Badge-engineered like no other car

"Can I have a cupholder?" said the unassuming bloke in the coffee queue ahead of me, as he collected his large takeaway flat white from the hole-in-the-wall at the Fix. He was bespectacled, medium height, thoroughly average. Julian Morrow from the Chaser, if he'd done accountancy at uni instead of faffing about with the law revue types. "My car doesn't have one," he added apologetically.

For a moment, Hipster Barista had a blank look on his face. But I knew what he was talking about. My 1988 R31 Skyline went for years with a cardboard McDonalds drink tray wedged into the centre console. It just needed replacing every few thousand km due to cardboard corrosion. brought on by roll-oversteer-induced Coke spillage. Pro tip: if you ever buy an R31 Skyline, get the rear shocks sorted. (Or you could just stop trying to drift around wet roundabouts, but where's the fun in that?)

Hipster Barista twigged, and his offsider produced a two-cup tray, the sort made out of that mashed-up cardboard pulp beloved by egg carton manufacturers and the makers of budget-grade sausage roll filling. Julian Morrow's dull twin smiled. And then he did something unexpected. He wandered over to to the pristine, rare-as-fuck 1974 Chevrolet Constantia parked next to my Mondeo, which I'd been ogling for the past five minutes while waiting for my big-arse takeaway trim flattie. And got in.

That's yours, bro? Respect. Even if you look like an insurance salesman.

Which brings us to the question of 'What the fuck is a 1974 Chevrolet Constantia when it's at home answering the phone, and furthermore since when did cars answer the fucking phone anyway?' Well I'm glad you asked. Even if you might not be in about two paras time.

Yes, it's a HQ Holden with makeup on. Throughout the '70s, Holden exported badge-engineered Kingswoods and Statesmans to South Africa under an array of dubious-sounding Chevrolet names like Kommando and Constantia. The latter was the Saffer version of the long-wheelbase Statesman, usually with a big V8 under the bonnet for those long cruises across apartheid-era South African highways, in comfort and serenity (not to mention blind pig-fucking racist ignorance.) Ford did a similar thing with their Falcons - in fact there's now a market in repatriating SA-export Falcon GTs and the like to their nation of origin, where prices for even old weatherbeaten dungers are seriously stupid money. Usually, it's only the experts who can pick a Saffer Falcon GT from a Strayan unit, whereas the Chevy-badged Holdens of the same era are pretty obvious. And pretty rare. And not something you expect to see on a Dunedin street corner, iridescent cobalt blue in the winter sunshine, its 350ci V8 burbling and bellowing like an offshore powerboat running through a Marshall stack as Jules, his Chev and his flat white headed off on another adventure in tax accountancy together. Sure, there's plenty of expat South Africans in NZ - most of the population of Auckland's North Shore for instance, as well as every second copper on Motorway Patrol - but pristine classic muscle cars, a long way from either of their homes, not so much.

Being rebadged with mildly fascist sounding Afrikaaner model names, while bizarre, is not quite the strangest export fate which Holdens of the 70s could have found themselves in. How to make a HJ Premier even more shit? Drop a rotary into it - half the torque and twice the fuel economy of Holden's then-ancient 'red' six cylinder mill - and just in time for the '70s fuel crisis. I give you the Mazda Roadpacer AP. Giving them away was about all the poor bastards at Mazda dealerships in Japan could do with them. While swearing under their breath about the geniuses in the engineering department who came up with the idea in the first place. Pack of Wankels.


Most of the few hundred Roadpacers sold went to Japanese government departments, where they were used and then crushed, so ironically they're super-rare and hellishly expensive - but not for any of the sensible-ish reasons old Australian muscle cars like Falcon GTHOs and Chargers are, i.e. they have racing pedigree, cultural relevance and are not completely shit. The rebadged Saffer Holden-Chevs have likewise become collectable as much for their unorthodox badge and backstory as for the qualities of the cars themselves, although mint condition Statesmans and Monaros are fetching fairly silly money as it is. And, at its core, this whole tale illustrates the poetic cyclical nature of life. A generation ago, in the 1970s, Holdens were rebadged with Chevrolet logos in order to appeal to a boorish (Boerish?) group of narrow-minded pig-ignorant bigoted fucks with all the charm of projectile gonorrhoea and all the world view of a child's telescope aimed at an unflushed toilet... Sound familiar?


The Doctor is OUT.