I was in charge of an exploration crew in the Simpson Desert for almost two years in 1965-6, when Toyota was beginning to have an impact on four wheel drive sales.
The company I worked for bought us a fleet of new Landcruisers for the contract. As i owned a Series 2 at the time I was interested to compare the two.
The Landcruisers were not noticeably more reliable than Landrovers - some of the problems included regular breaking of wheel studs (to the extent that they all carried a few spares in the glovebox), continual carburetter problems, alternator failures, clutch failures. The steering was appalling due to bad engineering or the relay (later changed). Seat frames and upholstery failed to withstand hefty Australians and Australian sunlight.
My own company car was a FJ45V, the station wagon. This, with its short (104") wheelbase, long overhang, and single acting rear shock absorbers, was, I think, the roughest riding vehicle I have ever ridden in. It is also the only vehicle I have ever had break a spring through all leaves on a single bad bump! And the bodywork just fell to bits.
Compared to the Landrover, there were however some significant advantages, at least in some models. The traybacks with a 121" wheelbase and a one ton capacity were simply bigger and more useful. The wider track gave a better turning circle.
Disadvantages included that lack of four gears, low range was much higher than in a Landrover, and that could be a problem when you needed a creeper gear.
Some of our more adventurous people claimed that the swb soft top, with the hood off and windscreen folded, could do near enough to 100mph. Despite lousy steering and rather small unboosted drum brakes. Accident rates were generally higher than for Landrovers.
Like Landrovers, they had the petrol tank under the seat - but unlike Landrover, it was inside the body - so that any fuel leak would be inside the vehicle. We lost one swb hardtop that way. As far as I know the burnt out remains are still there.
Motor manufacture in Australia; Australia banned the import of fully built cars in 1914, to deal with shortages of shipping in WW1. But then kept this after the war. There were already a number of coachbuilders in the country, and one was Holden in Adelaide. Ford, while still using other bodybuilders, started assembling cars in Geelong in the mid 1920s, and gradually went to building bodies as well.
Holden, while still building bodies for a variety of mainly US manufacturers, received a capital injection from GM in the 1920s. They were already building pressed, all steel bodies for Chrysler by the time GM introduced this style of body in the late 1930s, by which time, as a result of the depression, GM held a majority of the shares (remaining Australian shareholders were bought out as the company geared up for production of the 48/215, a Chevrolet that had not gone into production in the US, due to the war).
As Diana pointed out, there was still a lot of anti-Japanese (and for that matter anti-German) sentiment in Australia into the 1960s and even beyond. My father would never even consider a Japanese car, for example - and he was still buying cars in the 1960s and 70s.
For an insider's view of the Holden story, a good read is "Big Wheels and Little Wheels", L.J.Hartnett, 1981.
John
