On With The Show

Twenty-six Years Ago, Mario Borg Consigned His Fj Holden Show Ute to the Garage. Now, His Son Chris Has Rejuvenated It, Ready to Haul in Trophies All Over Again

- Dave Carey

CHRIS Borg’s dad Mario had a lot of cars – “GTs, hot rods, stuff like that,” Chris says – but it was the FJ ute that always stuck in his mind. “It’s just the curves, the shape and that tilt front,” he says.

Thumbing the remote in his hand, the roller door in front of us clatters slowly skyward. It makes painfully slow progress; after almost three decades, I just can’t wait to see this machine again – part historic show car, part modern streeter.

Ducking down, first I spy a 20-inch Showwheel, then a rolled rear pan. The smoothed tailgate is next, then the hard tonneau. Finally, there she is in all her Blue Candy glory. But the ute looks a bit different to when it featured in SM, Oct/Nov 1991. For a start, back then it wore Vermillion Fire orange, not blue.

“It’s been in my family since I was a kid,” Chris says as we circle the ute. “My earliest childhood memories are of me, my dad and this ute at the Victorian Hot Rod Shows. Happy memories.”

It stands to reason; Mario hit the show scene hard, usually with Chris in tow. “Every time he won a trophy, he’d let me collect it,” Chris says. “And I’ve still got ’em all.” It’s clear that Chris regards this FJ with great reverence, but his ties to the past have not bound him from updating the ute. “Even when I was a kid, we agreed that once everyone got to know the car, we’d put it away and do a makeover one day.”

Back then, the ute already rocked the tilt-front and 327ci Chev V8, but was backed by a Muncie four-speed and, believe it or not, drum brakes all ’round. It had been sitting for a decade when Chris received the keys, so he knew it would need work.