First published in the August 2007 issue of Street Machine

It may not be at the leading edge of street machining any more but you’ve got to admit that an HQ Monaro coupe in GTS livery, with a blower and a couple of carbs sticking out of the bonnet, will forever be a sight to behold. For owner Chris Dicker it’s been a long labour of love, and a dream that he’s finally fulfilled.

As far as Chris can tell, the last time the car was licensed was back in 1988. For a number of years it sat in a panel-beater’s shed, the abandoned project of someone who had skipped town. At least five people had put their name down for the car, including Chris, but he had an ace up his sleeve: he knew the previous owner and, better still, knew where he was. So he tracked him down, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, and the car was his. That was 1994.

The car was already fitted with an HZ front chassis, giving it the much improved Radial Tuned Suspension, but Chris was really looking for something he could drag race. Part of the deal he made when he bought the car was that he wouldn’t cut it up. Back then, he didn’t have any intentions of honouring that part of the deal. But once he got the car in his shed, he realised how good it was and decided against turning it into a quarter-mile strip stormer.

He still had the itch to go drag racing, though, and ended up getting an HK Monaro that had already been set up with a three-quarter chassis. The story goes that it was built alongside Zapp’s Rat in the late 80s but never saw the track. When he got hold of it, he chucked in a small-block Chev with a single four-barrel and ran it in Super Street. It would run 11.25@120mph passes all day long, which back then would see him qualifying in the top three or four spots.

Meanwhile, the HQ sat in the shed and Chris kept himself busy helping out his mates with their projects. Chris is a fitter/machinist by trade and he’s pretty handy at screwing an engine together, and he’s got plenty of mates — all with tough engines in their cars! Then came a supportive wife, three great kids, and still the Monaro sat in the shed. It was looking pretty grim for a while, though, after Chris stuffed his back in a work accident, so for 12 months he was a stay-at-home dad, while his wife went back to teaching.

With all of the paperwork and insurance sorted, Chris could finally head back to work. He ended up at Mandurah Bolt Supplies doing the machining and, every now and then, he found himself selling the odd bolt or two. Before long Chris was doing more selling than machining and he liked it so much, he bought the business.

The past few years have seen the business grow substantially, and Chris figured it was time to get stuck into the Monaro.

“It was my wife, Vanessa, who said: ‘If you’re going to do it, do it!’ I’d helped build everyone else’s car, now it was my turn,” says Chris.

“I’ve been to every Motorvation, and after Motorvation 20 I decided my car had to be at the next one. I had all the hard-to-strip parts of the car blasted, and then it went off to a panel shop in early January. It then sat around for three or four months and nothing happened’

The plan was getting way off schedule and word got out that Chris was in the market for someone else to take over the panel and paint. Up stepped Steve Brown, who’d been working for a panel shop but was keen to get out on his own and do more interesting stuff.

“Steve was sick of fixing Lasers and other crap, So we came to an agreement on price, and Steve took on the job. My car is his business card and now he’s flat out!” Chris says.

Meanwhile, in the time the car was sitting idle, Chris got busy chasing up parts and organising other areas of the build: “I spent a lot of time on the phone at work [it’s good to be the boss| organising stuff, not sleeping at night for worrying about what | had to do next, and whether I’d get it finished in time”

After practising on all his mates’ cars, Chris got busy putting his engine together. The 350 is topped with a pair of Dart 76cc Angle Plug heads fitted with Yella Terra roller rockers, a girdle and ARP studs. Inside, the block has more of the good stuff, with a set of Speed Pro forged pistons, a balanced steel crank, and Eagle H-beam rods to make sure the bottom end can handle the grunt delivered by what’s up top.

Crowning it all is a fully polished Weiand 6/71 blower fed by a couple of Barry Grant 650 Demon blower carbs and topped with a Hilborn scoop. Thanks to a three-inch blower spacer and one-inch spacers under the carbs, the metal mountain reaches for the sky.

Looks aren’t everything though, and the engine’s no slouch on the dyno or the dragstrip. Initially fitted with a hydraulic roller cam, the engine made 500hp, “then Gary at Performance Unlimited rang me and said he’d sold my cam and he’d like to put a solid roller in it. We ran it up on his dyno again, and it made 551hp, so it all worked out in the end.”

Backing it up is a Turbo 400 with a shift kit and a 3000rpm stall. “A bigger stall would be a lot better on the dragstrip but it would affect the driveability too much,” says Chris. After all, it has run high 11s with that converter, so you can’t complain too much.

