1966 Holden HR review from Australia and New Zealand

Owned the car for ten years, so regular wear & tear items:

Replaced alternator (twice)

New Batteries

Rust

Suspension

Clutch plate

exhaust.

This was my first car, a 1966 manufactured HR Premier, with original owner 'optioned' bench seat, 3 speed manual & 4 wheel drums (thanks for that). Maybe he was an old guy who didn't like new fangled stuff. Had a HD 179 engine in it too, which apparently some of the early production models had.

I totalled about 480,000 miles in the eight years I owned it, which is a hell of a lot. Car supposedly had 70,000 miles when I bought it & still ran fine when I sold it. Odometer resets at 100,000 miles, so go by condition. For the little I spent on it I couldn't have asked for a better car.

I paid $750 for it & another $600 to get it on the road as it had been sitting in a shed for 20 years. Only left me stranded twice: once when the $6 thermostat packed it in & another time when the fuel pump died (had a spare at home, so called a friend, picked it up & I was up & running in half an hour). Other than tune ups, car was ultra reliable and is fun & easy to fix.

The cast iron block is incredibly forgiving so as long as you don't rev the bags out of it constantly, you'll get years of use out of it.

Factory suspension is soft & I changed the suspension to Pedders Red. Although it would never out corner a modern car, it rode pretty well & I wouldn't drive stock suspension again. Expect some body roll & front end diving during hard stops due to it's body vs. track & weight bias.

Overall I loved the car & would definitely buy another (if I didn't have an EH now). Great first car too: you learn to be careful about corners, to brake early (wet drums = no brakes) & have respect for your vehicle's limits which makes for a better driver.

If you're thinking of buying one, it does use more petrol than a newer car, but costs less to run. Most of the regular tune ups & repairs you can do yourself so for me definitely worked out cheaper in the long run. I might have spent $5000 all up in the eight years including buying it & things that wear out like tyres, so for $0.01 per mile I don't think I could have done better.