The Holden Kingswood was one of Australia's most popular cars and certainly one of my better cars. Many thousands were on our roads. Production ran from 1968 till 1984. Total Kingswood variants made 9HQ to HZ) was just a little under 1.2 million.

Ours was a 1979 HZ model and the last shape. The model did run for a further 5 years, but it was pretty much unchanged. Our version had a 6-cylinder engine and a 3 speed column change manual transmission. I swapped the standard gearbox for a Nissan 5-speed floor shifter, and I replaced the bench seat with a pair of buckets.

Our particular car was ex-Telstra and was in good condition with a full service history, as you would expect. In buying this car, we actually dropped back a couple of years; the Mazda Econovan was a 1981, the Kingswood 1979.

The lower photo shows just how good this vehicle looked and perhaps the reason so many were sold.

A good car and one we travelled many miles in, the photo on the top left was taken on the Nullarbor Plains at the start of the 90-mile dead straight section during our trip to Western Australia to see brother Jim and his family in the early 80s. The lower photo was taken when we first moved to Underwood, in the 80's.

This trip was a 'biggie', from Brisbane to Perth and return is over 10'000km!..it was a good trip but we did have one mechanical issue; in getting the Kingswood ready for the trip I noticed a slight 'wetness' on the inside of the drivers side rear brake drum, when I pulled the drum off I found that the oil was coming from a crooked wheel bearing seal, specialist equipment is needed to fix this, the bearing and seal is one unit and a press is needed to replace it, so down to the mechanic shop I went.

Away we went but  we were not far from Perth, Southern Cross, about 370km away, actually when during my morning checks, oil, water etc  I noticed another dribble of oil in the same place as before!!…the bearing was faulty. (A quick note here, I cannot over-emphasise the need to do daily vehicle checks when travelling in remote areas, a quick check under the hood and a look under the car is the minimum)

The leak was minor and the diff level was ok so we decided to press on to Perth and get it fixed there, Jim and I took it to his local bloke and he thought that the incorrect bearing had been fitted... this was denied by the workshop that originally fitted it, when I got back home.

The photo on the right was taken on the very first day we viewed our new home in Underwood, Queensland. around '82 or so.

One other memory I have of this car is a very annoying rattle...I did everything possible to find it but failed, I recall taking everything out of the back, including the spare, all the tools and the jack etc and driving over corrugated roads in an effort to located it...I never did! This was not the reason we traded it in on the next car, another Ford Falcon however :).