Description
Author: Ewan Kennedy, Softbound, 200 Pages, MA79661, ISBN: 9780947079666, 1st Edition, June 2005
This the story of two often forgotten Holdens. The big HD and HR tend to get lost between the nostalgia of the EH and the big machines that followed in the shape of the HK/T/G, especially in V8 format.
Yet the HD Holden was an important model in the ongoing saga of the iconic Australian cars. In particular, it broke new grounds in styling, to the surprise of just about everyone - and got roundly criticised for its brave new shape.
Until the arrival of the stand-out shape of the HD, Holdens had been pretty conservative in their shape. The 48-215 and FJ were nothing else if not post-war functional, though the FJ's bold chromed grille did manage a bit of jukebox fun. The FE/FC had some curvature in their flanks, though the designers held back on really going to town on a shape that had a lot of potential to be taken to interesting heights.
The FB/EK managed to capture some of the spirit of the fabulous middle-fifties in the USA, especially in their windscreen and A-pillar treatment, but yet again the designers were afraid to give it their all. Just look at their shrinking-violet tailfins in an era when big (no, huge!) fins were all the rage in Yank tanks.
Holden's EJ did go for broke, with some swooping lines in the turret and glass that worked well in the eyes of those who could look to the future. But the poor old EJ copped a heap of criticism for its looks (justifying the Holden designers' complaint that the Aussie public wanted their cars conservative) so was dulled down into the angular lines of the EH (justifying the conservatives within Holden who said the buyers didn't want a car that broke new styling grounds!).
Then came the HD, like other outputs of bold designer strokes this Holden, too, copped a bagging. It wasn't really a full-on Holden design, rather one that followed a lot of the ideas suggested by Opels of the early sixties. The space age was all the rage at the time so auto designers went for shapes that gave the flying-saucer look, especially in the way they tried to hide the wheels under the guards. How times change, these days it's exactly the opposite in the aura designers are trying to give their machines; big wheels and wide tracks are all the rage today.
So, let's take a detailed look at the HD and HR Holdens, examine their strengths and their weaknesses, their hot engines and the everyday units. We'll take a look at what the critics said at the time, and try to put it all into perspective with what the critics have said since the days of these most interesting Australian automobiles, the first of the big Holdens.
Ewan Kennedy
