When Peter Marriott was a young bloke in the 80s, he built a Jade Green windowless HT panel van that was a pretty neat thing in its day. “My panel van had killer paint on it – as good as anybody had back then,” he recalls. “My brother and I painted it and did all the panelwork ourselves.”

First published in the July 2024 issue of Street Machine

But while Pete’s HT looked great and had excellent trim, under the bonnet was a humble 202 six-cylinder, with gears shifted via a three-on-the-tree. As an apprentice electrician at the time, Peter didn’t have the funds to go any wilder, and he ended up selling the van in 1986, instead focusing his attention on drag racing.

If you’ve had even a passing interest in West Aussie drag racing, you’ll no doubt recognise the Marriott name. Between 1989 and 1996, Peter helped his brother Mick campaign a Pro Stock Camira, which went as quick as 8.45@159mph.

Then Peter’s life priorities changed, and he sold all the parts he had accumulated over the years. But in 2018, his interest in cars was reignited after being inspired by his mate David Hopkin’s killer EJ panel van (SM, Feb ’11). He decided to try to track down his old HT pano, so he set up a Facebook account to put the word out over social media.

Although he came up empty-handed in that quest, Peter’s efforts weren’t entirely in vain. “Nathan Smith from Esperance contacted me and said that if I didn’t find my old panel van, he had an HK that had been sitting in a shed for at least 20 years that he would sell me,” he says. “I picked up the van in November 2019, and the fun began!”

Once in Peter’s possession, the HK van was placed on a rotisserie and stripped to bare metal, and the front floorpans and small sections of the rear floor and the cab’s dividing wall were replaced. The only other rust was in the rear quarters.

Peter was keen to make the van windowless, in keeping with his long-lost HT, so he acquired a donor van from a farm near Dalwallinu. “It had great side panels but not much else; it was rusted out from the bottom up,” he says. “We unpicked the window panels from both vans, and Clive Ross from The Hammer Works welded the donor panels into the van – an amazing job that wouldn’t have happened without his expertise. He also assisted with rust repairs and panelwork throughout the car.”

Geoff Black from Black Magic Race Cars also had a big hand in the build, doing the mini-tubs, brake and fuel lines, and the air con installation, as well as cutting the hole in the bonnet. “It wasn’t simply a widening of the tubs; the entire steel section of the floor was moved inwards to retain the standard look of the floor,” says Peter. The rectangular bonnet hole didn’t just have a bit of pinch-weld slapped on it, either; the bracing was filled and a return was added around the edge of the hole to strengthen the panel.

Call me old-fashioned, but I reckon if you’re going to put a hole in a bonnet, you need to at least have two carbies sticking out of it. Peter clearly agrees, as he had David Hopkin, who owns AK Cylinder Heads, build him a tough but streetable 350 Chev. The heads have been given a good tickle, the bottom end is all forged, and the pistons squeeze the air and fuel at a ratio a little over 10:1. To top it all off, after much searching, Peter lucked upon a fully polished tunnel ram – complete with twin carbs – for sale by Victorian street machiner Peter Hudson.

The van also boasts power steering and air con, but you wouldn’t know it from looking in the engine bay. The electric Holden Astra steering pump has been hidden under the front guard, while the air con is mounted behind the rear number plate, where the spare wheel would normally go. “The car has a fully electric Rencool air con system,” Peter explains.

“The spare tyre hatch area has been boxed out, and the condenser fits in there, exposed to the underside of the car, with its own thermo fan. The compressor is mounted in the same area, while the evaporator is under the rear wood floor, with ducting under the seats and up into the B-pillars. The battery also is mounted under the wooden floor, with jump-start points and a trickle charge cable run to the spare-tyre door hatch for ease of access.”

Unlike many builds, choosing a colour for the HK didn’t present much of a stumbling block. “I always wanted to paint a car Candy Apple Green, so when I went to build this van, that was the plan,” Peter says.

That said, getting there wasn’t as easy as opening a paint tin and pouring it into a spray gun. Peter sought the advice of Sam Hawkins at Awesam Paintworks on how best to tackle the job. “Sam said, ‘It’s such a big car that there’s no way you’ll get it even and make it look reasonable with the candy.’ We kept discussing it and ended up with a green base instead of having the normal silver or gold base, which made it easier to paint and made it more even,” Peter says.

Now that his van is complete, Peter muses on what might have been if he hadn’t sold that old HT all those years ago. “If I wasn’t on apprentice wages, this is how the HT probably would have ended up,” he says. “With my brother and the Pro Stock racing, which was all twin four-barrels on small-block Chevs, it was always going to have a tunnel ram sticking out of the bonnet.”

And if his old van ever shows up? “That would be an interesting problem to have,” he laughs. “It would be so dependent on its condition, but who knows – I did put a lot of fish oil in the rocker panels when I built it!”

PETER MARRIOTT
1968 HK HOLDEN PANEL VAN

THANKS
Clive Ross at The Hammer Works; Geoff Black at Black Magic Race Cars; Raul & Ryan Santos at Benchmark Auto Electrical; Tony & Geoff at Prestige Car Upholstery; Sam Hawkins at Awesam Paintworks; biggest thanks to David Hopkin – without him this car would never have been built.