After Whitlam the guts pretty much fell out of everything. Labor didn't really care about workers and the Liberal Party seem to be leaning more on the capitalist side of things now with a sink or swim policy platform.

Don't get me wrong - I don't blame the current government for being shy with the cash, far from it. I blame the idiots we voted out for taking the current accounts from a $23bn surplus - a situation that scored Australia the envy of every other Western power - to what is now a $300bn debt and over the forward estimates, approaching $500bn. A country of 23 million people cannot afford that much debt and the last six years of Labor Party rule has brought us to the brink. Whilst the Australian economy can support a high debt at present, reducing the economic output that any single sector of the economy will reduce Australia's ability to pay off that debt.

Greece went belly-up with a debt of $100bn because they do not have a diverse economy. It's food for thought.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

I blame government over the past 10 years for the demise of Holden and Ford. Why there wasnt a policy of sourcing locally built cars I will never know.
Someone please explain why the liquid injection lpg engine that Ford developed, isnt on the 'Green car ' list.
Then the overall image of Falcon as a taxi, drove those who didnt want to drive a taxi towards Prius......

Australia. Worlds biggest warehouse.

I was fired by manufacturing giant AWA in 1975 the company was already under pressure. Two months later Gough "Cough-Drop" Whitlam was himself fired!

It's official:

"HOLDEN will close its Australian operations, including Elizabeth in 2017, with the loss of 2900 jobs, the company has told its South Australian workforce.

In a statement, the company says it will discontinue vehicle and engine manufacturing by the end of 2017 and significantly reduce engineering operations in Australia.

About 1600 positions at the Elizabeth plant will go, and 1300 in Victoria."

Many factors have contributed to the current position that has affected Ford, then Holden and ultimately will affect Toyota too.

1. The carbon tax, brought in by the liar, Julia Gillard. Holden, Ford and Toyota have contributed $180m in carbon tax payments since it was introduced.

2. Greedy unions. Holden should never have agreed to a 22% payrise followed by 4.5% annual rises over the life of the latest agreement. It's just bloody ridiculous that process workers get paid more than $70,000.00 by companies that are struggling. This move is called shooting one's self in the foot.

3. The power of the Australian dollar in recent years. In many ways a powerful currency that is heaviliy traded is good but not for local manufacturers who lose the ability to export for survival. Holden wouldn't have given closure a second thought if the AU$ was worth US$0.60 because that was a time in history when Holden was exporting quite freely.

4. A free trade agreement should be exactly that, a free trade agreement and it should include everything. Australia should not be fighting import tariff regimes operating in partner countries. EG: The Holden Ute cannot be exported to the US because each ute would be subject to a 25% import tariff, despite the free trade agreement in place between Australia and the US.

Still, it is all academic now. Before the decade is out Australia's last significant consumer products manufacturing industry will be gone.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

Whitlam wouldn't save Leyland after Arab Oil Embargo, said " They should build a car the public wants" (not P76?)
Perhaps he should have as P76 was more advanced than Big Three and maybe Big 3 started rumours about P76
reliability issues? Leyland also had a super cool Personal Luxury Car called"Force" ready for production.

The Leyland P76 is a bit of a cult car these days.

I remember them having a big boot and being one of the first cars to have windscreen wipers that weren't fully exposed (a bit of streamlining) but the body shape was somewhat controversial.

Holden, Ford and Chrysler pretty much had the market sewn up by the time the P76 arrived though and this would always be the P76's biggest problem.

Back before the tariff wall came down the Commonwealth was actually encouraging manufacturers to set up shop here. It was a case of "you build your cars here either fully manufactured or assembled from knock-down kits and we won't hit you with a 57% tax on your product." So many manufacturers did participate. Nissan, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, Renault, Dodge, BMC, Volvo and American Motors all came down under, either making cars, contracting existing factories to make cars on their behalf or assembling knock-down kits. As a result it was these brands that fell in line closely behind the Big Three in the sales races.

For the nostalgia buffs, nothing ever outsold the mighty HQ-Series Holdens - in a period of about eighteen months between 1971 and 1973 just over 453,000 were made in a choice of seven bodyshapes: long and short wheelbase sedan, station wagon, ute, one-tonner, panel van and two-door hardtop. Engine choices were a 2.8 litre or 3.3 litre six or 4.2 litre, 5.0 litre or 5.7 litre V8.

With the current diversity in the Australian market, no car ever will outsell the HQ-Series, regardless of the badge on the bonnet.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

I think when the HQ was designed it had a pretty good aerodynamics due to the shape of the boot and underbody.

110mph around turn one at Eastern Creek was good fun.

3 speed manual, 202. Controlled camshaft, carb, diff etc etc.

Pity the series all but died when they went too far and the cost increased due to all the 'perfomance' requirements.

Most of the HQ people changed to Saloon cars.

(How did I get this far off topic?)

Ben

(How did I get this far off topic?)

When discussing a company that started manufacturing in 1856 I reckon it is okay to digress from the bad news into remembering the good times.

