plain FE-FC utes and vans

[zulu]

....thanks Zulu  ..  i'm going back in the grey matter a fair way with all these questions, but i do remember these and the 3 door versions back in the day...so these ones essentially were a wagon after all with a wagon bodyplate?...

...do you know if they have a different body number sequence to the normal wagons?

To my knowledge, and I could be mistaken, but these variants all began life as Panel vans and were either dealer fitted or aftermarket fitted with the glass, sliding or fixed, rear seats, and even a rear door if you wanted one

The exception to this would be factory build variants such as PMG, Army, Air related, and others, which had additional codes stamped onto the body plate

So the normal body codes are
Standard Sedan 215
Business Sedan 217
Special Sedan 225
Standard Wagon 219
Special Wagon 229
Panel Van 2104
Utility  2106

Ken has the factory special order codes for the various Government vehicles

[detective]

...those full glass two and three door jobs would have been a heck of a lot of work for a dealer or afterfit firm if they originated from a panel van...especially around the lower tailgate valance and bumper etc. etc....

...the numbers on that one just posted would be very interesting....cheers fellas

[hsv-001]

This is my old van it was dealership fitted here in Brissy back in the day {Bill Harrisons}with dicky seat ,taxi rail ,Smith's heater demister, under dash tray etc .The chrome and paintwork and other mods. are mine . I have been the second owner for close to 30 years[the first owner, a mate of mine who lives near by, his  Grandfather was the first] so I have its complete history .It is a beautiful car to drive , even in comparison to modern vehicles and I expect this is because I have had it [and a physical disability]for so long and have made so many mods. Red motor,larger radiator,,5 speed,cable clutch and diff gear,disc brakes,rear rack,bucket seats and small consul,centre handbrake,shorter collapsible column and many more smaller mods. Haydn

[Ol_Girl_58]

Haydn,

How did you sort out the rear trim to make it one piece, rather than segmented like an FC wagon?

[hsv-001]

The passenger side ,I used 2 sedan trims .Stop and restart either side of the fuel filler, you just have to shape the ends to blank them . Drivers side I tig welded 2 together .Not real neat but I didn't have a lot of experience with stainless or time to do it in the work sheet metal shop some 25 years ago . An interesting thing about the van is that it has a piece of floor that is removable behind the drivers side seat , in front and to the left of the dicky seat. At first I thought it was put there to carry a spare battery as at the time of the crash it was towing a caravan but there is no sign of a clamp or wiring . I think it was used to give space to stand a rifle behind the driver and tie around the taxi rail . The old fellow that owned the van always holidayed in outback Australia .




Just a few little mods to make life easier. Cheers Haydn

[Ol_Girl_58]

There's a lot of [excellent] work in that van, Haydn.

That crash looked pretty nasty. The FC's occupants survived, I gather. What made you want to repair it, rather than the be be disposed of? Dumping these old cars or just walking away from them seemingly occurred far too often with these old cars back in the day, when they weren't desirable, and could be picked up pretty cheaply as a consequence. 

[detective]

...as i understand it, the adverts for these things 2nd hand back in the day described them as  "Stationettes"...even a few of the FJ vans got this moniker when windows and a basic rear seat was added...along with the modified partition and folding front bench....still a bloody lot of work to convert 'em  back then all the same...

[Dr_Terry]

...those full glass two and three door jobs would have been a heck of a lot of work for a dealer or afterfit firm if they originated from a panel van...especially around the lower tailgate valance and bumper etc. etc....

...the numbers on that one just posted would be very interesting....cheers fellas

There were a lot of body building firms around in those days which made ambulances, hearses, custom tuck bodies etc. To make a 2-door wagon out of mostly factory parts would've been a breeze to them.

I'm sure you will find these cars to have begun life as a basic 2016 panel van, a much cheaper vehicle than a wagon. I believe that a 2106 was around £300 ($600) cheaper than a 219 & £500 ($1,000) cheaper than a 229, which was a lot of moolah in those days a huge % of the car's whole purchase price.

Dr Terry

[detective]

...good point there Dr Terry  ..  would the forum members know if the FE/FC full glass jobs have a split front seat like the FJ's had?....or indeed a back seat at all ??.....just a nice, "airy" panel van !

