The history of the Holden
company goes back long before the days of the motor car. James Alexander
Holden migrated from Staffordshire, England, to Adelaide in 1852, he was
just seventeen years old at the time.
Holden soon got involved in leather
work, setting up a shop in King WIlliam Street, Adelaide to do leather
worker and make saddles. Business was soon booming and in the middle 1860s
J.A. Holden & Co. Merchants, Importers, and Wholesale Saddlers moved
to bigger and better premises.
In 1879 James Holden took his 20-year-old
son Henry James Holden into the business and, in 1885, accepted German-born
Henry Frederick Frost as a junior partner in what was later to become Holden
& Frost Ltd.
After the death of James Alexander
Holden, Holden at the age of just 52 in 1887, Henry Holden become the senior
partner. By then, the company was operating in the vehicle business, repairing
abd building horse-drawn carriages and coaches.
In 1905 a third generation Holden,
Henry’s son, Edward Wheewall Holden, joined Holden & Frost. By the
the company had a toehold in the car business, repairing car upholstery,
and was soon manufacturing hoods and side curtains for automobiles.
After the death of Frost in 1909,
Henry Holden bought his late partner’s shares and went about building motorcycle
sidecar bodies.
In 1913 Holden & Frost produced
its first complete custom-made car body using laborious carriage-building
techniques.
Meanwhile, on the other side of
the world, William Crapo Durant had founded General Motors Corporation
(GMC). With the Buick Motor Company as his backbone, Durant went on a buying
spree which netted him what was to become the biggest corporation in the
history of automotive manufacturing in the world and the largest corporation
in the USA.
Fisrt it was Oldsmobile, the Cadillac,
Oakland (later renamed Pontiac) and , finally the most succesful of all
GM divisions, Chevrolet.
During the first year of GM’s opretaion,
14,0000 employees built no fewer than 25,000 cars and trucks!
With exports in mind, the GM Export
Company was formed in 1911 and appointed a field representative to Australia.
He was based in Sydney.
The first GM cars arrived in Australia
just before the breakout of WWI. That war was to change the future of Holden
in a big way.
As Germany’s unlimited submarine
warfare affected Australia’s only source of international trade ? its shipping
lanes ? the Federal Government introduced trade restrictions which included
a covenant limiting the number of complete motor cars which could be imported.
Only one complete car could be brought in for every three chassis, a rule
which had a scondary aim of keeping Australian capital within Australia.
Holden was one of many organisations
which saw an avenue for expansion. In 1917 the company moved into motor
body building and made a full scale move into the fast-growing world of
the automobile.
After building nearly a hundred
bodies on Buick and Dodge chassis in its first year, Holden increased production
to 587 in 1918 and then nearly 1600 just one year later.
Holden had revolutionised the industry
by introducing state-of-the-art production machinery and developing designs
which took a minimum of hand finishing. Not only did this greatly reduce
the unit price but also established Holden’s reputation for value for money
and quality.
The prosperity of the 1920s in America,
dictated a constant rush of new car designs. It also made Holden so adept
at responding to that challenge that it would import blueprints of forthcoming
models and have the bodies ready and waiting to be installed by the time
the chassing first hit Australian shores.
In April 1923, Edward W. Holden
(Henry’s son and later knighted Sir Edward) toured Europe and the USA where
he received indications from GM in the US of its desire to use Holden as
its sole vehicle-body builder in Australia.
In 1924, after purchasing 22 acres
of land, Holden opened its Woodville plant with one of the most modern
production lines in the world.
In its first year, Holden produced
no fewer than 65 different body styles and built 22,150 vehicles. By then,
Holden was the single biggest body builder in Australia and had nearly
50 per cent of the market.
As well as car bodies, Holden also
turned out railway carriages, bus and tram bodies and other items.
It was in the late 1920s that the
famous Lion and Stone badge was first used by Holden. This symbol represented
the legend of man’s invention of the wheel, which supposedly took place
after a caveman watched the king of the animals rolling a stone under its
paw. Updated on several occasions, this badge is still in use today.
With the arrival of the great depression,
Holden’s Motor Body Builder began to have difficulties.
