History
This One Tonner is very much a product of the COVID pandemic, having being built in place of a holiday to the United States. The project was finished just in time to make its debut at the 2022 WA Hot Rod and Street Machine Spectacular, where it was the only One Tonner in the building.
We finished restoring and modifying a HQ well body Ute at the end of 2019 and given how successful it turned out, we decided to have a go at a One Tonner
It definitely came about sooner than I expected. After the well body was finished, we were going to go travelling to the US, however COVID’s travel restrictions put an end to all those plans so we needed something to do at home. We started looking for a project and at that point, there were a few cars that were on the shopping list – EH’s, LC/ LJ’s and HQ’s.
But when all was said and done, we settled on a HQ. Why a Tonner though? I wanted something a bit different to the well body and there were other Tonners around that looked great.
We also knew from the beginning what else we wanted to see in the car – a Holden V8 and manual gearbox. We think the older V8’s simply sound better and it’s a lot more fun driving a manual around. We knew what colour we wanted it to be and how the interior would look. We especially wanted a wooden tray on the back and being a proud West Australian, it had to be made out of our own exquisite Jarrah timber.
We replaced the tired old 6 cylinder red motor with a rebuilt 253, complete with Edelbrock carb, Crane Cam and a custom exhaust with Genie extractors to spice things up a bit.
The entire brake and suspension systems are all brand new and we went with a 4 speed Aussie gearbox to keep it original. We hid as much as possible of the engine bay wiring to give it a clean look and made brand new battery cables, complete with gold plated terminals. The dash fascia and gauges were all restored and recalibrated to the sender units.
We took the body off the chassis and did all of the rust removal in the backyard workshop as well as replacing door skins and built the new tray from scratch. After months of looking at cars on the road and at various shows, we settled on painting the car in a slight variation of Stargaze Blue, which is in fact a Suzuki colour.
We're a big fan of the classic cruiser look, so we went with lots of fresh chrome with a new front bumper, scuff plates and some more in the engine bay and finished off the look with a set of 15” x 7” 5 spoke rims and Mastercraft Avenger tyres with raised white lettering.
Inside the car, we kept the bench seat fitted to it, but had it reupholstered in a way that at first glance, it looks as if a couple of bucket seats were installed. Add in a custom entertainment system and we’ve ended up with the cruiser we weren't expecting just yet, but really love it now it’s complete. We were also very lucky to score the TQN253 number plates which was the perfect final touch.
Modifications
Full body-off-chassis restoration
Mildly worked 253 Holden V8
Custom Exhaust
Custom Interior and Entertainment system
Custom Jarrah tray
