Australian Car History - Holden (Part 1)

I’ve seen a few people wanting to get some info on the history of Aussie cars. So as a Holden owner and enthusiast I thought I’d shed some light on this topic showing Holden’s rich automotive history. This will be a condensed version covering the period going from the start to the first car. If anyone is interested further I’ll cover the rest of the history.

In 1856 James Alexander Holden established a saddlery and harness business in Adelaide South Australia that bore his name. No other automotive company in the world can trace its name back so far and have such a historical connection to three centuries of transport.

In 1879 James brought his son, Henry, into the business and then in 1885 accepted German-born Henry Frost as a junior partner. In 1887 James died at the age of 57 leaving son Henry as the senior partner. At this time business was booming, with the company expanding beyond their traditional base of leather goods and moved into the vehicle business, building and repairing horse-drawn carriages and coaches.

In 1905 Henry’s son Edward joined the company, at a time when the business was making a name for itself in the car business repairing car upholstery and before long was manufacturing hoods and side curtains for various makes of cars. In 1909 Frost past away and Henry Holden set about branching out into the manufacture of motorcycle sidecars.

Meanwhile in the US, by 1911 GM had purchased Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Chevrolet. A field representative was sent to Sydney and in the following year GM started to export to Australia.

In 1914 Holden took an order to make a custom-built car body to suit a Lancia chassis that ended up with an outstanding result. Word then started to spread about their quality of work which then led to the building of car bodies for various manufactures, ironically they even built bodies for the T Model Ford.

During WW1 Holden was forced to slow down production thanks to trade restrictions. So during this time Holden purchased another Adelaide motor body builder to increase its production capabilities. In 1917 the new building helped Holden reach 99 car bodies, mainly for imported Dodge and Buick chassis.

In 1923, with its production line fully operating, produced 12,771 car bodies. In 1924, after purchasing 22 acres of land and building one of the most modern production lines in the world, Holden opened its Woodville plant. At this point GM had struck a deal with Holden that would seen them manufacture bodies exclusively for GM. With this new building, Holden produced 22,150 bodies in 1924. At this time Holden was also building railway carriages, bus bodies and 59 of Melbourne’s iconic W-class trams bodies.

By 1925, Holden’s body building operation was the largest in the world outside of North America employing 2,600 people and building more than 34,000 car bodies.

In 1928 the lion and stone badge was used for the first time.

Once the Great Depression hit, production slowed to only 1,611 bodies in 1931. Sensing trouble GM put together £1.2 million to protect its Australian interests. This saw the Merger of GM Australia and Holden to form GM Holden.

In the early 1930’s Holden purchases 50 acres of land in Fisherman’s Bend in Melbourne to build a head office, manufacturing plant and warehouse. There was also provisions for a foundry and engine plant. Holden was leading the world in car body manufacture and in 1935 built its first all-steel bodies for Plymouth chassis. General Motors wouldn’t have this capability for another 12 months.

In 1936 talks were quietly starting about the prospect of an all-Australian car. By 1939 plans were starting to move along for the all-Aussie car, but plans were put on hold as WW2 progressed.

At the end of 1943 and into 1944, with signs that the was was coming to an end, the plans were reopened on the Aussie car. By the mid 1940’s the first prototype was completed called “Project 2000” which used Willy’s mechanical components. In 1946, a working prototype of Holden’s preferred prototype “Project 2200” which was far simpler to manufacture. Holden engineers were sent to Detroit with many body design models and drawings.

After three prototypes were built in Detroit, these cars where shipped back to Australia in late 1946. By February 1947, the car designated as “Prototype 1” was registered in Melbourne for testing. As the public release of the finished car was drawing nearer, the car still didn’t have a name, up until this point is was simply called “Australia’s Own Car”. The Marketing departments came up with names such as Austral, Cook, ANZAC, Bligh, Emu, Melwood and Boomerang. Other indigenous names included Woomera and Pangali (Male Kangaroo). After all of that they decided on the Holden 48-215 which denoted the year of manufacture and the engine. (Later the car got the unofficial title of the Holden FX)

On 29th November 1948, with 18,000 advanced dealer orders held sight unseen, the Holden 48-125 was revealed to 1000 invited guests at Fisherman’s Bend. At the reveal Prime Minister Ben Chifley said what is still to this day one of Australia’s most famous statements: “She’s a Beauty”.

So that’s a brief history of Holden up until the release of the first car. If anyone else is interested I can cover the period from 1948 until present day but that may be broken up into a few parts. Hopefully you found this interesting!