Nestled in a humble shed out by McKees Hill, just off the road to Casino, sits a drag racing legend that holds a special place in history for car enthusiasts.

Its owner and restorer, Dean Prodger, has been involved in the world of cars since he was a kid and this 1968 HK Holden Monaro has absorbed a whole lot of Dean’s love and skill in the five and a half years it took him to restore it to the glory of its 70s racing days.

1968 HK Monaro aka the Grot

That epic labour of love came to an end just days before the record-breaking flood which, according to history, should not reach Dean’s workshop where the precious beast of a car was stored. With water rising across the adjacent road and paddocks, Dean took action to save his wife’s herd of miniature goats whilst believing his workshop would be safe.

“I had the car here in the shed but because we’ve lived here for so long, we didn’t really worry that there’d be water in here. With all the previous floods Lismore has had, it never really affected us. It caught me out. If I knew that was going to happen, I would have moved it but I didn’t get the chance. The car was more or less finished the day before that flood came. So, I was a little bit upset about it,” Dean said.

“It wasn’t fully submerged, it got up underneath the car. I had it jacked up. I had to go through all the mechanicals again and clean it all up to make it new again. That obstacle was almost enough to not go to Melbourne. It’s a big ordeal obviously to tow a car that far,” Dean added.

Miniature goat herd back in their McKees Hill play paddock which was flooded in February

With help from his wife Susan, dad Terry, his daughters and mates, Dean managed to revive his car to its fully restored status and return his workshop to being operational.

“The Grot” sat in a paddock for 30 years in Melbourne before it found its way to Dean’s dedicated restoration workshop.

“In the 70s in racing days, they used to name the cars and paint them, it was all part of the show more or less, a race number and name. The guys that built it in those days called it the Grot."

"I saw it on eBay, it was a rough, worn-out car that had been sitting in a paddock…by the time I found it, it was in Brisbane so it was fairly close. It was neglected and falling to bits. But because it was this model of car that I like, I decided to buy it for parts. When I went to pick it up, I found out it had a history,” Dean explained.



The purchasers who brought the Grot from Melbourne to Brisbane had planned to fix it but soon realised it was beyond what they could manage to achieve.

“They had traced the history through drag racing literature, they gave all that to me when I bought it so by the time I towed it from Brisbane back to home here, I decided I couldn’t chop it up for parts – I had to restore it to how it was raced… which was a five and a half year rebuild,” Dean said.

“After researching the car and putting the feelers out on social media while I was restoring it, I found a lot of the guys in Melbourne that remembered the car and even one of the original owners. It was owned by a partnership, John Taverna and Phil Facciolo, they were fairly famous in drag racing. John Taverna has passed away since. He had his own business called John Taverna Chassis which manufactured and built race cars. I had always planned to take it back to where it came from when it was finished,” Dean explained.

Despite the many challenges, Dean and the Grot made the journey to Melbourne at the end of April to take the stage amongst other legendary vehicles of the game at MotorEx, the largest and most prestigious car show of its kind in Australia.

 Dean Prodger with one of the Grot's original 70s owners. Phil Facciolo, MotorEx Melbourne, April 2022

“I don’t assume everyone knows the car but for the people who remembered it, it was a pretty big thing. It was almost like a reunion and I was in the middle of all these people I’d never met before, so it was a pretty special event. It’s a piece of history in that field….I grew up reading about John Taverna and those kind of guys in magazines when I was at high school, it all sort of meshed. A few people have said it was meant to be. I was probably the only one silly enough to rebuild it because it was absolutely stuffed,” Dean said.

Deano’s Auto Restorations started in 2002 and has evolved into a specialised, online business, making sections and sending them out via post and freight.

“Basically, my customers are all throughout Australia and a fair few in New Zealand. It’s where old Holdens ended up and I think they were exported a bit to New Zealand. There have been a couple go over to the UK, there must be the odd Holden over there,” Dean said.

Dean’s love affair with Holdens began as a teenager, working alongside his dad who had a passion for vintage cars.

“I’m going on 49 and I’ve had HK Monaros and early Holdens of that 1968 to 1970 sort of vintage since I was 15 or 16. My Dad was always into vintage cars."

"I grew up in Tregeagle, so the habit formed when I was young. Dad was a fitter and machinist by trade but he got into the family business which was earthmoving with his father and brothers. I used to work on cars as a hobby with him when I was a kid and then got an apprenticeship as a panel beater. The love for the cars just kept growing,” Dean explained.

 Dean displaying a photo of the Grot in its 70s heyday

“I did my apprenticeship with Glenn Shume at Alstonville. It was hard, even then, to get an apprenticeship. I was doing night courses at TAFE while I was still at high school, to learn and help get a trade. It was an obsession that has never changed.“

“As an apprentice, I had a red HK Monaro with a 327 V8 and I didn’t earn a lot of money. I think all the money I earned as a second-year apprentice went into the fuel bill and paying for the car. You’ve got to do what you love to do but it doesn’t always pay well. If you stick with it long enough, you find your groove and you might be able to pay your bills doing it. That’s sort of what I do now.”

And what does the future hold for Dean and the Grot?

"I never put that sort of work into something just to sell it. I might do a couple more shows just to show people. It wouldn’t be raced competitively but I wouldn’t mind getting it back out on the racetrack just to do some exhibition runs just to show people what noisy old cars used to do on the drag track. It would never be competitive because you don’t want to hurt it I suppose."