Holden Hurricane concept. Photo courtesy GM Media.
Too little, too late? With the end nigh for the Australian automobile industry and automotive media around the world already penning their obituaries for it, one Australian art museum has decided to collect almost two dozen concept, muscle, and production cars for the first such exhibit focused exclusively on the cars of Oz.
While three major manufacturers – GM’s Holden, Ford, and Toyota – have dominated the Australian car market for the latter few decades, the Australian automotive industry includes dozens of examples of cars designed, built, and sold in Australia by Australian-owned companies dating back to the turn of the Twentieth Century – companies such as Bolwell, Buckle, Elfin, and Tarrant. Ford and GM both had a presence on the island continent in the early decades of the century – as did many other American companies looking to establish beachheads there – but it wasn’t until 1926 that Ford formally established Ford of Australia. Five years later, GM also planted its flag there by incorporating long-established Holden as its Australian car-making subsidiary.
Over the years, a number of other carmakers – including Rootes, Chrysler, British Leyland, Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi – have built cars in Australia, largely to satisfy the country’s local-content regulations that at one point demanded up to 95 percent of Australian-sold cars originate in the country and that imposed import duties of up to 57 percent. Yet as John Mellor of the New York Times wrote last month, with the relaxation of those regulations in the 1980s and 1990s, imports flooded the market and the smaller carmakers either left the market or switched to importing themselves. Holden, Ford, and Toyota found it tougher to maintain enough market share to justify building cars in Australia, so Ford has announced that it will discontinue Australian production next year, while GM and Toyota will stop production in 2017.
Holden Efijy show car. Photo courtesy General Motors.
Which is not to downplay the Australian car industry’s achievements. Australian carmakers gave the world the ute, they at one point had the world’s fastest-accelerating car, and in latter years they have lent their design and engineering skills to some of the world’s most fascinating vehicles. (And if nothing else, Australian car enthusiasts gave us Mad Max .) To celebrate that culture and design history, the National Gallery of Victoria has put together a first-of-its-kind art exhibit titled Shifting Gear: Design, Innovation and the Australian Car.
Similar to the Dream Cars and Sensuous Steel exhibits organized for American art museums by Ken Gross, Shifting Gear will focus on a number of cars selected for their significance in Australian automotive history, including a 1934 Lew Bandt-designed Ford ute, the 1969 Holden Hurricane dream car, Richard Ferlazzo’s 2005 Holden Efijy, the 1970 Holden Torana GTR-X, a Chrysler Valiant Charger R/T E49, and even the recent Buick Avenir concept, which was designed in Australia.
“The exhibition shows the diversity and ingenuity of Australian automobile design in the variety of cars it has brought together – not only the family car but also racing cars and sports cars, high-performance production cars and concept vehicles never intended for production, demonstrating Australia’s significant past and future role in research and development,” said Harriet Edquist, guest curator for the exhibit.
The exhibit will take place March 6 through July 12 at the National Gallery of Victoria’s Ian Potter Centre in Melbourne. For more information, visit NGV.vic.gov.au.
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