Favourite Aussie-made vehicle?

It is interesting that the "Button Plan' is mentioned,are you aware that part of the plan was to reduce the 4 manufacturers to 3 and with a little espionage help from those inside Ford Aust. and Chrysler Aust.they managed to knobble Leyland Aust. even to the extent of getting the P76-Force 7 refused an ADR Plate,it was in fact a P76 with a coupe body, nothing more but it was a major threat to both Ford's XA/B/C Coupes and Holden's second series Monaro.

In the early 60's Australia tried to limit the cheap importation of Japanese cars,in a bid to satisfy both Ford and Holden, by increasing import tariffs, both Nissan/Datsun and Toyota lowered the price of their vehicles so that they were the same price in the showroom,a 1963 Datsun 410 Bluebird price in Brisbane was 898 A/pounds on the road including rego, a Nissan Cedric (4cyl) was 10 pound cheaper than an EK special sedan,in 1965 the Toyota RS-41 Crown had a 1900cc Mercedes 170 copy motor and 3spd transmission complete with 2 speed electric Overdrive on a full chassis on coil springs :) yes, it was a nice car to drive, shame about the drum brakes :(

cheers

Always been a fan of the "coke bottle" Falcons. Had an XA JG33 for a while as a lad and would have a XC Cobra in a heart beat if I could.

My old 73 GT in it's day

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...014/02/421.jpg



and #27 XC coupe that was at the Allora show last month.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...014/02/422.jpg

Here was my very first job in Australia, I remember well the wages was $43.60 a week
I wonder if any of the old timers recognize this factory.

http://www.aronline.co.uk/images/australia_01.jpg

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Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

You have got to be kidding. I worked at Leyland Truck and Bus at the time and we had them as company cars. The Six was to be the volume selling line and it was a dog. The only one of the P76 variants that had any appeal was the V8 with four speed trans. The V8's didn't stand the test of time either developing numerous problems.

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I assume by four speed you mean manual, as generally speaking we usually refer to a "Trans" as auto and when talking manual we refer to "Gearbox" although technically trans is correct for both.

As for the vehicle, my old man purchased a new top of the line executive V8.

As this post is off topic, I won't type the list of faults it had.

We used to call them a P38 as they were only half a car, which I thought ironic when RR called the classic replacement a P38.

Yup! it was commonly known as the P38==1/2 the car it should have been :( and it was ironic that British Leyland aka Rover chose to call it's second generation Range Rover after the building it was designed and prototyped in Building P38a ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by UncleHo

It is interesting that the "Button Plan' is mentioned,are you aware that part of the plan was to reduce the 4 manufacturers to 3 and with a little espionage help from those inside Ford Aust. and Chrysler Aust.they managed to knobble Leyland Aust. even to the extent of getting the P76-Force 7 refused an ADR Plate,it was in fact a P76 with a coupe body, nothing more but it was a major threat to both Ford's XA/B/C Coupes and Holden's second series Monaro.

cheers

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I have to disagree with the above as the "Button Plan" was in the mid eighties, years after the P76 was long gone.

Two of my early classic rangies had the 4.4 in them.Great engines .Rover aust.should have had them as an option in the rangies at the time.

I was thinking that, too. Senator John Button was a member of the Hawke Govt, but maybe he was up to some wheeling and dealing much earlier.


The 1980's Button plan resulted in what was known as "Badge engineering" and gave us the Ford Maverick (aka Nissan Patrol), the Toyota Lexcen (Commodore), Holden Apollo (Toyota Camry) and Holden Barina, Drover and Scurry (Suzuki's Swift, Sierra and Super Carry), as well as many others that have faded from memory (eg Nissan sold the Falcon Ute, but what was it called??).

Holden HG 186 column shift wagon.

I owned over a dozen HK-T-G Holdens, from 161 through to 350 ci and the 186 in a wagon was the best balanced with good fuel economy, decent brakes (disc front) and handled well ON DIRT (which is what they were designed to do).

Went to quite a few spots that were supposedly 4WD only quite easily :)

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Originally Posted by 303gunner

eg Nissan sold the Falcon Ute, but what was it called??).

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Nissan Ute.

The marketing department went all out on that one.