Upper Middle Petrol Head:

This gorgeous green machine - a 1975 HJ Holden van photographed in southern Tasmania during February, 2026 - says a lot about today's classic car market.  And what it really, really tells us is that prices are out of control!  Seventy grand is a lot of moolah.  Yes.  $70,000 for an HJ! (According to its publicly available Transport Tasmania registration data, it is an HJ, even if it's wearing an HX grille.) It has GTS front mudguards, a set of very tasty five-spoke alloys and a classic bubble rear window in the very best of custom van tradition.  However, it doesn't appear to be a Sandman - it lacks the stripes and decals - and there's no indication whether it's a straight-six or a V8. None of this is to say that the car might not be worth every cent of its asking price.  The paint and panels are great, older Holdens in decent condition are getting harder to find, and the prices of genuine Sandmans and other models with cult followings - performance Toranas...

The term "unprecedented" has become a bit of a trope, being used ad infinitum to describe our planet's ever-deteriorating climate - be it hotter, windier, wetter or drier than ever before - and the antics of one particularly unhinged world leader whose petulant attempts at world domination seem set to unravel eight decades' of relative global peace and economic prosperity in the Western world.    All of which seriously diminishes the word unprecedented’s utility in describing something for which there truly isn't any precedent.  Like the existence of vacant parking spaces at Long Beach, Sandy Bay, on the first Sunday of any month of the year.       That said, even if February, 2026's, Classics by the Beach wasn't particularly well-attended, the quality of cars on display was still excellent, with a couple that had, until now, not been seen by the UMPH team.  This lovely 1970 Lancia Fulvia coupe   hasn't featured on our 'blog be...