Boy, have we got a treat for you today. This piece of automotive-perfection-in-the-making is Glenn Finnigan’s HQ Monaro.

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Glenn tells me that it is the genuine article and was originally destined for the show circuit but with the value of these cars climbing all the time Glenn has decided to stick with keeping it as original as possible. As you can see from the image above the car had a set of wheel tubs fitted and an oversized letter box ready for the bonnet. Well, the wheel tubs are gone in favour of an original floor pan, at an almighty cost I might add and the letter box idea has been shelved.

The bodywork has a little way to go obviously and fed up with being dicked around by a couple of so-called professionals Glenn is going to handle these duties himself. We first heard from Glenn after he read our Spray Painting Tutorial, I only hope I have given him enough info to do a car like this justice!

What sets this car apart (and the owner of course) is the detail that is going into the build-up. Take a look at the before and after of the brake calipers for instance.

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All of this work is being done in his shed at home and almost every ’shiny’ part is built from scratch by Glenn.

The before and after’s of the engine are really something to see, and although a number of the ‘finer details’ aren’t obvious at first, there is quite a few ‘nifty’ (his words, not mine!) ideas used to tidy things up.

The engine is a 350 Chev ‘crate’ engine which started out with a Quadrajet carby and HEI distributor but now runs multi-point fuel injection and a distributor-less, crank-triggered ignition system. The oil filler is now located where the distributor once sat and the hand built crankcase breathers reside on the ‘inboard’ side of each rocker cover and are concealed by the fuel rail cover. These mods give the rocker covers a completely clean, uncluttered look.

Even if you are not a fan of the old mighty Monaros I’m sure you can appreciate the amount of work that has gone into this car. Hopefully Glenn will have more updates on the way soon and I’m sure he would appreciate a bit of encouragement along the way, so feel free to leave a comment on his work so far.