Oz made Series LRs ?

[Jordan]

My 2A seems to be made in Australia, going by the oval body badges.
Just curious, which other models were made here rather than imported?
Are there any significant differences?
How much of it was locally made, rather than assembled from imported parts?

[isuzurover]

My 2A seems to be made in Australia, going by the oval body badges.
Just curious, which other models were made here rather than imported?
Are there any significant differences?
How much of it was locally made, rather than assembled from imported parts?

Do you mean the pressed metal corp badges? Or just standard LR badges with "Australia" at the bottom. AFAIK the latter just indicates they were assembled in Australia.

John says it succinctly. Further expansion on that in the link attached.


Starting with the Series 1 from about 1950 they were assembled by the Pressed Metal Corporation, and later Rover Australia, which merged into Leyland Australia, then JRA. I don't believe any have been assembled locally since the late eighties. From the mid fifties at least there was significant local content, although it varied with the model - for example, most station wagons were fully imported. Substantial local design went into some models as well, particularly the military ones.

John

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/general-chat/43903-who-assembled-landys-oz.html

[Jordan]

Here's some pics of the badges on my S2A.

[S3ute]

Hello from Brisbane.

The experts may have a more definitive answer, but I believe there was some Australian manufactured content in various Series models - the 2As and 3s at least. Government protection policy pretty much mandated this.

Examples might include tyres, wheel rims, some brake components, seats, shock absorbers, hoses, seat belts, windscreen washers, and heaters (S3 anyway), grille panels (S2A from around 1967), paint etc. Perhaps more.

Otherwise, they used a lot of original UK bits and don't differ much from the UK vehicles.

Cheers

[JDNSW]

The amount of Australian manufactured components increased over time, and included at least some panels, as well as wheels. Military chassis were modified or even manufactured here, from 2A onwards. No engines, gearboxes or diffs were made locally, but quite a lot of other smaller bits were, including electrics. Tax changes were designed to force importers to manufacture locally, with increasing local content (and you can get very high local content without making major components since it is by $, and assembly is a major input.

Some models are different in Australia or unique to Australia, notably the Series military models that have many differences from the equivalent home market model, the Isuzu engined Stage 1s, and (although not Series) the Perentie Project 110s and equivalent civilian 4x4s and 6x6s.

Changes made to home market models often did not occur at the same time locally, usually happening later. And there were differences between home market and export CKD versions, usually in equipment details. Further differences show up in that common options tend to be different - for example, in Australia trayback utes largely replaced tub type bodies as early as the Series 2a here. Some "option packs" such as the Game are probably sufficiently different to be considered a unique Australian model.

Hope this helps,

John

[Jordan]

All quite interesting.
Thanks folks.

[Lotz-A-Landies]

Assembly of CKD kits commenced in Australia during the 1949 model.

Local content rules meant that lots of components had to be locally made, hence Rubery Owen and Kemsley (ROK)* Australia started pressing rims in 1953, Australian Dunlop, Hardie and Olympic tyres as well as locally made Smiths and Lucas components.

Initially till about 1955 the kits were assembled at the premises of the five master distributors, Regent Motors in Melbourne, Grenville Motors in Sydney, Annand and Thompson in Brisbane, Faulls of Perth and Champions of Adelaide.

Regents and Grenville were divisions of LNC Industries who also owned Pressed Metals Corporation, so the assembly of Land Rover moved to the PMC Enfield plant during 86" and 107" production. Much to the chargrin of A&T who resisted purchasing from PMC as much as possible and imported direct ex-UK a lot of the time. For many years they didn't even sell the Land Rover made hard top instead uning a Brisbane manufactured Athol Hedges roof.

At some period both diffs and axles were manufactured here. Borg Warner at Tennyson and Victoria Rds Gladesville produced licenced diffs with improved metalurgy for the Plus 35 diesels (you can tell a Plus 35 diff by a groove around the shoulder of the crownwheel) and Dufor made axles.

Production ceased at PMC Enfield in the 1980's just before start of the 110 build commenced, (even though they had 110 components ready for the change over).

110 Isuzu engine models including the army Perentie 110 and 6x6 were built in the Jaguar Rover Australia plant at Moorebank NSW into the 1990's.


* ROK became Rubery Owen Holdings ROH in the 1970s