There’s been plenty of crowd pleasers in Alice Springs for Red CentreNATS 10, but the big news was Nigel and Donna Warr’s HQ Monaro unveil.

Built by Craig Glassby and the crew at Shields Garage, the HQ is the embodiment of Nigel’s dream machine. “He wanted to re-create the car he had when he was young,” says Craig. “He wanted a big, tough street car he could still cruise into Fremantle in and grab a coffee, a stock body HQ with a heap of grunt.”

The core of that grunt is a Noonan-built 427ci LS, fed by a pair of Garrett 88mm turbos. The rest of the driveline is your standard TH400 and nine inch, but the bodywork and paint under the car is equally as impressive as the outside.

Inside, you’ll fine a pair of beautifully trimmed bucket seats, along with the Holley digital dash that had a tribute to Nigel on the screen for the show.

The covers were pulled off at 10am on Saturday morning at Blatherskite Park in the elite display, becoming an instant hit with the punters.

Though it stayed dormant in the show hall, that didn’t stop it from raking home its fair share of silverware on debut.

The Monaro landed a spot in the elite top 10, doing so with awards for Top Engine Bay, Top Paint and Top Undercarriage/Engineered.

To cap off an emotional weekend for Shields Garage and the Warr family – who had 45 people over from WA for the weekend! – Nigel’s son Tom took home the 2024 Red CentreNATS Grand Champion award, piloting his Dad’s orange ‘74 HQ ute in the driving events.

It’s the same car Nigel used to win the RCN top gong only two years ago. “To do it for Dad is cool, it’s a pretty emotional weekend,” says Tom. “It was his favourite weekend.”