Norm Darwin

The Automobile and Fishermans Bend – Did the automobile make Fishermans Bend or did Fishermans Bend make the automobile?

The name Fishermans Bend1 has always been associated with the , a car first produced at the GM-H plant in Salmon Street. The Holden was not the first automobile to come from this inner South Eastern suburb, where between 1936 and 2017 many thousands of , , , military vehicles and component parts were made`

This paper examines the importance of Fishermans Bend to the Australian , and why it evolved into a large manufacturing centre for vehicles and parts.

Despite an attempt to turn “The Bend” into a major airport, pre-1936 the area was mostly wasteland with a history of smelly and dirty industries. Its western edge, South Melbourne, had attracted many automobile firms which assembled cars, made motor bodies and auto tyres from the birth of the industry, around 1900, and as the need to expand arrived Fishermans Bend was nearby, a wasteland ready for development with access to both shipping and road transport.

The Holden headquarters was one of three major producers to establish production along with two minor assemblers and three large component manufacturers. Accepted brands included , Humber, Sunbeam, , , Mercedes Benz, Toyota, Austin, and Bedford. In addition, thousands of car radiators, pistons, engines and electrical engine accessories were rolled out making Fishermans Bend the of .

Today Fishermans Bend is no longer Australia’s Detroit, the machinery of making automobiles is silent, yet links remain with the past and point to a continued future in design, engineering, training and selling of motor vehicles.

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Is Fishermans Bend simply a forgotten corner of the city? This question is posed by Dr Helen Doyle at the beginning of Life on The Bend.2 From an automotive perspective the answer is definitely No.

Fishermans Bend was originally named by John Coode in 1879 after a lone fisherman who lived on a Yarra river bend located at what is now Coode Island. From the 20th century Fishermans Bend, with and without the apostrophe, came to mean the area west of South Melbourne and north of Sandridge (Port Melbourne) to the river. For the purposes of this paper the area discussed is bounded by the Yarra river, Williamstown Road and Ingles Street.

It was a wasteland with sand dunes and swamps, used as a dumping ground with the Ingles Street area home to obnoxious industries; boiling down works, tallow , glue factory, soap manufacture, manure depot and chemical production.3 The level ground at the end of Graham Street became a private airfield in 1919 and sand merchants carted tons of material for Melbourne’s building works. The motorcar had made an appearance once Williamstown Road was constructed, known as the short road because it reduced the distance to Geelong. Access to the sand dunes became easier.4 In 1928 Barlow Motors used the sand dunes to demonstrate a six- wheeled Guy loaded with 3-tons of pig iron.5 This was not the first use of the area for truck tests as the Commonwealth Committee on Mechanical transport tested six British 6-wheeled lorries for the Defence department in November 1927.6

From 1903 the Victoria Golf Club course stretched along the Yarra and it was this crown land that the government targeted. Following agitation in 1931 by local politicians who looked to the development of the area,7 the Vacuum Oil Company considered an oil refinery and it was also suggested it could become Melbourne’s airport. One man was to end speculation.

Laurence Hartnett, Managing Director of -Holden (1931), saw the open spaces as an opportunity to expand the company’s assembly facilities located in nearby City Road, South Melbourne. The purchase of 50 acres of crown land on

2 AHA 2018 Conference Proceedings Salmon and Lorimer Streets corner would see the beginnings of Australia’s largest automotive manufacturing and engineering centre, although it was not the first on “The Bend” soil.

Industrial settlement at Fishermans Bend was initially concentrated in three locations, Ingles Street, Salmon Street North and Salmon Street South. Ingles Street between Normandy Road and the Yarra river was on the edge of the city and attracted hazardous and noxious producers like Felton & Grimwade, who produced sulphuric acid and Kitchen & Co, who made soap and from the 1930s oil companies moved their depots to Ingles Street: H C Sleigh, Wakefield (Castrol oil), Colonial Oil and Shell.8

In 1923 the Lane brothers ventured to Ingles Street establishing an assembly shop on three acres next to Kitchen & Co. Harry and Robert Lane operated two separate motor businesses, Neal’s Motors (Overland, Hudson, Terraplane) and Lane’s Motors (Morris).9 Within two years R T Lane was a GM dealer and no longer had need for an assembly operation as GM (Aust.) performed this function. Neal’s Motors occupied the Ingles Street area until 1938 when they relocated to a new larger site opposite GM-H in Salmon Street.

