“I dragged this out of a paddock at Canowindra about 10 years ago,” begins Jake Willis of this terrific EH Holden wagon cruiser. “And I’ve been at it ever since!”

The EH could have been out back on the back on the road as a simple, neat street driver. Yeah, nah.

Jake chopped most of the floor from the car and began sizing things up for a full chassis with a loose ambition to run the car down the ‘strip one day.

To that end, the car’s chassis and running gear, although not actually 10-second capable right now, has had the major prep work done for easy compliance. For instance, the ‘cage is the correct material and construction to be tagged for 10s.

But quarter-mile action is probably not going to happen any time soon, while Jake and wife Ali have three kids under 10. And that’s absolutely no problem because for now the EH is doing duty as a terrific Street Machine Summernats cruiser!

The car wears a lovely haze of patina, the result of sitting in the paddock since 1974, when it was just 10 years old. When Jake collected it, the car carried even more character; a botanical garden of moss and lichen, including the glass.

“I wanted to be able to see my nice floors!” laughs Jake of his now-clean panes. Jake is a boilermaker/fabricator by trade but the floors in this are his first effort with thin tin.

Under – and through – the bonnet is a bit of a surprise package. It’s a tall-deck Chevrolet six wearing a 6/71 blower and – for now – sucking on methanol. The corn juice is a bit of a suck-it-and-see with the blower and mechanical injection for now, and one that Jake won’t repeat for Summernats cruising next year as the wagon drinks the boost juice at the rate of a tank per lap. Behind the stock-for-now Chev six is a TH400 auto and a narrowed nine inch.

“I’ve done it all myself,” explains a justifiably proud Jake of the EH wagon that was thrashed together mostly in the three months leading to Summernats 35. “There’s nothing about this car that I’ve paid anybody else to do.”

It’s a top effort but one that is no surprise as his parents are respected street machiners Brian and Janelle Willis whose green-with-graphics HK Holden Monaro is a 90s icon.