Pa's EH 'aint what it used to be
The way Jason Gledhill tells it, it's "something that gets in your blood" Cars, he means. Old Holdens. "I suppose the blame has got to go back to Dad all those years ago,' he says. He means the 1960s, when his father was hotting up Holdens.
Jason, a third-generation mechanical engineer, has three EH sedans in his New Gisborne garage, and the back end of a fourth one pushed up against the wall that, in the fullness of time, he plans to turn into a couch.
This well-built, 195-centimetre 30-year-old spent years restoring and modifying two of his cars until both were in pristine condition. To anyone who knows him, that's not surprising, given his father did the same before him. "Dad had three or four really nice cars."
His father, Lance, like a lot of his mates back in the 1960s, says Jason, used to get an old Holden, "chuck a set of wheels on it, do a hell of a lot of work on the motor and drag it down the street for a bit of fun."
But he describes his EH sedans as basically show cars. He doesn't.drag them. Heaven forbid. These cars even detailed underneath. And while he is proud of his charcoal grey EH, the radical turquoise blue EH means more to him. "this one is a pretty special car, obviously, being Pa's car" he admits.
"Pa" is Ron Gledhll, 84 in August, and he's in the garage this day to tell his side of the story He's equally chuffed by what his grandson has done to his old car, but jokingly chides him. "I gave it to him 20 years ago and it's taken him all this time to get it finished," he laughs.
Ron Gledhill bought the car in 1970 and drove it for 10 years, and his grandson spent 12 years rebuilding it. But, as he says, proudly, "I was the first one to get a ride in it." From what Jason says, the car has been his since he was 10. "So I was the only 10-year-old kid at school who had a car," he grins. "So I was pretty cool at school. I had m'own car."
Ask him how his grandfather came to be giving a 10-year old boy a car and be brushes it off as "just one of those things". "Obviously they (his father and grandfather) thought the EH was going to be something of a classic in years to come. Whether it is or not is debatable I suppose."
As he tells it, his Pa "handed it on to Dad who put it aside as a potential project with me being a 10-year-old", but after about a day it was his car "It's always been my car." His father's plan, he says, was that they would -work on it together when he was 16 or 18. "And that's exactly what happened".
His. Mother even drove him to school in it for about 18 months. "So I used to get driven to school in my car," he says, pride in his voice.He and his father started work on it at Sunbury in 1986 when he was 16, but then the family moved to Gisborne and the car was stored away at an aunt's place at Lancefield until he was 18.
He remembers well the day he retrieved it. "I finished HSC on the Friday and picked the car up on the Sunday and basically got into it that night." His most vivid childhood memory of the car is the inside of it. "The interior was basically blood-red. That's one of my early memories."
He has changed all that In fact had his grandfather not witnessed the transformation, he would be hard-pressed to recognise his old car, even though the body, according to Jason, is genuine EH, including the colour -tartan turquoise - and the white roof. But that's where it ends.
It's now something of a hybrid, really from what Jason says, he's used parts from all over. The distributor, for instance, is VK Commodore, the brake master cylinder is off an XW Falcon and four-'wheel disc brakes (HQ on the front with HZ calipers and VN--VP Commodore on the back) have replaced the old drums.
The car has been lowered between 12 and 15 centimetres. Gone is the original 179 motor (it's in the grey car) and Hydramatic transmission and in their place are a reworked 186 running on gas and a Toyota Celica five speed stick-shift.
Under the bonnet and you are also faced with chromed twin brake boosters, lots of polished alloy and stainless steel braided hoses. The former red motor is now a matching tartan turquoise and above it is a massive grooved polished alloy air cleaner housing a Ford V8 air filter.
"People's normal reaction is, 'it's a big bloody air cleaner. Where do you get one of those?' "says Jason. The answer is, you can't buy one. He made it himself, its Billet alloy machine grooved top to match the oil-breather cap and rocker cover I Just wanted something a little bit different something that people couldn't buy and something that catches peoples eye
Hidden under there as well is a 350 Holly carburettor a new generation gas mixer. and gas internals. So without telling people, you don't really know Its on gas, And that's true The only hint is the car's two EH fuel filler caps one on either side the boot is all padded so the gas tank is well hidden
Still, its a wonder the old EH doesn't suffer from a split personality The front bucket seats are out of a '98 Falcon, would you believe, and the backseat is EH Premier, moulded to match the front seats. The upholstery's a grey cloth.
The steering wheel is original EH, though, but pearled, along with the gear-shift knob, handbrake and switchgear. There's a tacho on the dash and small oil and temperature gauges inside the speedometer. What Pa Gledhill certainly didn't have in his day are the stainless steel roll bars in the cabin. "I've always liked the look of roll bars in cars," says his grandson.
As Jason explains, while the car set him back $30,000 and took him 12 years, he did rebuild they grey EH in between. He finished the blue EH only three months ago. He even painted it himself. "I painted it at Mum and Dad's place. Dad's only just finished cleaning the paint off the garage walls,"he laughs.