The south end of Salmon Street first attracted an automotive business in 1939 when Rogerson’s garage was established on the corner of Williamstown Road and Salmon Street. The British and Australian Lead Manufacturers erected a domestic and industrial paint plant on the opposite corner the same year and the Chamberlain family established the Australian Ball Bearing Company in 1941. Opposite the Chamberlains was the Government experimental tank factory; although built at the same time, tank production was quickly located to NSW. In 1946 this factory would form the beginning of Rootes Australia’s manufacturing facility.

Smaller companies moved to the east end of Plummer Street, F Armytage’s Overseas Motors began assembly of Singer cars and C C Crosby’s Standard Motors built a service depot. Standards at the same time moved on the Felton & Grimwade site on Rogers Street to begin the assembly of Standard cars. After 1950 T Kelly of Queensbridge Motors & Engineering Company built an assembly (Oliver Tractors and Reo trucks) and pre-delivery plant (Holden) on the Salmon Street corner and National Radiators set up on the opposite corner.

3 AHA 2018 Conference Proceedings The early assembly arose after 1917 following the introduction of a luxury goods tariff and subsequent impost on imported motor bodies. While the larger motor body producers, Holden Motor body Builders, T J Richards and Melbourne Motor body Company offered local body to chassis assembly, small body shops did not have the space or facilities. This led the distributors to take on the task. Perhaps the first was S A Cheney who erected an assembly line in South Melbourne for cars in December 1920.10 Assembly became further complicated after importers moved to completely knocked down (CKD) packs of chassis parts. It was this change that led many of the larger dealers to begin chassis assembly.

Nothing is known about the early assembly operations of Neal’s Motors, Lanes Motors, Queensbridge Motors, Overseas Motors or Standard & Motors and their early existence has not been previously documented. In three large recent studies of the Fishermans Bend area the automotive industry is confined to the period after 1936 and only consider the large producers, GM-H, Neal’s Motors, AMI/Toyota and Rootes.11

GM-H plant

Under Hartnett’s leadership GM-H formed a construction committee comprising Hartnett, manufacturing manager John Storey, chief engineer Norm Pointer and construction engineer Eric Gibson. Hartnett flew over Melbourne to inspect 15 possible sites and having selected Fishermans Bend, his first task was to convince the State Government to sell him the land that was then marked for parks and gardens (1898 Act). It was an attractive site, reasonably flat, Lorimer Street was fully serviceable, the Harbour Trust had recently completed a wharf opposite and a high voltage transmission line crossed the area nearby.

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Figure 1. GM-H November 1936. SLV

Construction of the assembly factory was to diverge from the design developed by the American Kahn Brothers and used extensively in Australia up to the 1930s and comprised at least two stories and a reinforced concrete frame12. Gary Vines discusses the change to steel truss, south facing saw-tooth form that became ubiquitous as the international style for car factories after 1935.13 It was this type of structure Gibson used for Holden’s assembly plant. The design of the office building was previously thought to be GM Corporation, lifted from an existing American plant. Two sketches exist, one in GM World shows a typical GM plant and one in Pointers that reflects some of the finished style but is clearly American with the elevated water tank in the background.14 A search of the GM factories in the USA has failed to reveal a similar design.15

Hartnett discusses the plant’s design in his autobiography describing Gibson as “one of the finest construction engineers he had met” and crediting him with the foundation design used to overcome construction issues when building on a sand base. Gibson described his footings as “Camel’s feet” and he had sunk concrete blocks into the sand to test his design.16 Some drawings of the administration building exist in the Victorian State Library and show distinctive trapezoidal prism

5 AHA 2018 Conference Proceedings footings, all are marked “GMH Construction office” checked by Gibson and approved by Storey.17

