RMIT Design Archive Journal Volume 5 No 1 2015
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RMIT DESIGN ARCHIVES JOURNAL VOL 5 Nº 1 2015 Early Automotive Design ARTICLES in Australia EDITORIAL Norman Darwin 4–16 Interview: Phillip Zmood Tony Lupton 17–23 Women in the Early Australian Automotive Industry: A Survey Judith Glover & Harriet Edquist 24–35 EXHIBITION Shifting Gear: Design, Innovation REVIEW and the Australian Car National Gallery of Victoria Tony Lupton 36–39 rmit design archives journal Journal Editor Harriet Edquist Editorial Assistance Kaye Ashton Design Letterbox.net.au Editorial Board Suzie Attiwill rmit University Michael Bogle Sydney, nsw Nanette Carter Swinburne University Liam Fennessy rmit University Christine Garnaut University of South Australia Philip Goad University of Melbourne Brad Haylock rmit University Robyn Healy rmit University Andrew Leach Griffith University, qld Catherine Moriarty University of Brighton, uk Michael Spooner rmit University Laurene Vaughan rmit University contact Cover and this page [email protected] Phillip Zmood, www.rmit.edu.au/designarchives drawings of styling exercises for HQ issn 1838-9406 Monaro Coupe Published by rmit Design Archives, rmit University roof concept. Text © rmit Design Archives, rmit University and individual authors. This Journal is copyright. RMIT Design Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of research, Archives criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means without the prior permission of the publisher. This issue of the rmit Design Archives Journal focuses on the Australian car and in particular on its design. Its genesis lies in research undertaken for the Shifting Gear: Design, Innovation and the Australian Car exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, a curatorial collaboration with David Hurlston, Senior Curator of Australian Art at the ngv. During the course of my research I discovered that A number of the country’s best designers and while vehicles have been manufactured and engineers have made their mark in the automotive designed here since the late nineteenth century field with innovations that achieved international their design genealogy is little understood. I also success. In the racing world this is particularly true realized that there are opportunities for the – Jack Brabham, Ron Tauranac and Phil Irving with academy to engage in scholarly research into the the backing of local Melbourne company Repco, history of automotive design and it is hoped that designed and built the BT19 in which Brabham this issue of the rmit Design Archives Journal won the 1966 Formula I World Championship will generate wide interest in the subject. and the Constructor’s Championship, a unique dual achievement. gmh, Ford Australia and Australia has a highly developed and very active car Chrysler Australia all produced Australian variants culture, the realm of museum curators, historians, of American cars that exhibited design and enthusiasts, collectors, car clubs, car manufacturers engineering characteristics unique to this country. and entities such as the racv and Victorian Their designers had and continue to have global Historic Racing Register who collectively possess careers. a wealth of knowledge, much of it tacit and unrecorded. The academy, which has hitherto As we look to how the automobile of this century supplied engineers and designers to this industry, will respond to new economic, environmental but not historians, can play a significant part in and industrial pressures, it is well to consider the the articulation and dissemination of this historical achievements of the past when Australia embraced knowledge, and in so doing help to build a the possibilities afforded by new automotive scholarly history of Australian automotive design, technological advances with great success. developing not only research protocols and models Examining how our designers succeeded but also the next generation of scholars to carry throughout the twentieth century in a competitive forward the work. And it is timely that this work industrial environment so far away from the is undertaken now, as the industry undergoes its European and American centres of action may well most dramatic restructure for a century and the provide clues to our future success. Australian-made family car becomes a distant Harriet Edquist, director memory. rmit design archives journal | vol 5 nº 1| 2015 3 PEER REVIEWED ARTICLE 4 rmit design archives journal | vol 5 nº 1 | 2015 EARLY AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN IN AUSTRALIA Norman Darwin For two periods in Australia’s history, the 1920s and the 1950s, the motor industry was the largest sector of Australian manufacturing. While a great deal has been written about it, a survey of the material relevant to this study shows that little deals with automotive design. Keith Winser’s 1955 compilation The Story of Australian Motoring, the complete history of motoring, from the first horseless carriages to our cars of today and John Goode’s