TRAY COOL

WITH its stark black-on-white presentation, reverse cowl and tough big-’n’-littles stance, you can bet Matt Watts’s HQ ute snaps a few necks in this sad, beige world where car-buying decisions are often based on the number of nifty storage compartments. Matt originally set out to build something to carry a load of firewood and maybe chuck the swag in for an impromptu weekend trip, so cargo space was certainly near the top of the feature list when he went shopping for a new project car. He certainly didn’t intend to build the tyre-frying streeter the HQ is now.

“I was looking for a stock-ish HQ or HZ ute,” Matt says.