First published in Street Machine’s Holden Legends issue #1, 2008

Some folks dare to be different, while with others, it just happens that way. Wayne Jeffress’s HR Wagon is kinda different. For some reason HRs have never been popular among street machiners, and wagons are even rarer. But Wayne wasn’t deliberately going out on a limb here – his stunning small block powered Cyan Blue HR wagon just sorta happened.

Wayne bought the car from a mate’s mum about eight years ago for the princely sum of 600 bucks. It was nothing special – just a relatively straight, clean wagon he could use to haul his carpentry tools around. But after a couple of years running around in the old girl, he decided to drop a hot Red motor in. Then came a paint job. From then on, he says, “I just went overboard.”

The V8 went in three years ago. As with all HR small block conversions it was a tight fit, but relatively straightforward. Like the car, the engine spec is not what you’d expect. A 30 thou overbore and Chev 400 crank to take the capacity out to 383 cubes is nothing unusual.

The Dart II iron head set up, complete with Crower stainless steel valves is maybe not so common. But you don’t see streeters running an Enderle bug catcher fuel system everyday.

Wayne and a mate set the whole thing up themselves. “It’s pretty basic, really,” Wayne says. “Tapping the fuel lines into the intake manifold was probably the trickiest bit.”

With a bit of tweaking Wayne walked away with the dyno sheets showing a real live 500hp and 500lb-ft of torque under the bonnet.

To get that grunt to the ground Wayne opted for a full manual Powerglide with a Dominator 3000rpm stall torque converter and a 12-bolt Chev diff, complete with limited slip Posi-Trak 4.5:1 gearset and HiLux axles.

Underneath, the standard steering box has been replaced with a rack and pinion setup and the standard brakes have been ditched in favour of HQ discs up front and Toyota Hilux drums at rear.

The suspension is basically as the General designed it way back in the 1960s but the front coils have been replaced by two-inch shorter Pedder’s items. The rear springs are standard, but the axle has been lowered three inches. Four of Mr Monroe’s finest shockers keep the Weld wheels – five inchers running Bridgestone 195 / 60’s upfront, and eight inchers shod with McCrearys at the rear – under control.

The car was generally in good shape – which is just as well because good HR panels are thin on the ground these days. Wayne replaced one rear quarter and both front guards. The guards, both brand new, came from Indonesia; part of a huge shipment of spares sent up there by Holden as spares in the 60s and brought back to Australia by Sydney’s American Autos.

Harder to find were all the little bits and pieces.

There are precious few HR wagons left in a wrecking yards – “I guess there may not have been much demand for them, so they’ve all been squashed,” says Wayne – and because it’s not a popular choice for street machiners, nobody’s making any repro stuff for them. Hardest to find were good window trims.

Inside, the HR is surprisingly stock, right down to the skinny plastic Holden steering wheel. At first glance the dash looks almost stock – if you can ignore the four Auto Meter gauges spread across the centre. But nestled in the stock HR panel are an Auto Meter speedo and tacho.

About June last year Wayne decided the HR’s original paint job was looking a little tired.

So the HR was stripped back to a shell and handed over to colour ace Paul Bennett, who applied fresh coats of Cyan Blue metallic topped off with the distinctive graphics. The rebuild took six months – Wayne was still cleaning and polishing the night he arrived in Canberra for Summernats 8.

Four days later he drove home with the Top Wagon trophy. Not a bad effort for a first show.

And it’s not that the competition wasn’t tough – Wayne felt sure a couple of trick EHs, one of them running an injected 304, would knock his car off. “Mate I was rapt,” he says. “I thought I had no chance.”

Owner: Wayne Jeffress
Model: 1967 HR Holden wagon