Early car industry
Motor cars appeared in Australia shortly after their introduction in Europe and the USA in the 1890s. They were still something of a curiosity in Australia and New Zealand in the early 1900s, but by 1910, there were 102 different vehicle models (the majority of them trucks and buses) being driven and 12,000 vehicles had been registered for land use. By 1915 the vehicle population in Australia had reached 38,000 and 108 different brands - most of them imported from overseas - were competing in the market.
Early cars were built on imported chassis for individual clients by local coach-builders. Unsurprisingly they were very expensive. A single cylinder Oldsmobile for example cost £215 ($430) when the average take home wage was £2 ($4) a week. A prestige car like the four cylinder Argyll cost between £550 and £800 and a Mercedes £1,500.
The first entirely Australian made petrol driven vehicle was built by Captain Harley Tarrant and Howard Lewis in 1899, (albeit with limited success). A similar car built by Tarrant in 1901 actually ran well and Tarrant went on to construct a number of other cars and motor trucks before World war 1. In the face of market domination by overseas imports, thirty different Australian vehicle designs were developed between 1900 and 1920. While a significant number of these were serious attempts at launching a local car industry, they all failed, largely due to the comparatively low price of imports from Europe and the USA.
It wasn’t until after World War 1 that a fledgling motor industry came into being in Australia.
Between the two world wars, the majority of motor vehicles used in Australia were either imported as a finished product or assembled in Australia from imported components. Indeed just before the advent of World War 1, a number of firms were established for the manufacture of replacement parts and accessories and this industry was given impetus during the war years when demand increased significantly.
In 1917 a South Australian firm, Holden’s Motor Body Builders, established a factory in Adelaide which built and fitted motor bodies on a large scale. During the 1920s several plants dedicated to the assembly of cars and trucks were established in Australian cities by the Ford Motor Company of Canada and General Motors Corporation of America. The local motor industry’s momentum was such that during 1928-29, prior to the onset of the Great Depression, 72,193 car and truck bodies were made in Australia while only 14,546 were imported from overseas.
In fact the number of locally assembled cars and Australian produced bodies grew every year between 1920 and 1929 when new vehicle sales reached 77,196. With the onset of the Depression sales dropped dramatically, with the industry recording a mere 12,241 sales in 1932. Although there were several attempts to build an Australian car during the twenties – the Australian Six, the Summit, the Eco, the Wedge and the Reo are examples - all these enterprises used major components which were manufactured overseas and none were able to remain viable through the 1930s.
General-Motors Holden and Ford Australia lost large amounts of money but they survived to see prosperity return to the industry in the late 'thirties. By 1939 a total of 895,000 vehicles - one for every 8.5 people - were on the road and more than 18,000 persons were employed in the vehicle repair and servicing industry alone. World War 2 brought with it a heightened demand for increased industrial capacity and technical efficiency as well as access to the services of overseas experts – a combination which had transformed the industry by 1945.
In that year General Motors Holden, in a new agreement with the federal government, undertook to develop an Australian car for mass production, making large extensions to its plants at Fisherman’s Bend and Woodville. The manufacture of the Holden car in 1948 was an industry landmark which is generally recognised as heralding a boom in the ownership and manufacture of cars, to the extent that by the end of 1965 there were 3,710,902 vehicles in Australia - or one for every 3.09 people. |
The first entirely Australian made petrol driven vehicle was constructed by Captain Harley Tarrant and Howard Lewis in 1899. |
Last updated: 30th May 2008
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