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LHD & Greek Holdens
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Blu253 Offline
#1 Posted : Wednesday, 22 April 2026 2:19:36 PM(UTC)
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A mate has recently spent a couple of months visiting his Mum and siblings in Greece.
We were at the Birdwood Motor Museum just the other day, and he got quite fired up at the memories the old Holdens brought to him.

Anyway, later on that day he mentioned that he saw an old Holden on a farm not far from his sisters place. He thought it might be a FJ but I suggested more likely to be an FB/EK (or later thru 60s) as they were the LHD cars that GMH built. Am I correct in thinking that? I guess someone might he returned to Greece with a FJ but I kind of doubt it.

Anyway, it ve told him to get his sister to take something me photos and send them. I’ll take a look and see if I can identify what model it is (& perhaps what make if it wasn’t a Holden).
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HK1837 Offline
#2 Posted : Wednesday, 22 April 2026 5:52:58 PM(UTC)
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I'm not sure when LHD started but LHD Holdens were made up until HG, and LHD Torana up until LX. LHD export territories in 1967 in that area that you could probably have driven to Greece from were:

Bahrain.
Greece.
Iran.
Iraq.
Jordan.
Kuwait.
Lebanon.
Libya.
Qatar.
Saudi Arabia.
Syria.

There were RHD export territories around there too, like Aden (became the capital of Yemen), Cyprus (by ferry), Pakistan.
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Blu253 on 22/04/2026(UTC), Smitty2 on 22/04/2026(UTC)
Dr Terry Offline
#3 Posted : Thursday, 23 April 2026 4:37:33 PM(UTC)
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The first LHD Holdens were FBs beginning on 16 May 1960.

Dr Terry
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Blu253 on 23/04/2026(UTC)
Blu253 Offline
#4 Posted : Thursday, 23 April 2026 5:04:00 PM(UTC)
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I thought so, the first batch went to Hawaii ?

Still it would be cool to see a LHD FB-HG or LH.

Would you know if they’d have an id plate in the engine bay like ours did?
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Dr Terry Offline
#5 Posted : Friday, 24 April 2026 7:18:13 AM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: Blu253 Go to Quoted Post
Would you know if they’d have an id plate in the engine bay like ours did?


AFAIK all Holdens had a body ID plate. This is not to be confused with the compliance plate which was only fitted to RHD Holdens sold in Australia from 1/1/70 onwards.

The only Holdens with any mention of left or right hand drive on their ID plates were those built at Pagewood (Sydney) from HK to HZ.

These cars had either R or L as a suffix to the model no. on the body ID plate. An example would be 80569KR, which is an HK RHD Premier sedan. R refers to RHD. Although I've never seen one in person a LHD version would read 80569KL.

I've no idea why they continued this practice thru to HZ, as HQ to HZ were built RHD only.

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Blu253 on 24/04/2026(UTC)
HK1837 Offline
#6 Posted : Friday, 24 April 2026 7:46:39 AM(UTC)
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Some earlier stuff had it too Terry. Examples I know of a Dandenong HR with model code HR225MR-56xxxM. It seems to be on most Dandenong bodied HR but not on bodies from the other BAP's. I haven't seen it on HD either.
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Blu253 on 24/04/2026(UTC)
Dr Terry Offline
#7 Posted : Friday, 24 April 2026 9:27:51 AM(UTC)
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You are correct. I forgot about Melbourne HRs.

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HK1837 Offline
#8 Posted : Friday, 24 April 2026 10:06:58 AM(UTC)
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I always thought that Dandenong did it as that might have been where LHD HR came from, and Pagewood later as they were the other export VAP’s.
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Blu253 on 24/04/2026(UTC)
Dr Terry Offline
#9 Posted : Friday, 24 April 2026 10:49:21 AM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: HK1837 Go to Quoted Post
I always thought that Dandenong did it as that might have been where LHD HR came from, and Pagewood later as they were the other export VAP’s.


Yes, Melbourne in that era, also had more info on their plates, like option pack numbers etc.

But I still don't understand why Pagewood bothered to use an R suffix for HQ to HZ, when there were no LHD versions of those model series.

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Blu253 on 24/04/2026(UTC)
HK1837 Offline
#10 Posted : Friday, 24 April 2026 4:58:35 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: Dr Terry Go to Quoted Post
Originally Posted by: HK1837 Go to Quoted Post
I always thought that Dandenong did it as that might have been where LHD HR came from, and Pagewood later as they were the other export VAP’s.


Yes, Melbourne in that era, also had more info on their plates, like option pack numbers etc.

But I still don't understand why Pagewood bothered to use an R suffix for HQ to HZ, when there were no LHD versions of those model series.

Dr Terry


Pagewood were the oldest plant by then, they continued to do a number of things others had ceased. Like a tracking number on the firewall after HG finished. I'm not sure how they tracked vans and cab-chassis though.
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WagonDan Offline
#11 Posted : Friday, 24 April 2026 9:01:33 PM(UTC)
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Here is an ID tag of a now New Zealand based LHD-HR Special.

Originally sold to American Samoa and imported to NZ in 1971.
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Blu253 on 25/04/2026(UTC)
HK1837 Offline
#12 Posted : Saturday, 25 April 2026 6:54:24 AM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: WagonDan Go to Quoted Post
Here is an ID tag of a now New Zealand based LHD-HR Special.

Originally sold to American Samoa and imported to NZ in 1971.




Was it Elizabeth assembly as well? Does it have a chassis number?

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Blu253 Offline
#13 Posted : Saturday, 25 April 2026 8:54:36 AM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: WagonDan Go to Quoted Post
Here is an ID tag of a now New Zealand based LHD-HR Special.

Originally sold to American Samoa and imported to NZ in 1971.




Is the -LD- after HR225 the Left Drive indicator?
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WagonDan Offline
#14 Posted : Saturday, 25 April 2026 1:57:26 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: HK1837 Go to Quoted Post
Was it Elizabeth assembly as well? Does it have a chassis number?



It will have a chassis number but I haven't got that info at hand Sorry.

It does have a PSN tag beginning with S, however I cannot say if thats original to the Vehicle.

I will get that info when I see the car next 🤞
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HK1837 Offline
#15 Posted : Saturday, 25 April 2026 2:49:43 PM(UTC)
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I’d able to tell you with pretty high confidence if the Pagewood PSN tag belongs to the body tag or not by the chassis number last two letters, IF I have enough Pagewood vans around it.
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