{"id":829385,"date":"2026-07-28T16:18:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T16:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/829385\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T16:18:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T16:18:21","slug":"young-gun-jack-hislops-wb-holden-panel-van","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/829385\/","title":{"rendered":"Young gun Jack Hislop\u2019s WB Holden panel van"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack Hislop stood out as one of the younger blokes at the 2026 Van Nationals at Corowa<\/a>, but his WB Holden pano was one of the cleanest at the show \u2013 clean enough to make the Top 15! It wasn\u2019t rockin\u2019, so we came a knockin\u2019.<\/p>\n

First published in the June 2026 issue of Street Machine<\/p>\n

\"\"Jack, you\u2019re 19; this is a Holden panel van from the early 80s. What\u2019s the deal?<\/p>\n

It belonged to my pop\u2019s mate, Craig. He\u2019d had it for years but passed away around Christmas 2024. My pop, Gary Hislop, has always been into vans; his FJ has done all right this weekend \u2013 he got sixth outright, Top Radical and Top Engineered, so he was always going to be the best bloke to build this with.<\/p>\n

\"\"How long did the WB take to get together?<\/p>\n

Pop grabbed the car just after the Nationals last year, and we got to work. Fortunately, the car was pretty much this already \u2013 the colour, the WB Caprice front, the wheels \u2013 but it was really tired. And nothing was engineered at all. It\u2019s got a VN V8, Turbo\u00a0700 and nine-inch diff, and none of it was legit.<\/p>\n

\"\"It\u2019s a profesh-looking car; is Gary in the trade?<\/p>\n

Pop? Nah, he runs a caravan repair business, if that counts! I guess building his cars over the years, he\u2019s picked up a few things. For instance, the van had these big, ugly Caprice moulds down the side. We stripped them off, but I can\u2019t weld to save myself, so he stepped in to help with that.<\/p>\n

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\nENGINE BAY: Housing a faithful, 304-cube VN V8, the WB\u2019s engine bay hasn\u2019t had much hidden, but it was clean enough to earn the van a Top 15 spot out of more than 150 at this year\u2019s Van NatsWhat else did you guys need to sort out?<\/p>\n

There were some rust spots around the roof, gutters and top tailgate, so we got onto them. We replaced the left-hand door, as it was too far gone. The headlights were a pain; the right-hand one was half-full of water and the reflector had rusted away. We thought we\u2019d replace the Cragars but could only get a rear set before the Nationals, so the front pair we cleaned up as best we could. Pop\u2019s mate across the road file-finished the body and painted it for us, and we only got it back in January. It was supposed to be November, so it was a bit of a push to get it here. It was pretty close, to be honest.<\/p>\n

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\nPIPES: With its WB Caprice front, Cragars and sidepipes, this van is as old-school as 19-year-old Jack isn\u2019t. The pipes were an engineering concern, but once they were tucked up closer to the body, VicRoads was cool with themHow close?<\/p>\n

We got it registered the Monday before the Van Nats, and we left on the Thursday, which was stressful. It\u2019s all fully engineered now, including the sidepipes. There were all these requirements, and the engineer said there was no way we\u2019d meet them. They needed cats, heat shields, a 45-degree exit angle and stuff. We did all that, and the roadworthy guy said a week out that he wasn\u2019t going to approve them \u2013 he wanted us to cut them off. Pop got a fella on the phone at VicRoads who said that being pre-1988, there\u2019s no problem, so we had to go back to the roadworthy guy with a bunch of print-outs and explain it to him. We did have to raise them about an inch closer to the sills, but thankfully there\u2019s a difference between cutting it fine and cutting them off.<\/p>\n

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\nINTERIOR: The WB Caprice interior was supplied with the van, including the single-spoke steering wheel. Jack\u2019s pop, Gary Hislop, made the centre console to suit the Turbo 700 transWell, it was all worth it: you scored 12th outright at your first Nats!<\/p>\n

Yeah, it did all right considering we kept it pretty simple and re-used what we could. For instance, those WB Caprice grilles are expensive now, but they come apart, so we just pulled it down and cleaned it up. The interior is a mixture of Caprice bits that came with the car and Rare Spares replacements, and Pop made me the centre console to suit the Turbo 700. The interior in the back is functional, and it was all clean enough to catch Owen Webb<\/a>\u2019s eye, which is great.<\/p>\n

\"\"Have you slept in the back yet?<\/p>\n

I was trying to, but some guys from Street Machine woke me up!<\/p>\n

BE A YOUNG GUN!
Aged around 21 or younger and have a neat ride? Email high-resolution images (2mb+ each) and details of your car to gday@streetmachine.com.au<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jack Hislop stood out as one of the younger blokes at the 2026 Van Nationals at Corowa, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":["post-829385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}