Thread: CKD assembly in Melbourne ?

Hi Colin,

Rovers and later Land Rovers were assembled from CKD (Completely Knocked Down) kits by the local regional distributors.

NSW (Grenville Motors - a part of the Larke, Neave & Carter group in Sydney); Victoria, the Riverina of NSW and Tasmania (Regent Motors in Melbourne); Queensland and the Northern Rivers of NSW (Annand & Thompson in Brisbane); South Australia (Champions in Adelaide) and Western Australia (Faulls in Perth) all assembled CKD kits or partially manufactured Land Rover parts in the early fifties until Pressed Metal Industries took over all assemby in NSW.

Some components were manufactured locally.

Bob

Originally Posted by gromit

Were CKD's assembled in Melbourne ? Was this done by a dealer or a company like Pressed Metal Corp in NSW ?

As Bob said Regent Motors of Melbourne for Vic.

They were actually the very first CKD assembler of Land Rovers

The bloke who owned Regent Motors, Lionel Spencer was quite the CKD entrepreneur as you will read here,

Club VeeDub - Australian Volkswagen History 1941 - 1959

*Note the 1950s Rover state dealers (LNC owned Grenville Motors) also selling VW CKD's assembled by Regent Motors via Martin and King at Clayton.

The Land Rover assembly factory in Melbourne was at the bottom of Mt Alexandra Road, just above Mooney Ponds creek. I heard a story from the old timers that when the creek used to flood that they used Land Rovers to help tow the trams through.

Confirmation or a photo of this if it existed would be great.

Sounds like I need to go back and have another chat with this gentleman....

He mentioned welding up Land Rover chassis', wouldn't these have come over complete ?


Colin

There were also little sub-dealerships dotted around each state , these were supplied by the main distributor in the corresponding capital city . My local Land Rover agency was also a bus company ....
Mike

Spoke to our machinist at work (a Rover car owner) and he knows an old chap who worked at Regents.
The Rovers cars came in complete & drivable but all the bright parts (grille, badges, hub caps etc.) were locked in the boot. The dealers had to drill out the boot lock to gain access (a replacement lock must have been in the boot). I guess this stopped problems with the magpies on the docks !

He also heard that the Rover P6 V8 was shipped with the roof cut off and was assembled in New Zealand. They welded the roof on and painted the shell. He has owned a couple of P6's and he checked the roof pillars and they were all welded as per the story.

All interesting stuff............

Colin

Originally Posted by gromit

Sounds like I need to go back and have another chat with this gentleman....

He mentioned welding up Land Rover chassis', wouldn't these have come over complete ?


Colin

Not necessarily. Some CKD kits apparently had them tack welded only. All sorts of stages of assembly were shipped, depending on the required level of local content, which was quite high by the time assembly ceased in the 1980s.

John

Originally Posted by gromit

Sounds like I need to go back and have another chat with this gentleman....

He mentioned welding up Land Rover chassis', wouldn't these have come over complete ?


Colin

From what I can see, all 80" chassis came over complete and needed no welding, from 1954 it would seam that the chassis came out in pieces with the side rails welded into box sections with the out riggers all welded on, then in Australia they were assembled with all cross members and the rear cross member being put on, to make a whole chassis, this appears to have happend in to series 2 production at well.

Originally Posted by tom the pom

From what I can see, all 80" chassis came over complete and needed no welding, from 1954 it would seam that the chassis came out in pieces with the side rails welded into box sections with the out riggers all welded on, then in Australia they were assembled with all cross members and the rear cross member being put on, to make a whole chassis, this appears to have happend in to series 2 production at well.

Spoke to the chap earlier today.
Yes the chassis rails came over with the crossmembers loose to be welded on locally. In later years they folded up the outriggers locally before welding on.

Grenville was Lionel Spencer's brother, hence Grenville Motors

He has seen pictures of Land Rovers towing the trams but doesn't have copies himself.

Hopefully more info when I catch up with him soon.


Colin