The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.

: 1848 - 1957), Saturday 2 October 1948, page 3

National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22676312
First Australian Car Built 52 Years
Ago
By
RUPERT CHARLETT
The New "Holden"
Is
Not the
Fairst
Australian-made Motorcar. The
First Car Was Made
in Little
Workshop
at
Armadale 52 Years
Ago
A
SLEEK, LOW, CLOSED
CAR, not quite like anything
seen on Australian roads so
far, stands on a
green
plush
stand
against a background
of black cur-
tain in a building at Fishermen's
Bend.
Few
have seen
it, for it is
as closely
guarded as a wartime secret
weapon,
but soon,
with a fanfare of
trumpets
and a blaze of publicity, it will make
its first public
appearance.
It is the "Holden"
-
the General
IMotors-Holden
Australian car which
will
go
into mass production
late this
*
year
and probably will
be turned out
at the rate of 20,000 a year by the
end of 1949.
For the beginnings of the Aus-
tralian
motor-car
building industry
we must go back to 1896, when,
in
a modest
little
workshop in High
st, Armadale, Mr Herbert Thom-
son
and his cousin, Mr, Edward
j
Holmes, built the "Thomson Motor
1
Phaeton," of which a photograph
1
appears
on this
page.
% It
was launched with almost as much
1 publicity
as the new Holden 21-hp
|
six has had recently - but, of
course,
I
it did
not "make" the front
pages
I
in those days. Newspaper
front
pages
were
still reserved for births, mar-
riages, and deaths, and shipping
notices.
But, speaking collectively for
the
nation,
one Australian daily, describ-
ing the "epoch-making" ross-coun
try trip by the car from Bathurst to
Melbourne (?t an average speed of
8.
mph, including stops), declared
that
"Australia
caught
its
breath in
amazement."
\SK DAVID
SHEARER,
an
1" implement-maker, of
Mannum,
South Australia,
produced another
steamer in 1897,
but when he took
it
out on the public roads
he had to
obtain
police permission, and,
like
Mr Thomson, have
the car inspected
!
hy the fire
brigade authorities.
Horses were the trouble
in those
days-at the sight of a "horseless
carriage"
they
invariably
took
fright.
Twentieth-century horses, of
course,
are much more phlegmatic. Their
associaiton
with the modern world
apparently has taught them to be
surprised at nothing.
COLONEL
HARLEY TARRANT
and Mr Howard Lewis, both of
whom became notable figures in
the
motor industry, built
the
first
Aus-
tralian petrol-driven car at Mel-
bourne in 1899, a two-cylinder,
chain
driven job that proved a failure.
The second,
also a chain-driven two
cylinder,
completed in 1901,
gave
years
of
good service to
its buyer,
Mr W. H. Chandler, a well-known
Melbourne hardware merchant.
Becoming more ambitious, the Tar-
rant
company
produced other
cars,
including two four-cylinder
16-hp
models, pne
of
which
is still
able to
take an honourable part in \eteran
car
trials,
with Mr Maurice Shmith,
its
owner, at the wheel.
First NSW petrol-driven car was
designed by Mr Albert Woods,
of
Leichhardt, and
built in 1904. The
10-hp Acme,
built
by Holding and
Overall, of
Drummoyne, and two
others built
by Mr
Alfred
Swinner
ton, of Leichhardt, followed, but,
although the
hand-built Australian
cars compared
favourably in perform-
ance with the imported cars,
they
could not
compete commercially with
the
products
of
the assembly line.
Australia seems to have
built
the
first
"Jeep"
-
away
back in
1907, when Mj* Felix
Caldwell
invented a four-wheel drive system,
and
later built
50 trucks
which
sold at 1,250, apparently
justifying
this
high price
by their capacity to
haul 24-ton loads over clay roads be-
cause of their four-wheel drive.
Messrs Rupert Jeffkins
and W.
B.
Foulis
designed
the
8-hp "Reo" and
built a "pilot"
model which
built a "pilot"
model which they
drove from Sydney to Melbourne and
back to demonstrate the
performance
of a car they
hoped to mass produce
for
195, but nothing came of the
project.
FROM
1920
Australia
produced
the
Australian Six, the Summit,
the
Eco, and
the
Wege,
but they
were not truly Australian
cars,
as
their
major components
were
imported.
The Southern Cross,
which Mark?
Motor Constroction Co, of
Sydney
'(of
which the
late Sir Charle. Kiags
ford-Smith was a director)
announced
in 1932 that
they would mass pro-
duce here
for
240, had
many
inter-
esting features,
including plywood
construction which eliminated a
separate chassis frame.
The economic
depression is believed to have ended
this project
prematurely. <
After
having spent
two days in
Adelaide and Melbourne walking over
the vast GMH
plants
and seeing
the
new buildings,
machines, organisation,
and assembly
lines for
the new
car,
I
am able to understand
why
the
earlier
attempts
to produce a moder-
ately priced Australian car have
failed.
SOMETHING
LIKE 4
million
has been spent
already in the
five
years
it
has taken to design, build a
few
"pilot"
models, test them, and
then set about making and assem-
bling
here the 6,500 parts that will
go
into each new "Holden." 9
The
first
three test models
of
the
"Holden" were produced by hand
in
Detroit,
USA, but
already
10 have
been assembled in Australia.
When, towards the end
of this
year,
they begin to come off
the produc-
tion line
with
increasing rapidity,
it
will not only be a matter of great
interest to the 200,000 Australians
still
waiting to buy a new
-car, but
will
mark the beginning of a new
era in
the
nation's industrial develop-
ment.
FIRST AUSTRALIAN
CAR, the steam-powered Thomson
"motor
phaeton," designed
and built at Annadale in 1896.
AN EARLY AUSTRALIAN "Tarrant" petrol-driven car, with Colonel
Harley
Tarrant, pioneer automobile designer and builder at the wheel.
EARLY TYPES of imported cars such as this 1903 Cadillac are
still
brought out on occasions for veteran car
rallies.