Bringing up the rear is an owner-built nine-inch housing and 3.7 LSD centre, and that’s been toughened up with a Strange yoke and alloy pinion support. Strange also supplied the tailshaft ends and yoke, so Chris is confident that all the grunt will continue to make it to the rear wheels safely.

There’s no massive rubber and tubs combo to see here, just a neat set of 15×9 Weld Draglites that fit nicely under the stock guards, thanks to a little bit of rolling on the wheelarch lips. They wear a pair of 265/50/15 Maxxis tyres, while up front the 15×6 Draglites are wrapped in 195/60/15 Darkhorse rubber.

With the driveline sorted, it was time to figure out a colour combination. Chris went to visit Steve at Brown Brothers Auto Restoration to look at colour charts. A silver and orange combination was always on the cards but Chris wasn’t sure which particular colours to choose. He chose the silver simply by picking the one that was most metallic, and was initially leaning towards either a metallic or pearl orange. In the end he chose a straight orange for the stripes, a factory GM colour called Lone O-Ranger. And the silver — Chris swears this wasn’t intentional — is Hi-Ho Silver. If you don’t get it, you need to watch more TV, Kemosabe!

Most painters would spray the silver first, then mask off the stripes but Steve figured it would be better to do it the other way around. The middle of the bonnet and boot were bombed with orange and feathered towards the edges, then masked for the silver to be laid on. The silver extends under the car and covers the suspension components as well.

About a month before Motorvation 21 — 9 December to be precise — the car finally came back from the panel shop.

“Now we had to put it all together,” says Chris. “It was like a big Meccano set. I’d ordered all the parts I needed from Todd at Rare Parts Welshpool but we were still waiting on the door trims. They eventually arrived but it was the Wednesday before Motorvation!”

That wasn’t the only setback, though: “I made a mistake with the side glass. I thought the original glass would be good enough but once I pulled it out of storage it just wasn’t up to scratch with the rest of the car. I had to air-freight glass from the east coast, which cost more than the glass itself!”

Chris got there in the end, finishing the car at 10pm on the Thursday night. He was first in line when the gates opened and first to set up in the Elite tent at Motorvation 21. The car was honoured with a Top 10 spot and best Street Machine Driven, more than he ever hoped for.

“I was stressing about getting the car set up at the show; we were still finishing it and I’d never taken the time to sit back and have a good look at it.” But, once again, it was Vanessa who came to the rescue.

“She told me to walk away and not turn back until I was outside the tent. Then I turned around and had a look at the car. That’s when it hit me. ‘Wow — I’ve got a blown Monaro!’”

In the end, Chris realised that he got more of a buzz out of building and planning the car than actually driving it.

“If someone came along with the right money, I could let it go. I’d love to get stuck into the HK GTS I’ve got in the shed,” he says.

LUXURY AND SPORT

Ever wondered what the LS stood for at the end of the Monaro badge? The twin-headlight front end, faux woodgrain dash, plush trim and vinyl roof — the epitome of 70s luxury — may give you the clue you need that it was a more upmarket version of the sporty two-door coupe.

So, that’s the answer: Luxury and Sport. There’s no doubt the extra stainless trim, rust-catching vinyl roof and a couple of extra headlights added to the luxurious look of the Monaro but where does the ‘sport’ bit come in?

Well, if you ticked the right box, you could order it with same driveline that was offered in the GTS — 350 Chev, four-speed and LSD Salisbury diff — so, yes, you could have the luxury and the sport.

In the current climate of astronomical Aussie muscle car prices, you could raise an argument that Chris’s car would be worth more if he’d left as a six-cylinder column-shift auto, resplendent in its silver paint, with black vinyl roof.

1971 HOLDEN MONARO LS
CHRIS & VANESSA DICKER

THANKS
Andy, Vintage Auto Blast (08 9592 1744); Steve, Brown Brothers Auto Restoration (0424 962 177); Todd and Paul, Rare Parts Welshpool (08 9470 1117); Gary, Performance Unlimited (08 9458 1288); Rod Brown, hoodlining and trim (0407 873 079); Joe, Premier Plating (08 9451 6588); Shane, Murray District Brake and Clutch (08 9535 7166); Stan, Allstreet (08 9359 3888); Phil, Final Drive Engineering (08 9314 6811); Simon, Wheelgleam (08 9444 8338); Dean, Mufflers R Us (08 9581 6234); Nathan, Ron Bell Engine Reconditioning (08 9581 7944); Mandurah Bolt Supplies (08 9582 7044); Mick for the after-work hours most nights — I couldn’t have got there without him. Big thanks to Vanessa and my three kids, James, Thomas and Jorja.