Figure 2. GM-H head office plan drawing showing foundation footings. Holden Ltd

Two other significant buildings exist on the Holden site; a cafeteria erected in 1945 and the Technical Centre in 1964. The cafeteria was opened on 30 November 1945 after nine-months construction by architects Doig, Reid and Bryan and featured two large murals painted by talented artist and employee Miss Eileen Robertson.18 The three-story Technical Centre housed both the Engineering and Design departments and was designed by Stephenson & Turner. Over a period of seventy-five years Holden occupied both the freehold 50 acres and an additional leasehold area equal in size. In 1964 a new six-cylinder engine plant and nodular iron foundry were constructed, then followed a V8 engine plant (1968), Family II engine plant (1981) and in 2003 Jackson architecture designed a purpose built V6 engine manufacturing facility covering 32,000 square metres. After 80-years of manufacture the last Holden engine (V6) rolled off the Fishermans Bend line on 29 November 2016, a day after the anniversary of the first Holden was announced at the plant in 1948.19 A total of

6 AHA 2018 Conference Proceedings 1,137,282 V6 engines were made and over 4.8 million Family II engines were produced mainly for export.20

Neal’s Motors Pty Ltd

Henry Lane followed his brother Robert into the auto industry, initially working for Tarrant Motors as an assistant salesman and between 1912 and 1914 worked for Kellow Falkiner. He then enlisted becoming a lieutenant in the AIF.21 In 1918 he joined Lanes Motors and two years later founded his own firm and using an anagram of his name to form Neal’s Motors he sold Bean and Daimler cars. An Overland agency was acquired in 1921 and , Hudson, Terraplane and Diamond T in 1928.

Robert Lane started his career selling push bikes and in 1914 became the manager of the Benz Motor-Car Company and in 1915 he founded Lanes Motor Car Company selling .22 Expansion came quickly with the Nathan Brothers providing capital to form a public company in 1916 and thus acquire a agency followed by the distribution rights for Chevrolet in Victoria when SA Cheney Ltd was purchased in 1926.23

In 1937 Robert Lane, a director of the Chrysler-Dodge Distributors (Australia) Pty Ltd, believed he could bring all the firm’s body manufacture to Victoria and together with his brother arranged for solicitor F E Bunny to purchase 33 acres opposite the GM-H plant in Lorimer Street in the name of Autocraft Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Neal’s Motors Pty Ltd. Chrysler-Dodge decided to award the contract for bodies with the existing supplier, T J Richards and the Neals were left with a large factory and little production.24 Using Autocraft Pty Ltd Lane then sought rights to car accessory manufacture, as some items were already being produced at the Ingles Street plant.25

The Neal’s factory, operating as Autocraft Pty Ltd, was designed by Harry A Morris as “a garden factory” of single storey brick and steel with extensive lawns and gardens covering 5 acres.26 Work on the plant commenced on 29 June 1938 and the plant was operational in February 1939 assembling chassis for Hudson, Terraplane and Diamond T Trucks.27

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Figure 3. Ingles Street 1931 Neal’s assembly works on left (two stories). Kitchen & Sons

One method taken to boost assembly was to take control over existing dealers and Neals acquired Overseas Motors on 1 May 1940, relocating their assembly from Plummer Street and providing assembly work on Hillman and Humber cars and commercial vehicles.28 Devon Motors was acquired in 1941 to provide assembly of Singer cars and commercials. At this time Neal’s held a sizable business and thus attracted the interest of their export manager C N Galey immediately after the war.29 Galey’s report would subsequently see Rootes establish their own factory in Fishermans Bend. Autocraft did carry out some munitions work until 1945 then the assembly of Hudson and Terraplane ceased. In 1948 the purchased Ruskin Motor Bodies Ltd and in an interim move relocated their Austin assembly from South Melbourne to the Neals factory. This arrangement continued until the British Motor Corporation (Australia) BMC) was formed by merging the Nuffield organisation with Austin in February 1954.

8 AHA 2018 Conference Proceedings Figure 4. Autocraft 1954 after Austin occupation. Paynting Collection State Library of Victoria

In August 1954 BMC purchased the Autocraft factory for £750,000 with the intention of moving the entire body manufacture from the Ruskin factory to the Fishermans Bend site. The move never took place as BMC purchased the Victoria racecourse in Sydney and by June 1958 had relocated there.30 This was a final blow for Autocraft and the factory was largely idle until Martin & King began producing bodies and assembling 750, Frégate and Dauphine models from September 1958 as an an interim move until their new plant was completed at Somerton, Victoria, in July 1959.31

