While some took the opportunity to rest during COVID-19 lockdowns, Graham Sylvester couldn’t sit still.
He used the opportunity to get stuck into a project car — a 1971 HQ Holden — that had been in hibernation for many years, sporting a mismatched palette of different-coloured panels.
“The first COVID wave hit and I thought, yeah, it’s time,” Mr Sylvester said.
A collective effort with his car-loving mates, Mr Sylvester said the build had taken about six years all up from accumulating parts, switching out a manual gearbox for an automatic transmission, installing a 350 Chev motor and a turbo 400 stage two shift kit with a high stall.
The HQ’s interior was fully reupholstered, a new set of wheels fitted — 18x8s on the front and 18x9s on the rear — to save its former rare and valuable ones from any damage, and it got an all-over paint job in VR Commodore Mica Blue with a black bonnet, which Mr Sylvester sprayed himself.
While not a vehicle refinisher by trade, the Mooroopna man has dabbled in enough trades to know what he’s doing, including painting ambulances and fire rescue vehicles in Queensland once upon a time.
The colour morphs in different lights. In the shade the whole vehicle looks black, not just the bonnet. Depending on the angle in the sun, it can sometimes look blue, sometimes green.
It was enough to stump the VicRoads vehicle inspector about how exactly to describe the colour on his clipboard form when Mr Sylvester took the HQ in to be re-registered.
To finish off the exterior, the grill was wrapped and a Holden emblem airbrushed on to it.
A music lover, Mr Sylvester has installed an impressive sound system with an amp and a couple of sub-woofers pumping Aussie rock out loud enough to entertain the whole street.
Since its restoration, the once-patchwork HQ has won a few trophies in local show-and-shine events.
As a dad himself, Mr Sylvester said he wasn’t too precious about letting kids sit inside the car when it was on show; their joy brought him joy.
“If I can make a young bloke’s day, I will,” he said.
When his own almost 13-year-old son Ryan turns 21, Mr Sylvester will make all of his days when he hands him the keys to the modern classic.
Ryan’s younger brother, Aiden, 11, doesn’t miss out either, with Mr Sylvester and his wife Nicole about to pump some more money into transforming a Holden HZ for him for when he turns 21.
While the boys are still a few years off being able to take their envied Holdens for cruises to places like Tocumwal and Finley — the area from which Mr Sylvester hails — their dad is more than happy to do it for them to make sure the cobwebs are regularly blown out.
“If we’ve spent so much money on it, we’re not going to hide it; we’re going to drive it,” Mr Sylvester said.
But when he only gets about 250km from a 75-litre tank, he limits outings in the beast to once or twice a week, opting to use a much more fuel-efficient runaround day-to-day.
However, every time he does hit the streets in it, it turns heads no matter where it is.
“I just love how lumpy it is,” Mr Sylvester said, referring to its sound and vibration.
“How much it shakes when you sit at traffic lights.”
Whether it’s the HQ or the mad tunes, you’re going to hear him coming.