My first car: 1964 EH Holden Premier

My first car, an iconic Aussie, was way cooler at the time than even I realised – and I should never have sold it.

The question I get more than any other is ‘how did you get into this’? Not so much motoring journalism and all it entails, more cars in general. Most of us here at Drive spend our non-working time messing around with cars in one way or another, and I’m no different.

Allow me to paint a quick picture.

My father, a migrant to Australia and the middle child of three boys, grew up in Western Sydney in a three-bedroom house, built by my grandfather, not much different to any other in the street. Except that my father and my two uncles had dug a pit – by hand – under the garage, so they could drive their cars over the top of it to work on them.

I’m not sure I realised how cool that pit was as a kid, because it was just part of our family story. In that single car garage, my father restored his first car, a 1959 MGA. Body, paint, engine rebuild, interior, the lot.

Not too far away in the same suburb, my mum, who had been born and raised in the country and moved to the big smoke later on, had learned to drive in my grandfather’s 1958 Chevrolet Biscayne. Mum stitched the interior for my father’s MG together come to think of it, too. In fact, mum had a better-paying job than my dad when they first met, so he used to steal her 1967 VC Valiant to get around, while his MGA was in pieces.

It’s fair to say that my parents have owned many more interesting cars – individually and collectively – than I’ll ever be able to. Most of them probably cost the same as a house deposit in 2022, too, come to think of it.

It’s also fair to say the chances were very slim that my first car was going to be a $13,990 driveaway Hyundai Excel as so many of my school friends were considering at the end of Year 12.

First things first. Technically, my first ever car was an Alfa Romeo Duetto Spyder. Yes, I know, I need to be assessed for ever selling it. Problem was, my father and I (mainly him) decided to pull it apart for a full nut and bolt restoration. Thanks to his work, my university and work, that took the small matter of seven years before it was finished.

Which brings me to my real first car, the 1964 EH Holden Premier in the photos. I was drawn to 60s cars in terms of their styling, their already legendary status and their mechanical simplicity, and in 1993, as I was finishing the HSC, an almost 30-year-old Holden wasn’t that strange a sight on Sydney roads. A lifetime reading car magazines both local and overseas, had cemented in my mind that the 50s and 60s was the coolest era for car design.

I hadn’t researched EH Holdens to the point where I’d become a font of knowledge, so I didn’t really care whether it was a Standard, Special or Premier, just that it was an EH Holden sedan. My father found this one, and I still remember him winding his way up our driveway in it, me not having known that he’d found one. Would have been in the Trading Post back then, too, and I stood looking out the kitchen window in disbelief that what I was seeing was real.

Obviously the EH Holden has now become a legendary Australian car, but even then, it was collectible among Holden enthusiasts. I believe it was the fastest selling Holden to that point in time, it debuted the impressive – for the time anyway – 179ci engine, and it featured that iconic styling that has continued to age so well.

The fact it was a Premier was a bonus, given it was the top of the range when the EH was new. Premiers got the aforementioned 179ci engine and Hydramatic transmission, bucket seats, leather trim, a proper heater/demister in a centre console, fold down centre armrest in the second row, carpets, metallic paint, a diamond dot radio, handbrake warning light, and chrome wheel garnishes. Heady stuff…

What was interesting though, was the manual transmission. Mine had the three-speed column shift manual, with no synchros on first of course, and the installation looked very high quality if it was a retrofit.

Manufacturers were in the early days back then of encouraging owners to chase down the history of their vehicle by sending in the VIN. Which I did, and discovered my Premier was reasonably rare – it had been special factory ordered as a manual. Road tests from ’63 and ’64 indicated that the manual was the punchier option or maybe the first owner just preferred a manual gearbox. It was an interesting point of difference.

In hindsight, my EH was a tidy, well-maintained car that had been regularly used over its first 30 years. Sadly, the original Portsea Blue Metallic had been hidden underneath a respray in white to match the contrast white roof, but it was a decent respray and there was no nasty rust hidden anywhere.

The leather seat trim was well worn, and the carpet had been replaced with a factory lookalike, along with the door trims, which had also been finished nicely. Aside from not having the Premier’s chrome wheel trims, and the presence of a nasty 90s radio, it was otherwise original. At least I had a CD player…

I owned the EH for five years, and aside from regular maintenance, the car never missed a beat. Every single thing worked on it, every switch, every light, everything. Over the years, we rebuilt the front end – the old-style kingpins tended to sag – fitted new shocks, rebuilt the (woefully inadequate) drum brakes, rebuilt the single-barrel carburettor, and fitted new engine mounts. Aside from that, it required nothing more than regular servicing, which we did every 5000 miles to keep it running nicely.

I drove the EH every day, rain, hail or shine, and it never overheated, refused to start or left me stranded on the side of the road. Aussie cars of that era were nothing if not mechanically robust.

I knew how to drive a manual before it arrived but learning how to finesse that old three-speed, especially with the double clutch into first on the move, was a priceless lesson in mechanical sympathy.

Likewise, the rubbish drum brakes – one of the reasons the race S4 version was modified the way it was – and the tendency for the rear end to slide everywhere the minute there was a hint of rain. Old cars really do instil a sense of respect for the road conditions and the mechanicals that you simply don’t need to think about with a brand-new car.

I drove long distances in the EH, too. Road trips with my girlfriend, holidays with my mates, wherever I needed to go, I fell in love with the concept of the Aussie road trip, behind the wheel of an iconic Australian car that had been designed for exactly that. It’s a shame in a way that future generations of young Aussie first timers won’t be able to do the same thing, really.

I look back now and wonder how I survived stifling summers with no AC, kept a couple of sponges to mitigate the leaking bottom section of the windscreen (apparently most of them do that), and the collection of old rags I needed to demist the windscreen by hand because a heater doesn’t help when it’s already humid.

And yet, as so many of us do, I have only fond memories of my first entrée into motoring behind the wheel of my own car.

I only sold the EH because I needed the money to head off overseas once I’d finished university as so many of us do. Wish I didn’t. Regret it to this day. But we’ve all got that sob story, haven’t we?

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