This stunning, award-winning Holden is the third iteration of Phil Coombes’s much-loved 1967 HR Premier, a car he had owned since 1988. Unfortunately, Phil never got to see the HR in its current guise, as he passed away on Boxing Day 2020 from cancer. However, his sons Michael and Tim Coombes pieced it back together just as he’d envisioned, in tribute to their old man.

First published in the December 2024 issue of Street Machine

“It was still a shell when he passed, but he’d specced everything – colour, interior trim, driveline, the whole lot – the way he wanted it,” says Michael. “We took about six months off it after he passed, and then we got back to putting it together so Mum and the whole family could enjoy it.”

Both brothers are pretty handy when it comes to custom car building, so they took care of all the work bar the interior trim. “I’m a spray painter by trade, and my brother Tim is a panel beater,” says Michael. “Tim did the rear tubs, flat firewall, and reinstalled all the driveline, while I got the body ready for paint.
“It was a bit of a challenge building it with the strict COVID lockdowns in Victoria at the time, as I live more than an hour apart from Tim, but we chipped away as best we could.”

Before we talk more about the HR’s current form, we should take a quick look at its previous guises, which practically serve as a history of street machining. “When Dad first got the car on the road in ’91, it was gold with a white roof, running a 350ci small-block,” Michael says. “Then it got an injected Holden 5.0-litre and was painted pink and purple. In around 2005, he cammed an LS1 and put it in, and years later, he bare-metalled the shell to get it ready for this build.”

Phil had chosen a nice lick of candy red for the HR, set off by a white tinter roof. “I sprayed a few panels in different colours to help him decide, and he went with the red,” Michael says.

While laying the colour on wasn’t a major chore, renovating the HR’s underpinnings was a bit more difficult.

“Dad had an IFS conversion there, but he wanted it fitted without cutting up the car, so that was a challenge to get all the angles and geometry right,” Michael explains. “With some creative engineering by Tim, we were able to make it work. We also rewired the whole car front-to-back with Bluewire stuff, because we wanted Mum to be able to jump in and use it without any problems.”

As you can imagine, it was a bit of an emotional build at times for Michael and Tim. Phil had removed the Premier trim when the car was painted pink and purple, so Michael and Tim had to dig through his stuff to find the old trim again, and they both had their moments while doing that.

“There’s one spot under the car where, no matter how many times I touch it up black, it always goes back to the old pink after a drive,” Michael says. “I guess that’s the car honouring its history.”

The driveline remains much the same as when Phil LS-swapped it in the mid-noughties. The LS1 is largely standard, with a Comp Cams stick, Edelbrock intake and 1000cfm throttlebody. “Dad fitted the camshaft himself, and from memory, it was tuned at around 295rwhp back in the day,” says Michael. “It ran a 12.3 and won the Outlaws & Friends class at the LS1 Nationals in 2006.”

The awards kept coming after Michael and Tim had finished rebuilding the HR, too. The car nabbed a bunch of top metal at the 2022 HD-HR Nationals in Canberra, including People’s Choice, Entrants’ Choice and Grand Champion. It also made an appearance at MotorEx in 2022.

“Dad used to take it to the Hot Rod & Street Machine Show at the Royal Melbourne Exhibition Building when it was pink and purple, so we wanted to take it to MotorEx in its new look as a tribute to Dad,” says Michael.

The red Prem has also earned the Top Modified HR Sedan award at the past two All Holden Shows in Dandenong.

“We take it out with the family as much as we can,” Michael says. “We installed anchor points for the kids’ car seats, and they love to go out in the car. Mum drives it, we’ve taken it to the Bright Rod Run a few times; it just drives so nice. We know Dad would be proud of it, and it’s the best way we could honour and remember him every time we use it.”

PHILLIP & ROSLYN COOMBES
1967 HOLDEN HR PREMIER

THANKS
Mum; Trish; Sally; our kids Corey, Brennan, Emma and Declan; Adrian for the trim; Bass Coast Mechanical & Towing; Alpheys Garage.