Smoke, Smell and Clatter: the revolutionary story of motoring in Australia (1969) were early attempts to cover the history of Australian motoring from a personal perspective but neither authors provided sources for their colourful descriptions of characters and events.1 In Australians on the Road (1979), motor journalist Pedr Davis interviewed a number of researchers of early motoring history but again failed to provide any references for his work.2 Car salesman Albert Cheney’s From Horse to Horsepower (1965), Laurence Hartnett’s Big Wheels and Little Wheels (1964) and Nancy Buttfield’sSo Great a Change: the Story of the Holden Family in Australia (1979) were autobiographical accounts of some major events in the early car industry written from first-hand knowledge.3 By contrast Harold Paynting’s The James Flood Book of Early Motoring (1968) was a compilation of primary sources and high definitition photographs from 1895 to 1905.4 Company histories for this period are quite plentiful, at least for the ‘big three’ American manufacturers and include Norm Darwin’s histories of Holden and Ford, Don Loffler and John Wright’s histories of Holden, and Bill Tuckey and Gavin Farmer’s accounts of Ford and Chrysler.5 In addition to these published sources, a number of unpublished doctoral theses have investigated the early Australian motor industry from various perspectives – economic (Peter Swan), government interaction with motor enterprises (Geraldine Lazarus), state intervention, managerial control and unionism (Robert Tierney), Herbert Thomson, industrial policy (John Laurent) and industrial steam car phaeton development (Colin Forster).6 1896-98. Museum Victoria, While all these studies provide excellent political and Melbourne. social background to the industry, and histories of Gift of Mrs manufacturing and production, none looks at the O Stening, 1960. development of design in the early coachbuilding Thomson was the designer and engineer period, or considers the unique body designs that of this car and the Holden, Ford and Chrysler produced in the 1930s. coachbuilder was Of the many Australian motor body building firms Martin & King of Armadale. in the early and formative years of the industry only four have had anything published about them and then as company histories.7 An exception is John rmit design archives journal | vol 5 nº 1 | 2015 5 EARLY AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN IN AUSTRALIA CONTINUED Wright’s Special: The untold story of Australia’s Holden Dunlop’s new pneumatic tyres.13 The Thomson car (2008), a study of the Australian Holden car between was relatively light with a wooden body adapted 1945 and 1948 where factors leading to its gestation, from a buggy and Thomson maintained the buggy design, development and manufacture are detailed.8 style body throughout production. He powered his More broadly, Michael Bogle included some car by a kerosene fired steam boiler. The double comments about car design in his 1999 study of compound 4-cylinder condensing engine was his Australian design while Harriet Edquist and David own design and was directly connected to the rear Hurlston made it the focus of their 2015 survey axle by a chain providing a top speed of 20mph and exhibition and catalogue Shifting Gear: Design, a 50 mile journey.14 Innovation and the Australian Car.9 Thomson, the son of a Scottish carpenter and The first cars wheelwright, was born in Prahran on 13 July 1870. Australia’s first motor cars began to appear from In 1885 he built his first steam engine and fitted it 1897 and by 1901 two firms, the Thomson Motor to a boat subsequently used on the Yarra River. Car Company and the Tarrant Motor and Following studies in engineering Thomson set up Engineering Co, commenced production of motor business and was joined by Edward Holmes. Some cars. While neither was ultimately successful, historians have credited Holmes with the design of both led the way to a body building industry Thomson’s second car, but this appears unlikely as that dominated Australian manufacturing Holmes’s strengths lay in the promotion of the through the 1920s and again in the1950s. Thomson Motor Car Company, established in Flinders Street, Melbourne.15 Herbert Thomson began his quest in 1895, establishing a business in Armadale, Victoria, making In 1900 the two men loaded their car onto a steamer small steam engines and boilers.10 By the end of 1896 and went to Sydney, displaying the vehicle at the Thomson had the beginnings of a self-propelled Royal Easter Show. Buoyed with the reception and vehicle, little more than a four-wheeled cycle, which a first prize, it was decided to take the car to was seen on Melbourne’s streets being tested, an Bathurst, and from there drive back to Melbourne. event vividly described by Keith Winser.11 This grew This feat earned the pair enormous publicity en into a 6-seater vehicle with a Martin & King built route and for the first time Australian newspapers body, that made its debut at the Malvern Cricket took the ‘horse-less carriage’ seriously.