Want to own a piece of Australian automotive history?

Retired local motor mechanic Greg Harvey is looking to find a good home for a little piece of Australian automotive history.

Twenty-six years since he rebuilt the car from the ground up, Greg is selling his beautifully restored 1952 FX Holden sedan.

The Holden 48-215, better known as the “FX,” is an icon of 1950s Australia. It was the first locally-made mass-produced car in Australia and the first General Motors car to bear the Holden badge.

This particular car was a labour of love for Greg who built it all himself from a bare shell he’d found at a mechanic shop in Crookwell.

“Well, I did the boys’ utes up when they were young and then it came my turn,” says Greg.

“Originally, I was after a ute, my first car was an FC Holden ute, but I missed out on one from the same chap where I brought this from in Crookwell by about three days! So he said he had this body down here which he’d been doing up but the wife wanted him to get rid of it. She wants a house finished.” 

Greg spent three years rebuilding and restoring it in his workshop, fitting it with a six-cylinder fuel-injected engine and lots of other unique additions.

“It's basically a Commodore on an old body, rack-and-pinion steering and all that sort of stuff, you know, disc brakes and all that,” says Greg.

“It's a bit of everything, really. It's got the VK Holden computer system, injection-wise, but the bottom end is what they call a '202' and then the head is a 12-port head and it's got a mild cam.

“It's not an everyday run-of-the-mill car, it's been modified pretty highly and all engineered. But it's time to get a bit of comfort, and this is why I decided to pass it on now and let someone else have some fun with it.”

The car has travelled about 45,000 kilometres since Greg first got it back on the road and it has turned heads wherever it’s been.

“It did,” Greg says, “lots of thumbs up and all the rest. But no, it's all been good fun. Time to move on though.”