The first Aussie made car = the GM Holden 1947

[cookie]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...-be-yours-for-2m/story-e6frg6nf-1226074513982

 

[Shangas]

That looks like a sweet ride!

 

[Talbot]

Cookie, thanks for the heads up.

Looks like I'll have to go through all my change pockets and take the empties back too!

T

 

[swinggal]

Wow! Maybe it's made of silver for that price

 

[Rathdown]

Uh, Ford Australia began building Model T's in Geelong in 1925, two decades before the first US-built Holden was shipped to Australia for testing.

 

[Fletch]

It's a baby Buick! lol

 

[Gregg Axley]

I think you're right.
Wow that car looks small now that I see the guy standing next to it.
I know he was there when I viewed it the first time, but I was scanning the thread.

 

[James71]

Love Holdens. I used to have a 1969 HT with bench seats. Great memories.

 

[dhermann1]

I believe Holdens really were Buicks for a long time, but with a lot of interesting variations. What we call the fastback or torpedo body style, which first appeared onBuicks in the US in 1941, were first featured on Holdens several years earlier in Australia. VERRRY interesting car. It's worth so much because it's the prototype of a truly all Australian car, a real milestone in that country's industrial development.

 

[Rathdown]

Holden started out (in the motor trade) repairing automobile interiors, then became coach builders, building bodies for Ford (starting in 1923) and later, still in the 20's, for General Motors who, in 1931, bought Holden. During the war years GM decided that once hostilities ceased they would manufacture cars in Australia, rather than ship in chassis to have bodies fitted locally by GM-Holden. Holden, a division of General Motors, didn't manufacture complete cars in Australia until after WWII.

While it is true that Holden, as coach builders, did offer "fastback" bodies before WWII (but not until after Chrysler debuted their fastbacks in 1934), the design and engineering of these bodies was done, primarily, in Detroit at General Motors design studio, under the direction of the legendary Harley Earl. Later, when it was decided to manufacture cars in Australia, Holden was given its own design studio.

 

[Talbot]

The "fastback", or "sloper" (as they are called here) are one of the few body styles where the Aussie style was significantly different from the original. The other style that springs to mind are utes.

Both Ford and GM offered slopers. A '39/40 Ford is already a beautiful car. The 39/40 sloper is absolutely gorgeous. I wish I could post pics from here at work comparing the two door sedan to the sloper.

I think the point the OP was trying to make is that the Holden was the first car to be supposedly designed entirely in Australia to local conditions (there is some difference of opinion around this).

Quite a few GM parts show up on later GMH cars. For instance there are many 53/54 chevy parts on the '58 Holden.