First published in Street Machine’s Hot Rod magazine issue #1, 2004

If you didn’t pick this swoopy coupe as an FX Holden straight off the bat, don’t be too hard on yourself. Just about every aspect of its body has been radically modified, almost beyond recognition. The car now belongs to Tom and Kristine James of Shepparton in Victoria, but its true origins are lost in the mists of time.

“I wanted to own a radical ’60s custom for a long time and I bought this car in Adelaide in 1987,” says Tom. “It was a basket case, but was a good stimulant for ideas.”

Tom certainly got the ideas right, with a host of period-perfect body mods, sweet trim and a classic worked grey motor for grunt.

But first he had to deal with major problems: “Mate, it had been shortened and sectioned so roughly that one side was over an inch shorter than the other, and one front rail sat two inches higher than the other.”

He had to start the build all over, retaining only one door, the firewall, the roof, the boot floor and a section of the front subframe. In broad terms, the coupe has been shortened 11 inches and sectioned five inches, but there is a whole lot more to this baby.

For starters, the rear guards have been lengthened four inches and welded to the body, accommodating the bootlid, which has been laid down at a much flatter angle than stock. This meant that the floor and inner guards had to cop a stretching as well…

Up top, the roof has been pancaked and a Simca Vedette turret fitted. The centre pillar has been narrowed and the front guards pinched below the headlights. The grille is from a Simca Aronde, with Austin 1800 headlights. Roll pans front and rear contribute to the smooth look.

The biggest achievement is the bonnet, which hinges forward on upside-down Escort mounts. It started life as the top section of an FJ bonnet with about 60 extra pieces. Tom says Geoff Jordan worked on the bonnet for over 200 hours, without a trace of filler.

With sweet details such as the neat cut-outs for the dual exhaust outlets, the FX’s body is true to its era. What makes the rest so right is Tom’s fanatical adherence to tracking down genuine speed equipment from the swinging ’60s. Take those made-in-1966 Skog rims for example. Found at a swap meet, they were in less-than-serviceable condition, so Tom had them rebuilt by Dragway.

It’s hard not to focus on the coolness of the interior, which looks for all the world like the cockpit of some exotic ’60s sportster. The centrepiece is the jukebox-style dash from an EK Holden. The trim job is similarly sweet, with black and white vinyl over Vauxhall Viva buckets and a custom rear seat. Neat details include an HR Premier armrest, custom centre console, a ’47 Packard dome light and a cool mail-order steering wheel. The only jarring note is a plastic-fronted tape deck.

Under the bonnet is another sight to warm the heart of an old-school customiser: a fully worked and dressed 138-cube Holden grey motor. With a hi-po mix of high-compression pistons, massaged head, lumpy cam, extractors, XU1 distributor and a trio of 1¼-inch SU carbies, the sideplate six sounds the goods and propels the coupe at a rapid clip.

A Torquemaster four-speeder, stirred via a shortened shifter, swaps gears in a much sportier fashion than the FX’s old three-speed crash-box.

The FX runs a basic FJ kingpin front end and HR rear, but Tom ensured that it was all strong and safe, starting with a half-chassis made of 2.5×1.5-inch box tube and an HQ transmission tunnel. Brakes are EK and HR drums. The dicky factory ‘through-the-floor’ pedals have been replaced by FB swing items, suitably shortened for a more sporty operation and complemented by an HQ gas pedal. The steering box is HQ, too, and the rear suspension has been converted from the old-style lever-arm shocks to more modern XA Falcon telescopic jobbies.

The FX has won the hearts of Aussie custom fans and claimed many accolades over the years, including two Top Wild Custom gongs at Summernats and a coveted spot in the Elite Top 60 hall at Summernats 16. This is one old custom that has come full circle!

Coupe de race

It takes some real will to hack up a good humpy Holden these days, but back in the ’60s they were plentiful and cheap, making them the favourite raw material for Aussie customisers. Most copped new grilles, roll pans and nosed bonnets, but some people went further, making convertibles and pillarless coupes. Tom’s little gem belongs to a very small number of sectioned and shortened ‘sports coupes’.

The most famous of these was Bob Moule’s Bobcat. It had a cool custom interior similar to Tom’s coupe. The highlight, though, was the Aussie-made Norman supercharger swinging off the side of the hot grey motor. The car was rebuilt in the early ’90s and featured in Street Machine.

Perhaps the best looking was Lance Simmer’s (above), a thing of almost perfect proportions. Now rebuilt and in the care of John Trunzo.

Tom and Kristine James
1948 FX Holden