Humble Brag

It might be humble by name, but Layton Crambrook’s award-winning blown HQ monaro gts sure isn’t humble by nature.

- Josh Bennis

WHEN it comes to getting the most out of an HQ Holden, Layton Crambrook knows a thing or two. He won the 2006 Australian HQ Holden Championship, after all.

In fact, Layton has been racing cars all his life, and was at one point the youngest-ever person to race a V8 Supercar. “I originally started racing sprintcars, but my circuit racing career started in an HQ when I was 14,” Layton says. “I went from racing an HQ to a V8 Supercar – not your typical motorsport transition!”

After finishing his time in Supercars, Layton built an HQ race car. “It was basically a show car underneath; it would have fitted in at Summernats it was that neat,” he says.

But ask any Holden fan what car they would build if they had the chance, and more times than most the answer would be: a blown two-door HQ Monaro GTS. And that’s exactly what Layton built next.

This award-winning Monaro GTS came about through Matt Cavenagh, a friend Layton grew up with in Darwin. “He saw the car for sale on Facebook, so I asked him to have a look at it for me,” he says. “The car was in good nick and had very minimal rust. It’s also a genuine two-door HQ Monaro GTS that originally came out with a 253. In the end it took about a week to get a deal together, and the car was mine.”