four of them. In the 80s we're talking about the HDT era. I find space for one. They've always been up there.

But they're really behind. And the ECXD, I saw an XD 5.8 gear up in the 30 or 40s standard XD gear. So they're starting to move. I think it's a vacuum effect.

I mean, we discussed that with the GTs hitting a million, sucking up the basic GT or the fan-ons. It all comes down to, let's say, supply and demand. I know everybody's touched on this a million times. The Holy Grail, talk forwards.

The Holy Grail is the Phase 3 GV-H-O Falcon. Now, if you want one of those better, if you're going to buy it, again, you just told me it's a million dollars. They're about something. Well, if you can't get that one, you say, oh, what else can I get?

The next thing you move, I'll get just an XYGT Falcon, which looks very similar. Similar performance. Not the top spec model, but it's close. That then puts the people that are looking for a GT, H-O Falcon Phase 3, looking for an XYGT.

Brings the price up. Then they get to a price where people can't afford that either. They look at the next model, which is either an XW or an XA, and then it carries on and so forth. And keep going.

You're now seeing XCs, which were really nothing exotic. Not a performance car. You're seeing G, XL Falcons, killing for $35, $40,000. That's a, I find that, say, that's guys buying cars that they had, or that they liked as a king.

And they've got the means and the space for it now. There's two cars that I have all my alerts set, all that I can't find. The HD Kingswood and HD. Either one.

My dad had HD. It was a, it was a darkish blue one. I've got photos of it. Something like that, or the HD.

One of the other. You know what? Those cars I got with them. That's what they wanted.

I've got a made-up one. He wants an XC wagon in yellow, because that's what they had as a kit. It doesn't matter. It's not.

It's not. But that's the thing that people want these cars. I've got my VK, which is a group 8 tribute, because I wanted one. I didn't want the money for an original, because the horse had bought it.

But I've got what I want. I'm sure there's a Kingswood owners car that can join the car. I asked them all the time. I said, I've said, look, if anyone's got anything like this, and they're considering selling it, please let me know.

Get the name of the owner. You've got the wrong alert. They're using the rice. When they pass away, they go to the funeral with flowers and a checkbook.

I even did the, uh, Richard. Richard, New South Wales. See, is that plates? They're around.

No, they're not. So I think they totaled it. So that's where, you've got a lot of guys that have got the money now. They're buying a lot of cars that aren't your Phase 3's, Phase 2's, or they are a baffers car.

They're not a muscle car in the sense. But they're from an era where they relate to. And that's what drives prices, and that's what drives their parts. Some of these bits and pieces of it, you want to get the car original.

Go and try and grab a, like a genuine steering wheel or a radio or something for a car, and it's very, very hard. And like you said, you got to pay 2 grand for a VHS and a car like that. Okay, speaking of car clobs, many years ago, when I was a, you know, what behind the real estate agent, I was introduced to a young guy, you know, with a me called Chris, and Chris had a black A9X hatchback, which back in the early 90s, it's just a black terrider with flares on it and big wheels, and a roll cage, nothing special. And Chris was being in a selling this car back then, offers it to me for, in the low 20s.

I take the car for a drive, he says, yeah, take it for a drive. I take the car, take it home. My father says, great, it's a hatchback. You can sleep in the back if you buy it.

So I take it back to Chris. Many, many years later, I've done say Chris, many, many, many years later, I turn up at these cars and coffee event that Chris is running, and I say this car, and I didn't say Chris. I saw the car, I went, that's the car. I was going to buy that car.

A couple of mates were going to be like, you're an idiot, you weren't going to buy that car. That's a, that's blah blah blah. Explain it. This was a, this was a, this was a first A9X hatch.

I don't think it raised the fastest, but yes, was a A9 catch was found out to be later on. Yeah, GM, GM, GM, GM, GM, GM, GM, GM, GM, GM, GM, GM. Right. So is that like a unicorn?

I don't know anything about to run. Is that a unicorn? No, well, they built, I think it was about 30 body shells roughly. Don't hold me to it.

The A9X club can shoot me when they're ready. They built a 30. Yeah. Yeah.

They come from the future like the tournament. They're not, they're in this conversation. Well, they built roughly 30 for racing where double swing world and brackets missing off, and then they're noticing on them and things like that. And this is, happens to be one of those cars.

And it did race back in the day in a few senior races. And wait, the owner came about, then finding this out was just through photographs and somebody had said to him, Hey, this car seems a little unique in some features. And they chased it up and followed it up with cams, and the Vic police went through it and had a look and he confirmed what it was. And he found the original owner, the original person who built the car to race, and then now all been confirmed.

It's a fantastic car. A genuine car. I don't know. And for the owner, he drives it.

And he drives it. He does it. He loves it. The value means nothing to him.

He loves his car. He's a very good ambassador for muscle cars. Yes. He's a star of a club called the Sreece Muscle.

