Andrew ‘Simmo’ Simmons has long been a fan of all-care, no-responsibility, patina-style builds. This one, as you can see, is very different. “Mate, I need a shiny one this time. No patina. Something proper.” This was the build directive he gave his friend, Matt Smoors, for this HK Premier. “Patina’s easy,” Matt replied. “Shiny will give you brain damage.”

First published in the November 2025 issue of Street Machine

Matt runs FST Motorsport and has walked the walk with his own projects, including his jaw-dropping VL Commodore (SM, May ’25), so Simmo’s HK was in safe hands. He wanted this one to be perfect; it was his holy grail: “I’d always dreamed of owning an HK Premier in Silver Mink,” Simmo says. “My business partner, Aidan, spotted it on Marketplace back in 2020, and within five minutes I’d bought the car sight-unseen.”

Buying any car without first laying your peepers on it is always a gamble, but Silver Mink HK Premiers with black vinyl tops aren’t exactly flooding the market, and Simmo understands that beggars can’t be choosers. When the truck arrived from Queensland, it was nothing more than a rolling shell with a few odds and sods, but he didn’t care – the dream was sitting in his driveway.

Simmo had entrusted his previous two projects to Matt – namely an HT ute and HG wagon, both patina-clad and LS-powered – so he knew Matt was just the bloke to complete his K-T-G trilogy.

The build kicked off in 2022, the first port of call being HellBent Fabrications, where Kane Goodliffe mini-tubbed the rear and tinned out the boot with a rear firewall and custom side panels, along with modifying the transmission tunnel and adding chassis connectors. Kane also sorted the Gazzard Brothers rear end, adding the mono-leaf springs, traction bars, sliders, and anti-roll bar.

From there, it was off to Dan Deering at NextGen Race Cars, who dealt with the race-spec fab-work, including the bolt-in six-point rollcage, removable parachute mount and race seat fitment, along with custom mounts for the shifter, ECU and coil packs.

The Prem then returned to Matt, where it was mocked-up with a Castlemaine Rod Shop front end and dummy engine and trans, after which the fuel system, cooling plumbing, wiring and brake lines were sorted. Andy at Extracted Performance Exhausts then weaved his magic on some custom pipes, fabricating a set of 2in-primaried four-into-ones running back to an X-piped, twin 3.5in stainless system. The HK was then stripped down and readied for panel and paint.

“Even in mock-up form, it was coming together beautifully – a proper modern take on the HK platform, but with a pro street vibe,” Simmo says. “Matt even double-checked to make sure I wanted a shiny car, and I said, ‘F**k yeah!’ So, we sent it off to Bob at Fehring’s Bodyshop at Rochester.”

Now, Bob is a bit of a sucker for an HK-T-G, so he was definitely the right person for the job. He began by mounting the shell to a rotisserie for a thorough blasting, which revealed the usual sill, door and subframe sins you’d expect from a 50-plus-year-old HK. The left-rear quarter panel was toast following a dodgy repair somewhere along its journey. Thankfully, an awesome stroke of Marketplace luck came in the form of a new-old-stock quarter, which was sent to Bob and added as part of the makeover. Bob sunk around 900 hours into the panelwork and paint prep, which included the aforementioned repairs plus some firewall smoothing, before laying down the luscious Silver Mink top coats. The underside was coated in black for durability, and if the punishment Simmo unleashes on his wagon and ute are anything to go by, it was a good call.

Simmo was adamant that all the factory Premier body jewellery be present and accounted for, and went to great lengths to source and restore the correct pieces.

Stunning looks are nothing without a great personality, so Aaron Tremayne at Tremaniac Racing Engines got to work screwing together a 427-cube LS combo. It’s based around a Dart block, spinning a K1 Technologies forged crank attached to Callies Compstar rods and Diamond pistons. A Comp Cams hydraulic-roller camshaft works in conjunction with Johnson lifters and Trend pushrods, while Brodix BR 7 heads house Brodix valves with PAC springs and retainers. Induction is by way of twin Wilson four-barrel throttlebodies perched high on a Shaun’s Custom Alloy tunnel ram, with DeatschWerks injectors and twin Walbro 460 fuel pumps supplying a constant diet of E85. A Melling high-volume oil pump circulates the good stuff via a Holley sump, with cooling sorted using a Trikfab alloy radiator with twin 12-inch Spal fans.

Low and top gears come from a full-manual Powerglide transmission with transbrake, strengthened with a billet drum and extra clutches, and fronted by a TCE 5200-stall converter. A chrome-moly GJ Drivelines tailshaft sends power to a fabricated nine-inch filled with a Strange centre sporting 3.9 gears and a Truetrac, with 31-spline billet axles.

The aforementioned Rod Shop front end and Gazzard Brothers rear use Viking coil-overs and Gazzard shocks, respectively, while Wilwood front discs with a Wilwood master cylinder, manual rack-and-pinion steering, and 11-inch rear drums finalise those functions.

RC Components Torx rims measuring 17×4.5 and 15×8.5 inches look right at home against the HK’s Silver Mink, black and chrome exterior, and are clad in Outlaw Drag 175/55R17 front tyres, and Mickey Thompson 255/60R15 ET Streets at the driven end.

That exterior combo means nothing without the right interior trim, with Simmo choosing to stick with the factory Yulunga dark red for the vinyl, carpet and painted surfaces, only swapping out the factory dash, switches and shifter for more modern concessions. The Holley Pro Dash is a 12.3-inch version, with a screen that nicely complements the original-style radio. The switches are custom billet items that control the standard lights and wipers but are also at hand for the line-lock and transbrake functions. The B&M Stealth Magnum shifter is far more direct than the old column shift, too. A red rooflining replaces the original white, with the reproduction Winner Products trim deftly fitted and installed by Con Kousoulinis at CKT Custom Trim.

With the Premier build a wrap, Simmo is now turning his focus to other projects – namely, a seven-second capable, twin-turbo VL Walkinshaw, and an 8/71-supercharged revamp of the HX GTS he bought as his first car at 17.

But the question needs to be asked: will the ease of patina still trump the stress of ‘shiny’ for Simmo’s future builds? “Like Matt told me at the start of this project, patina is easy, and shiny cars give you brain damage,” he laughs. “But when you roll into MotorEx 2025 with a Silver Mink Prem packing 427 cubes and 590hp at the hubs, every headache is worth it!”

ANDREW SIMMONS
1968 HOLDEN HK PREMIER

THANKS
Matt Smoors at FST Motorsport; Kane at Hellbent Fabrications; Dan at NextGen Race Cars; Shane at Stout Automotive; Andy at Extracted Performance Exhausts; Bob at Fehring’s Bodyshop; Aaron at Tremaniac Racing; Chris at Racewires; Phil at ProGen; Nathan Taylor at NT Garage; Con at CKT Custom Interiors; Daniel at Dazz the Detailer; Speed Pro; Nine in Six Builders; most importantly, my amazing wife Christine and my two boys Chayce and Connor for understanding the passion I have for all my cars.