Our man Tristan has snagged the keys to a Holden Ute Series II SS V8 model for a first drive in Queensland, Australia this week, and just to make it a bit more interesting, he’ll be driving the Down Under-flavored El Camino to a classic car gathering in Brisbane.
Blurring the line between cars and trucks, the Holden Commodore-based sport pickup comes from a long line of Utes dating back to the middle of the previous century. The Ute almost made it to North America when Pontiac revealed the G8 Sport Truck at the 2008 New York Auto Show, but GM’s growing financial troubles at the time put a stop to that plan, and eventually the brand itself which was discontinued in 2009, and finally shut down in 2010.