17 replies to this topic

[yel327]

Sold back as Kias!

[RallyRed]

 torana speedway.jpg   13.02K   6 downloadsa lot of them saw the end of the day like this..

 

[Dr Terry]

Next year all of those spots will likely be filled with overseas made cars. Downright frOcking disgrace.

Correction !! Next year all those spots will DEFINITELY filled with overseas made cars. There will be no locally built cars of any brand.

 

Dr Terry  

[Dr Terry]

Do you like the last comment in the advert ?

 

"We're only sorry we couldn't get enough components to build all the cars our customers wanted."

 

Jezuz, how many cars could they have sold ?

 

Dr Terry

[yel327]

It is a crying shame, but let's face it - there wasn't all that much competition in 1973. Fast forward to the early 80's. I recall my parents buying a new family car to replace the old HQ wagon. The contenders were a VH SL/E or a Toyota Cressida. Similar money, the difference in quality, finish, features and performance were miles apart. Sure they could have optioned up to a 4.2L or 5.0L SL/E but then you are looking at probably 10mpg difference between them and massive Insurance hike. So for passenger cars I firmly believe GMH dropped the ball badly in the 70's, they dithered, delayed, relied upon their reputation but failed to deliver where it counted. The way they dealt with ADR27A on the 6cyl engines was pretty poor, and when you compare a blue 3.3L 3spd auto in a VH SL/E to the Cressida's engine, you can see where GMH should have been. The injected 3.3L at least should have been around for 1980. What is really sad is there was bugger all completion for the Holden commercial, 1/4 of HQ Holden sales in 1973 were commercials, and I think in reality not much changed by the 80's competition wise, yet they dropped the whole thing in 1985 to re-release a joke of a commercial in the 90's. Joke might be harsh but as a true workhorse the VG is compared to a WB. I do not understand why the WB platform could not have continued. Sure they'd be a pretty woeful thing carrying a tonne with a Nissan engine in them, but imagine if they'd continued into VN era and were fitted with the 5.0L EFI engine and 4L60 transmissions. Even the ULP 5.0L's as fitted to VL until 1988 would have been fine with a trimatic or aussie 4spd. Ford kept their old warrior going until almost the end of last century. I've owned late 1980's Hiluxes which was the only other thing other than a Ford you might have bought, but they were terrible things to drive compared to a new WB 1-tonner .

[Shiney005]

My oldies traded their HJ Kinger in on a Cressida. Never bought another Holden again.

[StephenSLR]

I recall my parents buying a new family car to replace the old HQ wagon. The contenders were a VH SL/E or a Toyota Cressida.

 

Similar money

 

Back when our manufacturing industry was protected by tariffs on imported products.

 

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Edited by StephenSLR, 10 February 2017 - 09:29 AM.

[Dr Terry]

 Australian car production has been on a steady decline since 2008, with last years production of Australian made cars being half of what it was in 08. Every year has been getting worse not better. 

Everybody assumes this is a recent phenomenon. It isn't, manufacturing (especially of cars) has being declining since the mid-70s.

 

Inflation, especially wage inflation & hideous infrastructure costs has been killing us since that time. The only things keeping the local industry alive was firstly import tariffs & quotas & more recently heavy government subsidies.

 

This year we are losing the Holden & Toyota plants, last year it was Ford & in 2008 it was Mitsubishi. But it's a lot more than that in the early 90s Nissan closed & at one time or other just about every car marque that you can name (except for the newer brands) were made here.

 

In the early years of Bathurst, imported cars weren't allowed entry. Look at the entry lists: Vauxhall, Mercedes, NSU, Studebaker, Dodge, Morris, Austin, Volvo, Simca, Triumph, Singer, Volkswagen, Peugeot, Citroen, Vanguard, Fiat, Renault, Lloyd, Humber, Hillman, Ford Customline. Other cars (not at Bathurst) include Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Bedford, DeSoto, Chrysler. I could go on, but you get the idea. These were all Aust. built cars.

 

So it's not just Ford, Holden & Toyota, it's just about every major marque was made (or at least assembled) here at one time or other.

 

Dr Terry

[StephenSLR]

Inflation, especially wage inflation & hideous infrastructure costs has been killing us since that time. The only things keeping the local industry alive was firstly import tariffs & quotas & more recently heavy government subsidies.

 

Govt. subsidies aren't an Aus. thing either, compared to the rest of the world, Aus. had the lowest Government co-investment per capita.

 

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[Shiney005]

And the problem with tariffs is that they kill off innovation. The companies that are protected get lazy.

The carbon tax hasn't helped the manufacturing industry here either. Not just the Aussie car companies, but others such as Electrolux, SPC, Golden Circle, Sidchrome, King Gee, Sleepmaster, and good old Dick Smith. The manufacturing industry in Australia contributed to less than 10% of GDP in 2015 - 2016. In the mean time, China has managed to grow manufacturing by an average of 12.47% per year since 1990.

[StephenSLR]

And the problem with tariffs is that they kill off innovation. The companies that are protected get lazy.

The carbon tax hasn't helped the manufacturing industry here either.

 

I'm not sure about that, I worked for a coal fired boiler co. and there was pressure to comply with increasingly stringent EPA regulations, engineers had to design more efficient, less polluting boilers and new industries were formed to produce new filtration technology.

 

It'd be the same with any manufacturing, even if they're protected by tariffs, shareholders are still putting pressure on companies to maximise profits and there's always a push for new innovations to help the company outdo the competitors.

 

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[grumpy xu1]

The local product really picked up in quality with the European vehicles like BMW ect, which wasn't a bad thing, the problem has worsened with the cheap Chinese type products in the last 10 years or so. You simply can not change the wages here due to the amount of money that has been leant from the banks ect, or the country would be finished. It's not just in Australia, ford are shifting to cheaper country's for their production already. Half of the problems are with the government departments as a whole.

[StephenSLR]

Not making cars that the general public wanted to buy doesn't help

 

That's actually a myth.

 

'of the 5 platforms built in Australia (Commodore, Cruze, Falcon, Territory and Camry), in 2011, 4 were in the top 10 selling cars.'

 

http://www.fapm.com....91012 - MDW.pdf
 

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