1951 Holden Ute

They are getting up there in price,

 

 

 

Here is a FJ in use with Victorian Railways. There is a Ford blitz parked nearby.

 

I just had a look on Just Cars and see these 48 and FJ Holdens are asking up to $90,000. Got me beat!

When you consider it had late 30's styling with similar technology still selling in the mid-fifties GM were marketing geniuses.

I had a drive of an original well maintained FJ a few months back for the first time in 50 years and was shocked, to say the least, by how agricultural it was. Everything about it could only be described as "very ordinary". My very first car at 16 was an ex-PMG FJ ute which I repainted original red with a paintbrush. The recent FJ drive brought home the reality your rose coloured tinted memories are complete fantasy.

And to think we drove them flat out on, with "only just" brakes, on skinny cross ply tyres on narrow roads and thought we were expert drivers. But they did have push-button start.

Funny how we survived.

Model T Fords had push button start. In the Holden it was old technology that was marked down by reviewers. Suddenly people are wetting their pants over push button start again????

Wee-allis we thought we were good drivers but for those of us that did survive we learnt how to drive it’s like learning to drive in something without brakes teaches you not to rely on them

Bluey

Instead of going to sport with the school we all jumped in the back of a ripper n went out to Kemps Creek where later on in life I operated bull dozer n front end loader in a clay pit for brick works.
I had a FX n we always took the glass out just in case. Driving around the Pitt n dirt tracks we made with fly overs I  the rain taught you all about opposite lock n throttle control. I did manage to end to end roll mine 2 times climbing over a stock pole of clay but the other side was dug out n gone. We survived easily by the FX got crushed n buried in a hole we dug. Now that area is a waste transfer station I believe.

Bluey60 wrote:

Wee-allis we thought we were good drivers but for those of us that did survive we learnt how to drive it’s like learning to drive in something without brakes teaches you not to rely on them

Bluey

Bluey when I was a kid until my late teens, I was mad keen on roller skates (no brakes), it was my sport and passion, when I progressed to Kawa 9's, fast cars and big trucks, dealing with shit with first response NOT being jump on the brake has saved my life so many times, wife and I have always been big tourers on motor bikes and there has been many times when I have just steered out of trouble instead of braking into an accident. Roller skates 40 miles per hour, no brakes deal with it! it should be compulsory learning for learner drivers.

 

Ah, paddock bashing was great, as is the memory of me in a twin spinner Ford going backwards on wet grass with the wheels spinning wildly in second gear! As already said, it was top schooling of what you could do, and get away with too . . . and we are the lucky ones who have survived it all.

On a different tack, sit back and reflect on the fact that the old vehicles we drive don't appeal to the rev head joy riders because they struggle to use manual gears!  

The kids are doing it more than ever only now they do not find a back road or paddock. It seems every inch of road is now covered in burnout tyre marks from idiots operating in built up areas and weaving between other road users. It all goes with the growing lack of respect, lack of responsibility and total disdain for slap-on-the-wrist laws.

So many times have I seen tyre shops advertising second hand tyres as burn-out supplies. Early in the week my local tyre shop has heaps of rims with exploded rubber and wire wrapped around them to be fitted with more second hand tyres for next Saturday night.

Where do 18 year olds get the money to buy and maintain a WRX or whatever and a couple of sets of burner tyres every week. There are F....W....S in their 40's still doing this crap as well.