HD & HR Holden - The "Kidney Cutter" Controversy
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- Опубликовано: 13 мар 2019
- From least popular to most popular Holden - and it only took some small styling changes. We discuss the changes made to the HD Holden with Neil Joiner from the Trafalgar Holden Museum. Neil has an absolute gem of a HD Premier on display, 13,000 miles new and as close to a car straight off the production line as I have seen. The smell inside, leather with the familiar "New Holden" aroma brought back so many memories. But the HD was not all that well received by the motoring press - and Holden needed to make some changes to get back on track. The result was the wonderful HR - a sales success and model that would become arguably the most popular up to that time. Performance was on offer too, with the "X2" Red Engine.
Our thanks of course to Neil Joiner from the Trafalgar Holden Museum.
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I get tired of writing this but I will anyway .. Cliches like 'pedestrian slicers' and 'kidney cutters' and backronyms such as ‘Horrible Disaster’ et al. seemed to have been coined retrospectively as the HD outstripped all previous sales figures to date. In fact in May ’65 GMH recorded Holden’s best month to date with in excess of 19,000 sales in 31 days (a record still unbeaten by any car in Oz). It also sold over 88,000 units in the first 6 months eclipsing all models before including the EH (79,206). In 14 months Holden sold almost 180,000 HDs an Australian record that will not be beaten. So it seems it was not a disappointment to the motoring public at all!
It wasn’t until would-be safety crusader Ralph Nader released a book in the US in ’65 questioning the safety of GM products, chiefly the Corvair. Once Australian journalists, such as Craig McGregor, attempting to create a name for themselves began to criticise the current Australian GM model, which happened to be the HD, its reputation was unjustly tarnished. So it was really a case of wrong place, wrong time.
THIS! Well said.
I'm glad you wrote it mate.
But it IS a Horrible Design and Hastily Rectified. It's based on the Opel Diplomat body that ran 1964-69, available with a 327 and 2 door. The HD doesn't look as good as the Opel, while the HR looks much better. Definitely nobody building street machines knew or cared about danger to pedestrian, but they all chose HR and not HD.
Very interesting, thanks. Sad how easily the mass are influenced by these nobodies.
We had a HD ute on the farm and the only complaint we had about front was that you had to be very careful nudging gates open as the sharpish fin could get hooked in the gate and buckle the mudguard about a foot back. I dont remember any of those adds but back then there was a big difference between tely in the big smoke and tely in the bush.
If you don't know those are indicators not park lights in the HR grill, no surprise you don't know the Holden engine usually needed rebuilding at 100'000 miles, burning oil. 5 digit odometer because they were never doing 250'000
Love the old adds 👍
I've been restoring a HR prem for about 5 years.
We had a turquoise and white HD 179 automatic (Dads first automatic) as a family car when I was in primary school. Lovely car, it just got a bit rusty and traded on a HT 186 automatic.
I find it difficult to choose a favourite between the two Holdens, the HD, or the HR. They're both lovely looking cars.
These guys are looking back through 'rose-coloured' glasses ! If you look at the sales figures from the 60s you can see that the HD was not unpopular at all, in those days. The HD has become less popular in later years due to hearsay & the ramblings of several motoring journalists who weren't around when these cars were new.
If you get the total sales figures for each model series & then divide that by the number of months that they were on sale, you get some interesting figures. For example:-
FE - 7,388 pm
FC - 9,586 pm
FB - 10,921 pm
EK - 10,014 pm
EJ - 11,908 pm
EH - 14,275 pm
HD - 12,780 pm
HR - 11,737 pm
HK - 12,440 pm
HT - 13,100 pm
HG - 12,984 pm
HQ - 12,452 pm
HJ - 8,390 pm
HX - 7,377 pm
HZ - 5,315 pm
pm = cars per month
They might have sold more HRs & HQs than HDs but those were on the market for a much longer time than the HD. The above table tells the real story. At 12,780 cars sold per month the HD was easily more popular than the HR, HQ or EJ. The highest sales month in Holden's history was May '65. Don't let facts get in the way of a good story.
The HD might be less popular these days, but not in the 60s.
