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Hoonigan’s Donut Garage antics on their Daily Transmission series are a great way to break up your day. Today they were working on left hand drive swapping a Holden Ute SS they had imported in the country for a special project that was teased in a prior episode. They recently worked with Turn 10, the makers of Forza Motorsport, on a Hoonigan Car Pack for Forza Horizon 3. Forza Horizon 3 is based in Australia, so they imported an Australian only car to do silly things with.
If you do not know, Holden is General Motors’ brand in Australia. Sadly, GM is closing up shop down under, but they left an imprint on Australian car culture by making some serious burnout machines. In the United States, we got some Holden love though re-branded cars, including the Pontiac GTO and the Pontiac G8. The last Holden re-branded monster we got a slice of was the Chevrolet SS—which GM will no longer be making, because you did not buy one.
Upon arrival, Hoonigan’s Holden Ute was completely stripped by Hoonigan shop mechanic Brian Darnall. They also have a Pontiac GTO donor car which has been stripped to supply the Ute with its parts including the left hand drive dashboard and steering wheel.
In the video Darnall attempts to get the whole dashboard out in one piece with a engine hoist held down by a fork lift for “safety.” At one point the engine hoist is holding up the whole car with all the stress on the bar linking the chains to the hoist and well….it snaps.
After a while and some fabrication, he is able to hoist the whole dashboard out the same way it went in at the factory and install the GTO’s dashboard with some shop logic and logistics. No fancy factory robots needed.
Eventually the Ute will have a widebody kit applied, new paint job, and the engine will run on NOS. It will surely be a one of a kind build….as long as they keep that roll bar.
