History
We bought this off my in-laws, who in turn bought it off the original owners, an elderly couple they had known through work.
Although a Commodore SL, which was the base-model in the VH range, it was optioned with a tow pack, meaning it got the 4.2 litre V8, heavy duty trans with cooler, full instrumentation including tacho, amps and oil pressure, plus pump-up rear shocks.
It was also optioned with cruise control, which was really rudimentary. Not adjustable in anyway; either on or off! Hitting cruise would cause the car to slow down significantly, then it would amble along, teetering between five km/h under and 5km/h over the set speed. I'm sure it wasn't like this new, but age is a problem that gets all of us eventually.
It had over 300,000 on it when we got it. The tappets were pretty tappity and the whole thing was a bit tired. Still, it was a factory V8, so we got good money for it when we sold it in about 2008; $2k from memory. No negotiation; slapped down the money and ran! I saw it on the road as recently as five years ago; hopefully it's still out there. Pics on the grass were taken for the Carsales advert, so it looked good in the end!
Modifications
My wife modified the nose by biffing it into the back of a 4wd. Luckily, I rolled into U-Pull-It and found no less than FOUR Cameo Yellow Commodores to choose bits from. I got a bonnet and guard which even had the same colour pinstripe down the side. I paid a guy $200 to straighten the radiator support panel and bolted the bits back on. Good as new for about $400!
My father-in-law put a set of 15in cop stocks on it, plus the original owners put it on gas. Other than that, zero mods.
