Virtually New 1979 Holden Kingswood HZ With Just 998-km Steps Out Of Its Time Capsule

Just when you think that all barn, garage and let’s not forget, dealer lot finds, have been unearthed, along comes another story to prove you wrong.

This past Sunday saw the unearthing of a 1979 Holden Kingswood HZ saloon in Adelaide, Australia. Warren Edwards, a photographer from Adelaide and a family friend of the car’s current owners, was on hand to snap the pictures you see posted here.

The mid-size Aussie sedan, which is powered by a 4.2-liter V8 rated at 120kW/161hp, had been bought brand new but due to the owner’s sudden illness at the time, it was parked in his garage after covering a little over 900km (~560 miles).

It had been taken out only once in 1985 to replace its alternator before heading back to its resting place where it remained until a few days ago.

We spoke to Edward who shared his experience with us:

“On Sunday morning, I was present at the unearthing of a 1979 Holden HZ Kingswood. Belonging to the family of a friend, the car was last on the road in 1985. The car has done 998.2km from new. It’s like a time machine. Hopefully, the pictures show just how good the condition of the car is. Inside is as close to brand new as you’ll ever see.

The current owner’s father loved the car but became too ill to drive it. Apparently, he used to love just looking at it. When he died, the girls left the car in the garage. When we saw the car on Sunday, it was the first time it had seen daylight in many years. I was surprised that the tyres still held air and that it moved when we pushed it outside. I was expecting brakes, bearings to be seized.

It was picked up on Monday and they are having a report written on the overall condition and what would be necessary to get the car drivable again.”

For those of you unfamiliar with Holden’s model range and history, the Kingswood along with its lesser Belmont and more luxurious Premiere siblings formed Holden’s mid-size offerings in the late 1960s through the 1970s before they were replaced by the Commodore.

The HZ range (1977 to 1980) was essentially the third facelift after the HJ and HX of Holden’s popular HQ series introduced in 1971.