[hsv-001]

Ok ,when I think about it ,your right there was probably plenty of other old cars in better condition getting around at the time . Then ,I knew the history of the vehicle, it had no rust and 26000 original miles on the clock and I had plenty of friends that were panel beaters and or spray painters and a brother in law who owned the local garage where I sometimes worked . As I had owned plenty of old Holdens and a lot of them were Fe-Fc, parts were not an issue . But I guess the clincher was being in my early 20's single and of a mind to stay so ,I saw this as a great party [sleep anywhere] weekend on the coast , general escape with a girlfriend type of machine. So with all the body and mechanical parts I needed I first built it as a weapon and could run the speedo needle past the odometer . Eventually after a few years the car converted back to something more practical and others could drive it . Cheers Haydn

[hsv-001]

My van didn't have a split seat ,just the original bench with the taxi rail [I guess that was to protect it as the kids climbed over] . Another interesting thing is the very thin strip of steel that remains between the sliding windows and the rear station wagon glass . Its only about 15mm wide and single thickness which makes it very easy to fit new rear window rubbers unlike station wagons. Haydn

[hsv-001]

Just out of interest Zulu ,Alf Poelitz offered me that ambulance many years ago . At the time it looked more hard work than the vanette . Cheers Haydn

[mcl1959]

I don't recall any of the vanettes or estate wagons that I have seen having split bench seats. I have photos of a dozen or so.
Even the hearse from the last Nats does not have a split seat, rather a notch cut out of the Middle of the back of the seat.
Ken

[mcl1959]

All these vehicles start life as a panel van. I have ads for various companies offering conversions. My 3 door van was built by Baileys in Melbourne.
Body numbering was in line with regular production. Even GMH built vehicles like the PMG vans followed the number system unlike FJ numbering.
Whether there was a back seat or not depended on what the customer wanted. The little flip up back seat seems peculiar to A Sydney company. All Victorian conversions seem to have been fitted with a wagon rear seat if the seat was ordered.

Ken

[hsv-001]

Yeah, the dicky seat is still in there but only as a curiosity .

[customFC]

Regards
Alex

[zulu]

That's priceless Alex, a picture and a few words tells the story, Ken has posted brochures on here for the Baileys mob that did them in Melbourne in the past also

Jeez Haydyn that was a hard punch on the nose for your vanette / wagonette but you have done a nice job on it, looks the goods and nice that you have it's story as well

John (judge 65) also apparently saw the Ambo at Alfs yard, I didn't deal with Alf though, I purchased it from the bloke that got it from him

Yes, they didn't leave much metal behind when they cut out for the side windows

The Ambulance seat was split but it doesn't fold, the passenger side where the stretcher goes just slides forward towards the glovebox to give the stretcher room



not much wriggle room for the poor old driver



When I get a chance I'll take some pictures of the weird front seat hinges on the Brown Panel van, supposedly to allow access to the rear seat

[detective]

...great info fellas  ..  theses Holdens have always been fairly mysterious to me, and it's fantastic to get right to the bottom of it all...from ever since i was a teenager wondering if they were factory or not...

...i have a split fold FJ front seat that looks very similar to the type that zulu put up...except that it's fixed in place but the LH seat back pivots...the van it came out of had four windows, but i couldn't really say it was a wagon conversion as the full wooden floor boards were in place....also if you google  "google newspapers",  the Saturdays Age going back through the 1950's has various dealers describing these wagon conversions as stationettes...but that's probably their own made up appellation....Cheers

[hsv-001]

A funny story . Yes I have had it referred to as a vanette ,a wagonette and a stationette . But back to the story ,a few years ago a friend of mine [a very old man] from Boonah was looking at the dicky seat in my van and told me he had a similar one in the shed . He walked into one of his many sheds and produced a seat of the same design but the backrest was smaller in that it was positioned about 4" above the seat but hinged and braced the same .He gave the seat to me .I told him I didn't need it as I only had the one van ,his reply was, "Its not for your car, its for a horse drawn sulky that you are restoring for your Dad". He wondered at my amusement at finding that these seats were used in sulkies [floor height behind and below the single seat] as well as old holdens . As he said " coachbuilders were still building horse drawn vehicles here in Boonah in 1962". Anyway the advertisements do make the dicky seats look much safer than they actually are . When you unfold the seat from the floor and sit in it your legs slide under the floor toward the short steel dividing wall . I would hate to have a passenger in that position in a decent head on .It's as about as comfortable as sitting on a house brick and would be near impossible to put seat belts for . Cheers Haydn

[detective]

...with no fold forward front LH seat, i wonder how a lady might've clambered into the back seat! ( just going by the picture in the ad) LOL