Rootes Group

The of G W Laird, Rootes Ltd Manager of overseas production at the end of 1945 resulted in an agreement with the Federal Government to lease the former “Tank” factory in Salmon Street for 50 years.32 Used by the Department of Aircraft Production for maintenance and stores it lay vacant. Rootes registered in Australia in April 1946 and in 1947 began assembling Humber, Hillman and Sunbeam-Talbot cars and & Karrier commercials.33 First year production was 2,600 units and by 1948 3,800 vehicles per annum were being built. The first CKD packs of British car parts arrived at Victoria Dock, Melbourne, on 15 April 1946 and as the Rootes factory was not ready the cars were assembled at the Holden plant in Salmon Street. The first GM-H post war car assembled was a 10hp Vauxhall Wyvern saloon two weeks later on 21 May. An American Chevrolet followed on 15 August.34 Rootes began assembly in their own plant in November 1946 using a unique method of installing the engine. The chassis with body attached was lowered into a pit nose down and the engine and transmission assembly moved into place resulting in a faster, easier installation.35

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Fig. 5 Rootes (former Tank factory) 1948. State Library of Victoria

In 1954 the company reorganised into Rootes (Aust) Pty Ltd and within six months an expansion of £1 million was opened.36 Further land acquisitions were made in 1962 and 1963 to assemble Hillman Imps and lift production to 100 units per day.37 By 1965 Rootes sales had declined, opening the way for Chrysler Australia to effect a merger in December. Chrysler continued to assemble Hillman and Commer and introduced the Dodge Phoenix and later the Mitsubishi Colt and Galant. Chrysler consolidated their operations to Adelaide in April 1972, offering the Port Melbourne factory for sale in September.38

Australian Motor Industries (AMI) & Toyota Australia

AMI first moved to Fishermans Bend as (Australia) Pty Ltd in 1949 at two sites. Assembly of Standard cars began in existing premises on Rogers Street having been relocated from Dudley Street, West Melbourne. The company was managed by John Franklin Crosby who had assumed control of the firm of Parrington Motors Pty Ltd (1923) in 1924 when Harry Parrington sought funding for a Talbot agency. Parrington left and Eclipse Motors Pty Ltd was formed to sell Talbot, Ford and General Motors products in Queen Street, Melbourne. Eclipse subsequently took over the Talbot and Lea Francis distribution at 568 Elizabeth street. In 1929 a Standard car agency was added and the firm became Talbot and Standard Motors Pty Ltd. Some assembly work was being performed by JTT Motors in West Melbourne and C C Crosby, John Crosby’s brother, acquired this firm in 1933.39

Standard Motors announced a new factory adjacent to the Rogers site in 1951 and opened a large factory and office block on 3 March 1952 fronting Bertie Street.

10 AHA 2018 Conference Proceedings Designed by structural engineer Eric Gibson it comprised three hanger shaped buildings.

The site again expanded in 1954 to include a former Felton Grimwade two storey building in Ingles Street.40 In 1955 Standard Motors occupied 33 acres, including a new engine assembly plant with capacity to produce 100 engines per shift, and assembled 8hp and 10hp Standards, Triumph TR2 sports car, Vanguard Spacemaster saloons and utilities. The following year the assembly of Mercedes Benz 180D, 190, 220S and 220SE sedans commenced and in 1960 American Motors signed an agreement to assemble Classic and Ambassador models. The diversification into other product models resulted in the creation of Australian Motor Industries on 18 November 1958. The final phase of the company’s growth occurred in 1963 when, for the first time outside of Japan, Toyotas (Tiara saloons, wagon and utilities) came off the AMI assembly line.41

Figure 6. Standard Motors Bertie Street 1952. RMIT University Design Archives

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Figure 7. Former Felton & Grimwade building Ingles street c1901 and repurposed by AMI c1960. N Darwin

Disco Manufacturing Corporation Pty Ltd

Of the non-vehicle automotive companies at Fishermans Bend, Disco was the largest, employing over 200 men and women by 1948. Started on 1 May 1937 by E A Machin as the manufacturing arm of E A Machin & Co (1907) with Edgar (Eddie) Draffin as general manager to produce automotive electrical components, including distributor parts, condensors, switches and later Firestone spark plugs. 42 The company quickly developed an automotive electrical catalogue that initially supplied the spares industry and from 1948, original equipment.43 Disc originally established in Dudley Street, West Melbourne, purchasing land in Williamstown and Bertie Street corner in 1939 erecting a small factory in 1942 to produce munitions. A larger two- storey building was completed in 1944 that provided 65,000 sq ft of factory floor space.44 In 1948 GM-H took a 60% share of Disco to enable the company to tool and produce wiring harness looms for the 48-215 Holden and in November 1950 GM-H acquired the Disco plant totally.45 The plant was then absorbed into Holden’s Salmon Street site in 1977. The Williamstown site was reconfigured at Holden’s Management and Training Education Centre (MATEC) facility in 1978 and eventually sold to Cambridge University Press in 2000.

