Noddy Perkins is a bit of a legend in the West Aussie car scene, so much so that we’ve already featured this HQ in the mag once before (SM, Sep ’14). But a few things have changed since then.

First published in the January 2024 issue of Street Machine

The burnout game can be hard on cars, especially when they’re methanol-fuelled monsters like this Quey, so a rebuild was pretty much inevitable at some point. “We had a few fires at Summernats,” Noddy explains. “We had a big one during the World Record Burnout, and a couple of fires at Bindoon. That was when we decided it was time to pretty the car up a bit.” To that end, the Monaro has undergone a six-year rebuild that has turned an already very tidy car into an absolute showstopper.

The most obvious difference is the paint colour, with the bright orange the HQ used to wear now replaced with House of Kolor Brandywine developed by Neil Moneypenny of Xclusivefx and gun car painter Rachael Durbidge. To convince Noddy to move away from the orange, several spray-outs and different bases were tried until he was happy with the final hue.

That makes it all sound straightforward, but of course, that wasn’t the case. Thanks to those aforementioned fires and a few minor bingles over the car’s life (prior to Noddy buying it), the rear quarters had lost their iconic reverse curves that have haunted panel beaters for years. Neil was up for the task, though, and worked the metal to bring back those body lines better and sharper than ever.
In the end, the Brandywine was sprayed over Charcoal Grey: “Rachael said from the word go that you should only have three colours on the car, so all of the driveline is painted the same Charcoal Grey as the base coat,” Noddy says. “The other colour is the satin black on the undercarriage.” I guess there’s a fourth colour, if you include shiny – of which there is plenty!

The other major change to the car are the massive tubs, which were fabricated by Noddy’s son-in-law, Mathew Duthie. “My daughter and Mathew have PHATPREM, and when they tubbed that, I said, ‘Now that you’ve got some experience, I’ll let you tub the Monaro.’” Check out the photos of the boot and you’ll notice how the rounded edges of the tubs flow into a smooth floor and side panels that have GTS flutes worked into them. Noddy also carried through the polished theme of the blower and tanks in the engine bay to the similarly shiny fuel tank and battery covers in the boot.

To fill up those tubs, the 15×8.5 Convos had to make way for something a lot larger. For the build style that Noddy was going with this time around, the Boyd Coddington Crown Jewels set the car off perfectly. Those big tubs needed 20x12s and 345/25 tyres to fill them up, while a set of 19x8s with 235/35 tyres got steering duties up front. With the four-link rear and United Speed Shop tubular front end, Noddy was able to get the stance spot-on. No gravel bags in the boot of this Monaro!

Noddy is effectively the HQ’s second owner, having bought it off the son of the original owner. “It’s never been in the rain since 1971, and I’ve carried that on,” he says. “Back when we bought it, it was carby-blown with a Weiand on it, and [the previous owner] reckoned it had about 700hp, but I doubt that very much. At our first Motorvation, I leaned it out, and that’s when it got new everything. The only thing we kept from that engine was the set of heads from Trick & Mansweto; the rest we sold or put in the bin.”

The replacement donk was based around a Dart Little M block punched out to 406 cubes and filled with JE pistons, Scat crank and Childs & Albert rods. It’s essentially the same combo that was in the car when we first featured it, although the beautiful billet 6/71 TBS blower is now topped with a Fowler hat that once fed Gary Myers’s ‘XAcuter’ Falcon hardtop.

A lot more effort has gone into detailing the engine bay as well, with the mill now wearing billet rocker covers, and the old chrome brake booster and master cylinder replaced with a Wilwood unit. The red and blue anodised fittings are now black, and all of the alloy bits have been brought up to a mirror shine thanks to the legends at Kustom Chrome.

Improvements were also lavished on the interior, which still has the CV8 Monaro seats, but the rear seat was modified to suit the new tubs, and a one-piece fibreglass shell was fabricated for the rooflining. More CNC-machined components were added to the interior, with a new finned insert for the gauge cluster, while the B&M ratchet shifter now sits on a custom-made mount, which also hides the cable exiting from the rear.

One thing that has put a bit of a downer on the six-year build is that a lot of the events that graced the West Aussie calendar over the past decade or so have fallen by the wayside. “Gazzanats was just a great weekend, and now, during the revamp, we’ve lost all those events,” Noddy says. “We’ve lost Powercruise, we’ve lost Gazzanats, and all we’ve got now is burnout pads – that’s it. It’s a shame.”

You might assume that the car is probably too nice now for Noddy to do all the crazy shit he used to do out on track, but you’d be wrong. As Noddy asserts: “If they bring Gazzanats back, I’ll be back down there, well and truly!”

NODDY & JO PERKINS
1971 HQ HOLDEN MONARO GTS

THANKS
Pro West Engineering for the new dash design and billet shifter cover; Robert Cameron & Co for the custom CNC battery boxes; Xclusivefx for the all-steel custom boot fill-in panels; Nelg’s Ali Mods for the three custom tanks; World Custom Trimming for the interior; Phil and Karen Hardy at Chevpower for the killer combo; Mathew Duthie for the rear tub work and everything else; Peter Veersma for the transmission; Taps Race Pipes for headers and exhaust; Clint Miller, Kelvin Baker and Grant for all their help; biggest thanks to the whole family, who love this car. It’s our pride and passion.