AHA 2016 Automotive Histories: Driving Futures

Proceedings of Edited by Automotive Historians Harriet Edquist AHA 2016 Australia Mark Richardson Automotive Volume 1 Simon Lockrey Histories: Driving Futures Proceedings of The papers in this volume Other than for fair dealing were presented at the for the purposes of private Automotive Historians Australia inaugural Conference of study, research, criticism or Volume 1 Automotive Historians review, as permitted under Australia Inc. held on the Copyright Act 1968 and 1–3 September 2016 at Copyright Amendment Act the Design Hub, RMIT 2006, no part of this volume University, Melbourne. may be reproduced by any process without the prior All papers accepted for permission of the editors, publication were blind peer publisher and author/s. reviewed by two referees. Copyright of this volume The Proceedings are a belongs to AHA Inc. record of the papers Copyright of the content presented at the annual of individual contributions conference of Automotive remains the property of the Historians Australia Inc named author or authors. (AHA). Publication of the All efforts have been made research documented to ensure that authors in these Proceedings have secured appropriate underscores AHA’s permissions to reproduce commitment to academic the images illustrating freedom and academic individual contributions. integrity. The conclusions and views expressed in the Proceedings do not necessarily reflect the views of AHA. Edited by Published in Melbourne, Harriet Edquist Australia, by AHA Inc. Mark Richardson 2017 Simon Lockrey ISBN: 978-0-646-97124-7 II FOREWORD Harriet Edquist Mark Richardson Simon Lockrey Convenors In 2004 British sociologist Mike Featherstone noted that with bike- and car-sharing on the increase; as cities look to while there had been increasing academic engagement with alternatives to private car travel; as road congestion increases the ‘mobility turn’, automobility the ‘modes of autonomous, and oil supplies decrease, it is clear that the dominance of the self-directed movement’ afforded by the motorcar, had been twentieth-century conception of the vehicle is waning. neglected as a subject of enquiry. Since then, automobility studies have gained some traction in the academy, particularly The convenors thought it was timely therefore to reflect within social sciences and cultural studies. However, while the on the Australian condition, to consider the broad themes of parameters of automobility are set wide, and cross a number of automobility through a particularly local and national lense, different disciplines, the practices of design within this context both in terms of the past and the potential for the future. have rarely been the focus of study. In Australia, which has been It was hoped that the implications for design in what John Urry a centre of vehicle production for 120 years and is one of the has called ‘the car system’ would be addressed. few countries in the world that has the capacity to design and manufacture vehicles from the ground up, there has been little The conference offered the opportunity, for the first time in scholarly research in these areas. Australia, for these ideas to be discussed and debated in an academic, peer reviewed, forum. Papers were evenly divided The major Australian car companies - Toyota, Ford and General between those that examined the history of the Australian Motors Holden - will cease manufacturing and exit the country automotive industry and its cultural context and those that by 2017 following Mitsubishi’s closure in 2008. The implications looked to current and future issues of automobility and design. of this dramatic shift in terms of job losses, weakened industrial Significantly, the papers represented a multi-disciplinary view capacity and also the potential loss of significant cultural of the automotive industry as the authors included automotive heritage sites and assets, are becoming the subject of increased industry professionals, museum curators, architecture historians, concern and debate. Furthermore, as automotive design rapidly industrial designers, design historians and business historians. changes under the forces of new propulsion, data and energy They and the audience who attended the conference explored technologies (autonomous, electric, solar cars); as increased the depth and breadth of interest and expertise here in an urbanisation means fewer young people want to own vehicles, industry that defined the twentieth century. III PAPERS Laura Belik Philip Goad Cities: to whom, by whom? The Critic and the Car: Robin Boyd, The Minhocão elevated highway case Automobiles and Australian Architecture study in São Paulo/ Brazil Phil Guilfoyle Michelangelo Bolognese & Matthew Lombard The 1914 Delage Grand Prix Type-S: Worth Holden’ onto? Preserving and Resurrecting a sole survivor displaying Australia’s automotive industrial heritage Simon Lockrey Temporal ripples – Automotive industry Michael Bogle influence on contemporary Australian Advertising “Australia’s Own Car” design practice 