The GM Corporation started negotiations
with the aim of purchasing Holden and succeeded in March 1931. The sum
was astronomical in those days; nearly two and quarter million dollars.
Holden’s Motor Body Builder was
the merged with GMA to form General Motors-Holden’s.
The aim of the merger was to save
the Australian operations and as sales were slipping, the balance sheets
were still red in colour. This was unacceptable to the Americans, hence
their dispacth of Vauxhall Director and GM trouble shooter Larry Hartnett
with the simple brief, ‘Fix it up or shut it down!”
Luckily for Holden, Larry Hartnett
lived up to his company-saving reputation. Within one year the company
had made a $1.5 million profit and lifted its sales to 23,129 (from a dismal
3674 the previous year!)
Within a year, thanks to the healthy
sales atmosphere, GM-H had set up new headquarters and a new assembly plant
at Fisherman’s Bend on 20 hectares of the land. There were provisions for
a foundry and an engine shop.
So big was Hartnett’s vision for
the company in Australia that he began discussing with GM-H executuves
the possibility of building a locally manufactured car.
Undaunted by the failure of many
others who had tried to build an Australian car, and replying on the immense
backing from GM, Hartnett’s dream would have become a reality except for
one factor that he did not bargaiin on. The advent of another world war!
WWII converted the flourishing GM-H
car assembly plant into a flourishing war-effort mass-production plant.
So versatile was Holden that it produced aircraft marine and land engine
as well as airplane frames, armoured cars, semi-trailers, troop carriers,
boats and onther military hardware.
With the winding down of military
contracts, GM-H revived its plants for Aussie car. Project 2000 seemed
the best that GM-H engeineers could come up with and a prototype was completed
in 1944 using Willys mechanical components.
Later in that year the Australian
Federal Government issued a formal invitation for submissions from companies
interested in producing an Australian car.
GM-H answered the call and undertook
to carry out the whole project without subsidy or tariff assistance. GM
USA approved the project but the GM Finance Committee turned down the request
for finance, recommending instead that funds be found in Australia.
Six million dollars was the figure
required and was provided by the Commonwealth Band and the Bank of Adelaide
badning together to provide GM-H with the funds required, thanks to the
backing of Ben Chifley, the Prime Minister.
The new-car team began working in
earnest and soon came up with specifications for a vehicle that would be
acceptable to Australians.
The US engineers had already something
in mind. A Chevrolet-badged experimental car for around 1940 was the basis
of their design and was found to almost a match to the Aussie specifications.
They modified the styling and built a clay mock-up which was approved by
the GM-H team.
With the styling complete work started
on the American prototype. Three of those were hand-built and were virtually
identical in appearance to the car that was eventually produced. They were
tested in Detroit then late in 1946 they were packed and sent to Fisherman’s
Bend, along with the Aussie Technicians and 22 of their US counterparts.
Those prototypes were extensively
tested outside Melbourne. Structurally, they were good, but their handling
left a lot to be desired judging by the number of times the test drivers
speared off into the bush!
GM-H officials knew that if the
car got a bad reputation at the start, their vast investment would be jeopardised
so they put considerable effort into rectifying any shortcomings.
The name of the new car was a highly
guarded secret. Two names under consideration were GMH and ANZAC. The final
decision for HOLDEN was not arrived at untill shortly before production
commenced in 1948.
Hartnett was replaced as head of
the car building project in December 1946 after serious disagreements over
numerous things, chiefly funding. Not surprisingly, he responded to this
demotion by tendering his resignation. Larry Hartnett spent the next forty
years in the industry and was knighted for his services.
The new GM-H head was Harold Bettle,
a senior US executive who oversaw the project through 1947 and 1948.
After conducting a secret run for
ten cars in April 1948 to test the final product and iron out the bugs,
the all clear was given. On the 29th of November 1948, the first of the
48/215 Holdens rolled off the assembly line at Fisherman’s Bend with great
fanfare.
Prime Minister Chiefly greeted the
fisrt Holdens as it left the factory and Australians responded with great
excitement. After enduring years of rationing and wartime sacrifices this
locally made car somehow signified a new age of prosperity.
The Holden legend was born! |
|