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Figure 8. Disco building 1939. Draffin Family

Queensbridge Motors and Engineering

Established around 1920 to market Reo trucks, Queensbridge Motors operated from Queens Square on the Yarra River. The firm expanded after 1936 to include trucks (1939), GMC trucks (19390 and Cletrac tractors (1938).46 The firm also produced “tracked” conversions for tractors, commercial bodies for Reo trucks and in 1948 were provided a Holden agency. A subsequent reorganisation required the erection of a factory on the corner of Salmon and Plummer Street, Fishermans Bend for Reo and Cletrac work.

National Radiators Pty Ltd

Australia’s largest manufacturer of car radiators established a larger manufacturing plant in Salmon Street opposite Queensbridge Motors in 1947 to produce radiators for the 48-215 Holden.47 A private company had been formed by three individual radiator repairers/builders, Richard R Graves of Conn Bros. Pty Ltd (1930), Harold B Robbins of the Motor Radiator Manufacturing Co. Pty Ltd (1922) and Arthur L Tatchell in 1938.48

Conclusion

Fishermans Bend certainly made the car. GM-H alone produced over 100,000 by 1955 before assembly moved to Dandenong. Toyota produced one

13 AHA 2018 Conference Proceedings million cars between 1963 and their move to Altona and I estimate Rootes and AMI added a further 400,000 cars and commercial vehicles.49 As to the second part of the question, did the car make Fishermans Bend? The answer is Yes.

Without Holden’s move to the Bend thousands of workers would have been employed elsewhere and perhaps the area would have housed the Vacuum Oil refinery subsequently built in Altona. In comparison to an oil refinery, car manufacture is far less hazardous, thus the recent redevelopment of Fishermans Bend since the closure of the auto plants has been relatively easy. I point to the original 50 acres of land purchased by GM-H in 1935, which today is unrecognisable as the site of our first large automobile producer.

1 “Life on the Bend. A Social history of Fishermans Bend, Melbourne,” Context Pty Ltd, 21 July 2017, 14; Fishermans Bend was the original spelling of the area and is today the gazetted name. 2 Helen Doyle, “Southbank and Fishermans Bend,” Heritage Review, 16 June 2017. 3 “Life on the Bend. A Social history of Fishermans Bend, Melbourne,” 2017, 56; Heritage Study: Fishermans Bend: Final Report: Background documents, BIOSIS, 11 June 2013, 37-38: 4 BIOSIS Only two roads existed before 1920, Williamstown Road (1872) and Ingles Street. 5 “New Road Vehicle,” Age (Melbourne) 11 July 1928, 11. 6 “Six-Wheeled Motor Lorry Demonstration,” The Australian Motorist, December 1927, 191. 7 Heritage Study: Fishermans Bend: Final Report: Background documents, 2013, 60. 8 Sands & McDougall Melbourne Directories 1930-1940. 9 “Big change-over in Victoria,” The Australian Motorist, February 1940, 293. 10 S A Cheney, From Horse to Horsepower, (Melbourne: Rigby, 1965) 173. 11 “Heritage Study,” BIOSIS, 2013; Helen Doyle, 2017; “Life on the Bend. A Social history of Fishermans Bend, Melbourne,” Context Pty Ltd, 21 July 2017. 12 This type of structure can be seen in the Holden King William Street plant, the GM-A City Road plant and Melbourne Motor Body Company West Melbourne plant. 13 Gary Vines, “Archaeology of automobile industry in Victoria 1896-2016,” paper presented at the Automotive Historians Australia conference 2016, RMIT University, 8; Note In the northern hemisphere the glass area faced North. This meant direct sunlight did not shine into the factory and create shadows. 14 “New Assembly Plant in Melbourne For General Motors-Holden’s,” GM World, October 1935, 4; “New Plant to start immediately,” Pointers, General Motors-Holden’s Ltd, Vol 2 December 1935, 70. 15 Personal correspondence, Louis Fourier GM historian September 2017. 16 Laurence Hartnett, Big Wheels and Little Wheels, (Melbourne: Goldstar, 1973) 91. 17 General Motors Holdens, Fishermans Bend: administration building, Salmon Street - architects: GMH Drawing 413, 1936, State Library of Victoria Heritage Collection, H2018.14/144. 18 “Company progress explained at Bend café opening,” Pointers, January 1946, 9. Both the GM-H Administration building and the canteen are recorded by the National Trust as being significant see http:vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov/places/66657; jacksonarchitecture.com.au/portfolio_page/holden-v6-engine-plant https://www.motoring.com.au/holden-shuts-melbourne-engine-plant-104824/ 19 “Holden shuts Melbourne engine plant,” https://www.motoring.com.au/holden-shuts-melbourne- engine-plant-104824/, viewed 9 July 2018. 20 Holden Ltd Press release 8 June 2008. 21 “Big change-over in Victoria,” 1940, 293. 22 “Liberty List,” Herald (Melbourne), 7 August 1914, 10; “Personal,” Australasian (Melbourne), 7 September 1929, 60.