1948–1949 Jonathan Laskovksy & Elizabeth Taylor Steve Campbell-Wright A Lot of Thought: The space of car parks Imperial Echoes: one company’s and shopping centres in Australian cities exploitation of cultural identity in marketing cars before the Great War Mark Richardson Collisions and Divisions: on ideological Norm Darwin democratisation in design from Henry Ford The development of Australian automotive to Maker culture design: General Motors-Holden 1923–1953 Lisa Stevens Harriet Edquist Preserving the Legacy of South Australian Motor The Repco racing programme 1940-1970: Racing Identity Tom Stevens and 70 years of innovation and enterprise in the private sector Racing MG’s Jennifer Fawbert Gary Vines G. P. Innes (1863–1936). Archaeology of the Automobile industry Pioneer of the motor industry in Victoria 1896–2016 IV Fourteen years ago I published a book The ‘Model T’ Ford provides a base-line PENNY SPARKE entitled, A Century of Car Design. My for many discussions about car design. aim in writing that text was to fill a gap Ford’s famous comment that the car Kingston University in the story of modern design and to could be produced in any colour ‘so show that, although car design has long as it’s black’ demonstrates that been side-lined by mainstream design the idea of design encapsulated in this Keynote: history for the most part, the same object was not aesthetically focused aesthetic, functional, technological, and was therefore not a ‘styling’ Automotive History: social and cultural considerations exercise. What, then, did ‘design’ mean that go into the design of a chair, an in this context? In essence, the Model Design versus Styling interior or a product also go into the T came at the end of a period of car creation of an automobile. The aim of design that was dominated by invention this paper is to address the complex and technological innovation. and changing definitions of design that relate to the history of the automobile The problem Ford wanted to solve was and to demonstrate that the story how to create an automobile that could exists within the broader subject of be made at a price that was affordable design history. A fundamental issue to the large numbers of rural Americans in any discussion about ‘car design’ who, until that moment, had had to is the fact that the word ‘styling’ was make do with a horse. It was, therefore, widely used through the twentieth a ‘horseless carriage’ that allowed century to describe the car designer’s these early consumers to bring their practice. This has proved problematic: products into town to sell at the market. it created a hierarchy and tended to Aesthetics wasn’t an issue for these marginalise the work of car designers customers but status symbolism most from that of their peers in other design probably was. That requirement was fields – architecture, interior design, provided by ownership alone. and furniture and product design The car didn’t need to be bigger and in particular – designers who were better than that of one’s neighbour. It thought to have purer intentions. An simply had to do its job at an affordable assumption has been made that the price. It was enough that it existed. car stylist works in a more commercial This was a ‘tabula rasa’ approach to and superficial way than his fellow design in terms of what later becomes designers. This assumption derives, I known as ‘car styling’. The formula believe, from the cultural dominance, was, rather, a simple one. It required through the twentieth century, of the technological acumen and basic modernist design values developed at marketing know-how. There was no the Bauhaus in Germany in the 1920s, need for ‘art’ at this point. If we look which, where serious discussions about for a parallel in other design fields of design are concerned, left car ‘styling’ the period, we find it in early electrical at the margin of things, seen as a kind appliances which were also the result of of ‘impure’ practice. technological inventiveness and market demand. By aligning examples of car design with other areas of design, I hope to show Interestingly, there were exceptions that it has a rich history worthy of as to the rule in this field where ‘art’ much as discussion as that of any other was needed. Some appliances design field. were destined for the domestic (i.e. feminine) arena and therefore had to V be embellished with decoration to fit is evidence also that, by this time, Vanden Plas, Figoni et Falacshi, and connoisseurs. Only the famous into that space. The Model T had no women played an important part in Delahaye, Chapron, Castagna and inclusion of the Cisitalia in New York’s such requirements. A public sphere car purchasing decisions so there are others produced highly crafted, high MoMA bucks that trend. The fact that object, at that time, had no decorative gender issues to take into account here. quality cars with sumptuous interiors it doesn’t contain an engine, however, requirements but could exist, rather, as aimed at the wealthy.

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