I remember when the HQ racing began and they were racing them as supporting events to the Group C/Group A races. They also raced them around the Thunderdome in Melbourne.

Apart from wider tyres, safety harness and a Lexan windscreen they were pretty much standard issue back then to keep costs down.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

Beat this. In 1979 I saw a Holden Kingswood in the main street of Lhasa, capital of Tibet. It was the only motor vehicle in Tibet that wasn't Chinese. It belonged to the Nepalese consulate, and they had DRIVEN it across the Himalayas on a road considered impassable for 2 wheel drive vehicles.
They may have called on the assistance of a few yaks from time to time.

Nobody else designed saloon cars for rough roads at that time, and the Range Rover had not yet spawned generations of "SUV" imitators.

Maven

It's not surprising but it is funny. I read somewhere that the HQ-Series was exported to 51 countries. They were also bulletproof, like many cars of that era. Many still survive here and it is amazing how many builders still have V8 one-tonners.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

Apparently, the HQ in Japan was fitted with a rotary engine.

There'd be plenty of room in the engine bay.

I gave up full time racing about 10 years ago, and havent driven anything competatively for about 3. (Thats my car in the above photo)

I do keep my hand it a little bit. I get called on to wire up EFI stuff for mates cars.

The greatest part of the way HQ's were built is the fully removable front chassis.

We had a car smack the wall at Bathurst about 98-99

rebuilt it overnight, big effort. Panels from Tamworth, chassis from Blue mountains. fuel tank from Dubbo.
I was still putting the brake light lenses as it was being loaded on the trailer.

Try that with late model stuff.

The Australian built stuff is well designed, but we just cant compete with the boat loads of korean junk for next to nothing. Thanks Gov-Co

On the 4KQ internet stream, I'm hearing Holden commercials saying that the dealers will still be in business selling Holdens "built for Australia", just not build in Australia. They don't mention where the cars are being built now...

One complication for exporting Australian made cars to the USA is that we drive on the other side of the road. Though that didn't bother the Japanese...

Left hand drive wasn't much of an issue for the Commodore because it was originally based on GM's plan for what they called the 'World V-Car', which would be built and sold in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Europe under three brands, Holden, Opel and Vauxhall. The trouble with the concept was that the Australian version would have to be bigger to accommodate customer tastes at the time and it was just as well for Holden that they did make it bigger because in reality the first Commodores still lacked width and rear seat leg room although they were more refined than the Kingswoods they were sold alongside for 18 months until Holden stopped building those in response to the oil crisis - another mistake they would have to rectify in later years.

Also, the once-mighty Torana and the later Camira that replaced it were also based on left hand drive models from elsewhere. These cars were in the medium size category. The Torana came with a wider choice of engines than for the larger Kingswood/Commodore, being one of few cars in the world in the medium class to be offered with a four, two sixes and two eight cylinder engines. A close look at the firewall shows that there were stampings and blanks to allow for left hand drive.

The Camira was part of GM's 'World J-Car' and based on the Opel Ascona and Vauxhall Cavalier and thus it was designed to be sold in right hand or left hand markets. It was these cars that Holden built and exported engines for.

When the VT to VZ and VE to VF Commodores (all body shapes) were designed they designed them with left hand drive in mind. When tooling up for that the most expensive task is designing the dashboard because that is the bit that isn't symmetrical.

Earlier Commodores, namely the VB to VL and VN to VS series were based on German models so their origins were with left hand drive. Those models even retained their handbrake location on the left hand side of the centre console. The original Commodore was based on a widened version of the Opel Rekord but had the longer bonnet of the Opel Senator to allow the Australian six cylinder engine to fit in.

At the moment the Commodore sedan and wagon, Caprice, Holden Ute and the Cruze sedan and wagon are built at Holden's assembly plant in Elizabeth, SA and the V6 engine for the larger cars is built at the Fisherman's Bend (what they now call Port Melbourne) engine foundry. All other models come from Thailand and South Korea.

There's been some negative feedback about the "we're here to stay" ads, with some people branding them as insulting. I haven't heard the ad as I am not a big consumer of mass media but whether I have or not I wouldn't take much from anything claimed in the ads. My main concern is the continuing loss of an engineering skill base in a country that once produced just about everything for local and export markets. But up against free trade agreements that are only making BHP and our banks rich and up against Asian factories with workforces that dwarf the populations of major provincial cities in Australia and even the United States where employees are lucky to be paid $20.00 a week, it is hard for global boardrooms to hang on to old ways.

Holden haters bag Holden for lucking out but lets face facts - in its heyday, Holden was selling one of every three cars sold in this country. Ford, Chrysler and Australian Motor Industries (bought out by Toyota about thirty years ago) were the next dominant players. After this was a small group of British, European and Japanese marques. Because there's now sixty marques competing for market share here I seriously doubt whether any one manufacturer will dominate the way Holden once did. Anyone who believes otherwise is kidding only themselves.

I wish I had the money to collect a few of the classics, the FE/FC Series are amongst my favourites.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

In 1975 I saw a LHD Torana in Manila! Weren't too many but it was a surprise seeing this one!