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23 “Buick changes hands,” Herald (Melbourne), 15 October 2017, 6; “S A Cheney Ltd,” Argus (Melbourne), 30 April 1931, 11. 24 “Car making at Fisherman’s Bend,” The Advertiser (Adelaide), 16 April 1937, 8. 25 “Manufacture of car accessories,” Singleton Argus (NSW), 4 June 1937, 5. 26 “New motor factory,” Argus (Melbourne); “New motor factory for Fisherman’s Bend,” The Australian, July 1938, 31. 27 Motor Industry Expansion,” The Coach & Motor Body Builder, January 1939, 301. 28 “£150,000 purchase in Vic motor deal,” Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 5 January 1940, 12. 29 “About People,” The Age (Melbourne) 16 August 1946. 30 “British Motor Corporation,” Australian Automotive year Book 1959, Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, 18. 31 “Renault Australia Pty Ltd,” Australian Automotive year Book 1959, Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, 15. 32 “Rootes Ltd Factory,” Built Heritage, 23 July 2015, 7. 33 “Rootes Ltd Registered,” Argus (Melbourne), 18 April 1946, 18. 34 “First Post War Oil Tanker,” Bendigo Advertiser, 10 August 1946, 6. 35 “Brought the Tyres too,” Herald (Melbourne), 14 April 1946: “British firm to make cars in Melb,” Sydney Sun, 31 June 1946; “Assembly of motor cars,” Age (Melbourne), 30 November 1946, 3. 36 “1 million extensions at Rootes open today,” Argus (Melbourne), 11 August 1955, 11. 37 “Rootes Ltd Factory,” Built Heritage, 13. 38 $3.1 million not enough for Chrysler site,” Age (Melbourne), 21 September 1972, 7. 39 AMI Golden Jubilee 1926-1976, (Melbourne: Australian Motor Industries, August 1976). 40 Sands & McDougal Melbourne Directories 1950-1955; “Life on the Bend. A Social history of Fishermans Bend, Melbourne,” 2017. 41 AMI Golden Jubilee 1926-1976, 15. 42 “Behind the scenes in Industry No. 46,” Argus (Melbourne), 6 July 1939, 17; Disco parts catalogue No 7. 1939. 43 “£50,000 Engineering Co.,” Argus (Melbourne), 19 June 1937, 8. 44 “Disco becomes part of GMH Family,” GM-H People, 1951, 12. 45 “G.M. -Holden Buys Disco,” Herald (Melbourne), 9 November 1950, 6. 46 “Queensbridge Motors to sell Oldsmobile trucks,” The Australian Motorist, February 1939, 349; “The G.M.C. Truck,” The Australian Motorist, August 1939, 728; “Rationing Affects Industry,” The Australian Motorist, August 1940, 519. 47 “Car radiator Co’s new issue,” Herald (Melbourne), 26 August 1948, 6. 48 “National Radiators Pty Ltd,” The Australian Motorist, December 1938, 221. 49 Figures based on the Australian Automotive year Book 1950-1970, Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, GM-H facts book 1970 and Brenda Stening, “Australian led Toyota expansion,” Curve, 13 August 2006.

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