Cruises. And he puts on these cars and coffee. He just turned up, spent a couple hours in the morning and turned up at the home bush there and he has a bit of a chat and a coffee and one hundred o'clock you go home and everyone's happy. The fact that it was, no one said that once a day.

No, no, no, no, no. It was very, very good. But that's filtered through to the people there as well. And there's more and more people that are coming.

I've been talking for a few years now. Different cars, different people. But everyone's there. Everyone respects the cars.

And as Rob said, he's a very good ambassador for that car. It's a good show. He uses the main boulevard there, he'll be barfing Sydney off. We've been out there one morning.

It's a good show. But I've noticed also, there's a lot of race cars being sold now. There was a recent corner that hit over $2 million. Yeah, that was Peter Brock's dual bath, this winning car.

Were they ever collect the cars? Why are they using the in-the-in thing now? A car like that car, as in particular, turned the Group C race car. Three years later, that car was obsolete in the main category of touring car racing in Australia.

So these cars pretty much went from being V-in-thing to nothing at once. Well, a lot of them got on sports and in. And that's pretty much where they all ended up, was in sports and in racing. Because you couldn't continue on using these cars.

And back in the day, the race teams needed the funding. They would sell these cars. Some cars had many reincarnations through that period. They went from that show to that show.

It was the show that's essentially the site in VBC, the VK, which some VH race cars were converted to. VK is wrong. Yes, they're correct. So it's because the factory teams get the latest and greatest and then pass it down to the RITC.

But it's a big thing at the moment because even if for our listeners, if you follow Larry Perkins on social media, they're restoring some of their early bathers cars. They've tracked him down, got the chassis back. And some of these cars, like the VP, the bathers we got, was later converted to a VR, VS specs, and sold to different parts of the world. They've tracked down, brought back, and it's getting put back together as it raced it.

And let me just end there, Hill. The restoration on that is absolutely second to none. Jack Perkins, I've got to give credit to that guy. He's absolutely brilliant in getting this car back to the way it should be.

They do have a great team, but Jack's really done a great solid job on that car. I didn't see the car as you said. There was a lot of work, a lot of metal work they had to do on that car. I'm hoping that Larry actually gets his hands dirty and builds the engine.

He seems to be quite fun on that car. Yeah, you can see the photos. The last holding VH to get pole position, the last holding VH to be in the back. It really makes something for the Aussies in this country that they're holding, what they turn, plastic engine.

Actually, one Bathas and beat the chefs that year. So yeah, big credit to the Perkins engineering guys there. Although Larry was part of the HDT crew for some years. Most of the day he wasn't.

He probably didn't get the accolades from the engineering department as to how much he contributed to probably those cars. Look, the one thing, unfortunately, with race teams and car building, there's usually a main man, but the people behind the scenes, it's not one person. One person couldn't build an empire in these cars. There was always a team with them.

And you've got to give credit to the whole team because it's not just the one guy racing the car. It's the mechanic that builds the engine. It's the guy that does the suspension. It's the guy that puts the keyboxes together.

The guy that builds the rolecages. They're a team and they need everybody on hand to do these jobs. It's not just one person. I understand Larry was just an actually brilliant engineer.

Yeah, I've seen some of these, because if you go on his website, he sells a lot of old race cars. And he's happy to let long books for cars. If someone out there has a, what they might think is a Perkins engineering race car. They've got, not only like some long books, they've got set up notes for every single day.

Set up notes for every, you know, so he went out on the track and they're doing test days. They would say, you know, they'd make notes in these books. So these cars, you can nearly go back and set a race car up to be exactly the same way it was back then with your tyre pressures and your suspension settings and everything. Yeah, most definitely.

The basic cars, they were computer controlled in its day. No, not the earlier cars. The later ones were, and again, Larry was a very, very, you know, that old engine unit. But he also had an Australian-made engine management system, the Autronic.

You know, you'd see people saying I've got, I've got, there were some road engines. And there's a, for another time, there's the famous story, we'll have to look into that one and drag it up. The famous story of Larry Perkins at high speed on the Melbourne outskirts. And then I think the highway patrol turning up sometime late, I had to find Larry Perkins doesn't have a massage anymore.

The good story, there is a story, I will find the race way. Well, I think he was using the call the Freeway as a race way, as legend would have it. Larry Perkins was a great reader of the rule book. He could interpret the rules better than anybody in any other team.

He just knew how you had to build a car and how you had to read the rule book. So maybe pretty much like Triple A today. You read the rule book, you don't, you don't race a car as such. You read a rule book and you build your car and you build your team around the rule book.

And this is what we're saying today. And that's what Larry was a great pioneer of reading the rule book and knowing what the rules were. And keeping it simple, which is why he had the number 11. Why?

Because if your number was damaged during the race or something happened, what was the easiest number to replace? Why? A piece of tape. That's what he said in interview many years ago.