A few other corrections for this video. The HD Premier seat were trimmed in Morrokide vinyl, not leather. The EJ & EH Premiers had leather seats. You could not get a 149 in any Premier. EJ was the first of the 'upmarket' Premiers, not the HD. The owner said that the HD was any early one (with no ball-joints) in other words, the king-pin version. Later he said it had disc brakes. Not possible, discs only came on the ball-joint version.
@@terrybebbington3032
Hi Terry,
Great up-date.
Cheers,
Clive Fraser
That's usually how motoring journalists look at cars, rather than drive a car to determine the strengths and limitations.
I definitely like the rear end on the HD
And I’d definitely like some of those girls on the back seat 🤭
@@fairlane2020 I like the front end appearance of the HR Holden.
What they failed to mention was the early HD's had a king pin suspension and compared to an EH handled woefully. The HD had to much weight over the front axle compared to an EH.. Eventually the ball joint fronts came online but by then it was too late. The yanks stepped in in a panic and fixed it just after debut.
Was updated to ball joint mid '65
My first car back in 1981 was my grandfathers 1965 HD Special 179 sedan in white with red upholstery. It had been rusting quietly away in his garage while he drove his HZ. The Turbo Smooth was right, lovely smooth old wagon which hummed along and felt as tight as a drum. Lots of inferior qualities though- hopeless brakes (remote booster fixed that, kind of), under tired ( 14" mags and radial tyres fixed that), too high a 1st ratio and light clutch meant hopeless for towing, especially with hopeless brakes (new clutch), and last but not least, their love of rust, everywhere. Ironic to see all the HR marketing at the beach, I'll bet those ones didn't last long. Great old motor which was smooth and perky enough, and otherwise they were overall fairly reliable, apart from those fibre timing gears. And I too think the HD is the nicer looking design- looks like it was done with love as opposed to the hasty inoffensive front end of the HR. Mine passed through four family members in the end and is currently in the process of a full resto- lucky old car.
My first car was a misty green HD prem, I used to hoon around in it, got the nick name Hoondriver, The car was known as hoon mobile
Reservoir ware the cars grow so mean. I had a 65 HD lowered X2 blue printed,balanced,lightened flywheel exstractors twin exs.
Twin carbs water heated manifold lowered 2" 3 on the tree slicks on the back and a lot shags there 2.loved that car maroon in color it was light green originaly chromies also.1975. 179 with cam.And sorry track rods.
Also had FC wagon HR P van EH sed and HQ 71 coupe maroon as well the whole shebang again.
No disc brakes on EH. The HD interior is not leather, its vinyl. EJ- EH Premier sported leather faced seats.
Yep like bonnet em bills that didn't sprig fold down
The car that drove itself
I have a big soft spot for HR's..I got my licence in a HR Wagon and I had 2 HR's and both ended up with Bert Jones cams and triple carbs and so on with Aussie 4 speeds..I also had an EK Sedan with a 179X from a HD with the factory manifolds ,carbs and air cleaner...I should have kept that one.
250 000 miles on a red motor in a taxi maybe , grey engines came apart frequently mainly because of poor oils and fuel
250k with a set of rings half way. Banjo diff would be whining badly by then
Whack some radials on it and _drive_ it!
Holden
HD - Hastily Devised
HR - Hastily Revised
give us some shots of the interior who shot and cut this ? Teach the dude to use the microphone FFS!
You are spot on RODS - my technique is terrible. I wish I could say things will get better - but they wont. Thankfully nobody subscribes to the channel, otherwise it would encourage me to keep making these bloody awful videos.
My first car the hd,most horrible car i've even driven.Only the paint held it together.Picked up some mates to go to the drive-in,one jumped in the back and his feet went through the rust in the back floor.Only great feature was you could load up the mates in the boot and one laying on the back floor under a blanket get to the drive in, only pay for 2 . Get inside then the mates would kick the top of the back seat out and get out through the massive cut out behind that seat .The money we all saved would go on food,drinks and icecream.Great times,Traded her in for the biggest shit box of that era the 4cyl.ford cortina.Why?
Too much talk, show us the bloody cars already!
Highly Dangerous, worst handling Holden ever made.King pin versions even worse. And no disc brakes on a kinp pin HD. EH S4 had decent drum brakes though not for racing!!
Highly Raceable, a far better car. A little bit lower and the huge difference,, bottom wishbones are 1/2" longer making a world of difference as you could get negative camber.
All of those cars need radial tyres.
Soon to be worth nothing!