'Folden' Ford-Holden hybrid sells for $62,700

The Folden has sold on Trademe for $62,700.

The TradeMe auction for the car - a 1970s HQ Holden Kingswood sedan with 1969 Ford Mustang front end grafted on - closed at 4pm this afternoon.

The hybrid confused and outraged devotees on both sides of the great V8 debate.

Proceeds from the auction, hosted by The Rock radio hosts Jono Pryor and Robert Taylor, have been pledged to Mental Health Foundation for Out Of The Blue, an organisation set up to help men who suffer from depression.

The project reportedly cost the radio show between $85,000 and $95,000.

The winning bidder in the $1-reserve auction, who bid under the name calendargirls, beat out about 10 other bidders, who all put in offers more than $55,000. Many more logged on to watch, with the auction clocking up more than 290,000 views and dozens of questions.

Pryor and Taylor admit they built the car to see what would happen if they stirred up people's passions.

“We came up with this outrageous idea about six months ago,” said Taylor during the unveiling of the Folden. “Ninety per cent of our listening audience are keen motorsport fans and [they’re] into cars and souping up of cars and racing of cars. So we thought why not poke a stick quite literally at them, and try and stir them up somehow.

“We found ourselves in a peculiar situation, too, where nobody else in their right sane mind would want to do this sort of thing – or at least waste the money, some might say, on doing it,” he said.

The auction site states the project took more than three months with a total of more than 800 man hours to build the vehicle. More than two dozen businesses and 70 tradespeople were involved in the build.

It may look simply like an HQ with a Mustang front end, but that’s not the only Ford touch - the car is powered by a 302ci (that’s 5.0-litre in the new-speak) Ford Motor Co V8 engine. There’s even a Folden badge which blends the body of a Mustang with the Holden lion’s head.

The Folden rolls on Chip Foose 20-inch wheels and has had a full gunmetal grey respray with orange stripes to help it stand out even more. It’s also been fitted with central locking and an alarm system, as well as a huge Sony stereo system.

- © Fairfax NZ News