Death Of The Australian Motoring Industry

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Originally Posted by UncleHo

G'day Brian :)

Yeah! I was a production line section head at Pagewood in 69,in the body underproofing section,the reason I got the job was that I spoke and could read English :D and would have to take over the other workers when they needed a P break,I had Croats, the section opposite has Turks, and they were forever at each others throats,NO WAY would I work the night shift,they used to have an Ambulance and Police car parked out front :o

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My Father in Law worked at Elizabeth for over 30 years Uncle. He used to tell me similar stories. He was a Polish refugee when he first arrived in Adelaide & started initially in the old GMH works on Port Road before moving to the "new" factory at Elizabeth.

Even though he would tell me some pretty worrying stories - he would never buy any car other than a Holden (though he did like driving an XW GTHO that I used to have when I first started dating his daughter). He only ever had the one employer in Australia, right up to his retirement.

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Originally Posted by UncleHo

Way back at the start of this thread there was mention of one Senator John Button and his grand plans, one was to reduce the then 4 vehicle manufacturers to 3, Goodbye Leyland! and with it the only truly Australian designed and built vehicle,the Leyland P76, yeah! the P38,only half the car they thought it would be :D what let it down was the over-management and the lack of quality control and the unskilled Ethnic labour force, Leyland UK was having issues with funds and Union bastardry, so that signalled the death knell for the UK company, which John Button took advantage of.

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The Leyland P76 seems to get a bad rap,but a article i read showed that the ones that were built properly(i know not many) were quite a good car and had many firsts for a Australian car.Does anyone here have a bit of ownership knowledge?

Yes, when put together properly they were a nice vehicle,the 6's were lack lustre, but the V8 (Rangie 3.5 bored/stroked to 4.4) was brilliant,but there were Monday and Friday cars (thrown together) the Wednesday vehicles were the pick :) I regret not buying one when they were closing the line.
Both were a very nice vehicle to drive.

My comments were made to stir the pot and it worked.

It seems it is ok to subsidise some industries and not others.

By the logic implied here on should not have to pay diesel excise when I am on a tollway as the government does not pay to maintain them.

BTW - I did 7 years of working away from home in remote locations but it was before FIFO, tax subsidies & the conditions enjoyed now.

I live near the Ford Factory & my wife teaches the kids whose parents work there, they are not looking at a great future at the moment.

Do not forget it was not the employees fault that these factories are shutting down.

It was basically the change in Government will that delivered the final blow just as the mining industry was going to go broke if the previous government applied the mining tax.

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Originally Posted by UncleHo

Yes, when put together properly they were a nice vehicle,the 6's were lack lustre, but the V8 (Rangie 3.5 bored/stroked to 4.4) was brilliant,but there were Monday and Friday cars (thrown together) the Wednesday vehicles were the pick :) I regret not buying one when they were closing the line.
Both were a very nice vehicle to drive.

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I could be wrong but i think the P76 was the only car at that time that could be optioned with 3 engines 4,6,8, cylinder. Targa Flario models have gone for decent many lately.

And the article in a round about way was saying that the Government did not want the P76 or Leyland?

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Originally Posted by UncleHo

Yes, when put together properly they were a nice vehicle,the 6's were lack lustre, but the V8 (Rangie 3.5 bored/stroked to 4.4) was brilliant,but there were Monday and Friday cars (thrown together) the Wednesday vehicles were the pick :) I regret not buying one when they were closing the line.
Both were a very nice vehicle to drive.

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We had them as company cars at Leyland Truck and Bus. The only model that was worth a knob of goat**** was the V8 with 4 speed manual trans. The six was a dog. The V8 was a mismatch to the auto trans it was blighted with. The big boot was an advertising feature. The publicity stunt of putting a 44 gallon in there was ridiculous. Who carries empty 44's around in their boot? If the drum was full, the bum would have dragged on the ground. We got the rejects that were too badly finished to sell to a dealer. Gaps in the body panels you could stick your fingers through. Don't **** in my pocket about the old legend of Monday and Friday cars. It took several days to pass a vehicle through the build process.

Disco Man, there was not a four cylinder in the line-up.

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Originally Posted by TerryO

Actually Frantic I don't read Murdoch papers and I actually said 'if its true' then that would add dramatically to build costs of local cars.

I was actually told this by a gentleman who runs a business in Adelaide that provides a number of services to GMH and has done for a long time, so from what your telling me he also must have no idea either, which is possible I guess.

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I'm providing the link.:D not telling you anything.
The 80k cleaner line was a headline from a Murdoch paper. The GMH oz manager after that went on both TV and paper to state average pay was 55k.
The issue is Abbot only told the first line of the equation 3-400 million subsidies.
He neglected to mention all the other losses from letting gm and toymota leave. Which are around 6 billion extra imports and another 2 billion lost in income, taxes and paid out in welfare.
Make you feel good to watch it unfold doesn't it? :mad:

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Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

We had them as company cars at Leyland Truck and Bus. The only model that was worth a knob of goat**** was the V8 with 4 speed manual trans. The six was a dog. The V8 was a mismatch to the auto trans it was blighted with. The big boot was an advertising feature. The publicity stunt of putting a 44 gallon in there was ridiculous. Who carries empty 44's around in their boot? If the drum was full, the bum would have dragged on the ground. We got the rejects that were too badly finished to sell to a dealer. Gaps in the body panels you could stick your fingers through. Don't **** in my pocket about the old legend of Monday and Friday cars. It took several days to pass a vehicle through the build process.

Disco Man, there was not a four cylinder in the line-up.

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Sorry about the 4cyl, I read that article a few years ago thanks for pointing that out.

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Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

ummm Pat....sorry to tell you this but I just spent two weeks in the SA remote areas in company with 2 LC200s and those barges coped better with the roads...which I brought up in a previous thread....than my disco.

I'm not ashamed to admit it.....in fact I was very impressed with the LC200s.

I think the only time I bettered them was in real hard rutted creek climb outs and definitely on fuel consumption.

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There's a whole industry just in replacing genuine Toyota suspension,there isn't one for Land Rover,wonder why?. Pat

I must admit, I'm sick of hearing Australians cry poor, we earn good wages and have good lifestyles on a whole and can afford our Australian products, people will end up with better products instead of Chinese crap and if they cost more then they might look after them more and not use the Oww well its a 10 k chery il throw it away and buy another one next year attitude. Australians can afford aussie products but the cheap carrot dangling infront of them is convincing them otherwise

As for government subsidies being a leech to tax payers, you must live in a box,
You watch qantas become our next home grown company go down unless they receive government assistance, because u can bet your bottom dollar the other international airline's are heavily subsides by their government and are out competing us,
You must stop believing that subsidising is automatically a loss to our economy