Chev in Australia

The reintroduction of the Chevrolet brand into the Australian market place via HSV’s ‘remanufactured’ Camaro is a timely reminder that General Motors’ bowtie brand once had a significant presence in this country. AMC has enlisted the help of a local marqu

The history of Chevrolet in Australia is far more extensive than many people think.

Chevrolet holds a special place within Australia’s rich automotive history. Yet, few car enthusiasts born before 1953 fully appreciate just how historically signi cant it is. It will come as a surprise to many readers to learn that it was General Motors’ well-known ‘Chevrolet’ brand, and not the ‘Holden’ brand as widely believed, that initially established the General Motors-Holden’s company (GM-H) within Australia. Chevrolet’s recent official GM-sanctioned return to Australia has come via the Camaros and Silverado trucks sold through the Holden/ HSV dealership network. So it’s timely to look back at the time when GM-H assembled Chevrolets in Australia were sold alongside Pontiac, Vauxhall and Holden through GM-H dealerships across the land.

While this article focuses primarily on the post-World War II decades, the 1950s and 1960s, it’s important that we brie y recount the earlier establishment of General Motors in Australia and GM’s Export Company, as well as the Chevrolet brand itself.

A key formative period is 1916 to 1923, when the newly formed General Motors Export Company managed the export of new Chevrolet vehicles in either fully assembled or partassembled form to foreign markets.

From 1924 until 1948 Chevrolets came to Australia in two forms, either as a fully imported ‘Fisher’ body car or as a completed chassis/drive train that would then be tted with an Australianmanufactured ‘Holden’ body.

A generation of Australians who have now

largely passed away – except for those well into their 90s – knew a time when people described their Chevrolet as being either an imported ‘Fisher’ body or a local ‘Holden’ body version.

Of course, 1948 was a landmark year for GM-H with the launch of the Holden car, the 48-215, in November. It was an event that gave birth to the much celebrated ‘Australian car’, but one that also consigned sister brand Chevrolet to living in its shadow.

Whenever GM-H refers to its Australian history, it does an excellent job at acknowledging Above: Size does matter, when it comes to ‘60s Chevys. On the left is a ‘63 Belair, ‘65 pillarless Impala 327 (centre) and ‘67 Impala 327. All three were imported as CKD packs and built in Australia by GM-H.

that it manufactured Chevrolets prior to 1949 and records in detail its 69-year history building Holdens. However, somewhat surprisingly GM-H fails to mention that for over 20 years, from 1949 until 1970, the company manufactured righthand drive Fisher-body Chevrolets and Pontiacs. These cars were assembled in RHD form using CKD packs (Completely Knocked Down) that GM-H imported from General Motors’ Tarrytown plant in the state of New York in the United States and GM’s Oshawa plant in Ontario, Canada.

These Chevrolet and Pontiac CKD packs were initially delivered by ship from the USA and Canada to the former GM-H Woodville assembly plant in Adelaide, South Australia. At Woodville the complete interiors, electrical wiring, dash panel and glass were installed and the car’s body

was painted. Final assembly, including bolting the body to its chassis and installing the front panels, took place at most of Australia’s major seven GM-H factories. At the time the company had assembly plants in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.

The CKD packs comprised a combination of imported USA-made components and Australiansupplied parts. The latter included wiring looms, side glass, interior trim and tyres.

The Chevrolets that GM-H assembled from these CKD packs are unique in world terms, but sadly few examples survive today in unmolested original condition. Most of the surviving examples have been heavily modi ed to the point that little remains of their GM-H heritage.

Prior to the release of the Holden brand Top left: GM-H assembled and imported Chevrolets and other models for decades before the 48-215’s release. Left: Katanning,WA rural dealer. Main: 1963 Belair. in 1948, the extensive GM-H dealer network offered a wide range of GM-H manufactured brands. This included Cadillac, Buick and Oldsmobile for the premium Australian market, as well as Pontiac, Chevrolet and Vauxhall for the mass (working class) market. This brand positioning would soon be reshaped. By the time the rst Holden 48-215 sedan had rolled off the Fishermans Bend assembly line, GM-H had ceased Australian production of Cadillacs and would within the following three years cease Australian production of Buick and Oldsmobile. But GM-H continued until 1970 to assemble both Chevrolet and

Pontiac as their agship luxury cars.

Accordingly, from the early 1950s until the early 1970s GM-H via its dealerships could offer Australian new car buyers, at all social economic levels, the following choices:

Australian premium luxury class: Chevrolet and Pontiac.

Australian upper middle class: Vauxhall Cresta and Vauxhall Velox. Australian working class: Holden. It might surprise readers to learn that the assembly of these CKD Chevrolets, Pontiacs and Vauxhalls often took place in the same GM-H factories and on the same factory assembly lines as the lower priced Holdens. A typical GM-H assembly line of the period could have had, for example, a Vauxhall Cresta following a Chevrolet Belair which might then be followed by a Holden Premier!

The Holden brand proved to be a sales and nancial success story for GM-H and its American parent company GM. It really hit the mark as an economical car for working class Australians. This success was in no small part due to the then Australian federal government’s imposition of a substantial 35 percent import duty (tariff) which applied to all fully-imported vehicles at the time.

This 35 percent tariff effectively provided GM-H and other local manufacturers with a signi cant advantage in the market over fully imported vehicles, which could simply not compete on price. These high import duties also became the primary reason why GM-H elected to assemble right-hand drive Chevrolets in Australia rather than import them as fully built vehicles.

Most years GM-H-assembled Chevrolets used Australian-made interior trim, tyres and side glass that reduced the number of imported parts used on each vehicle. This in turn reduced the import duty that GM-H paid.

But despite local assembly and the use of Aussie parts, RHD Belairs and, after 1965, RHD Impalas still had to be promoted and sold as expensive high-end luxury cars which retailed at prices near enough to three times the price of the average Holden. To justify the high prices, the interiors of these Australian-assembled cars were trimmed with the highest quality Australian Howe leather upholstery and oors were covered in premium Westminster 100 percent wool

carpets. This attention to quality was not used on American-manufactured Chevrolets.

As high-priced vehicles, these cars typically sold in direct competition with Jaguar, MercedesBenz and similar prestige luxury cars. Both Chevrolet and Pontiac were very much the GM-H agships or high-end cars. Typical local buyers of these locally-built models were wealthy Australians who had had prospered from the economic boom following WWII, but who had equally retained clear memories of the hard times they and their families experienced during the 1930s worldwide depression.

As prestige cars these GM-H-assembled Chevrolets were certainly the preferred transport of wealthy graziers and managing directors. They were also favoured by state and federal governments for VIP use. Typically, state premiers, ministers and even prime ministers were chauffeur driven in black Australianassembled Chevrolets during the 1960s. This continued until 1970 when GM-H ceased local assembly of the marque.

The introduction of the Premier model within the 1962 EJ range was Holden’s attempt at offering a more luxurious version than its hitherto top level Special. It was hoped the Premier might appeal to Chevrolet or Pontiac customers. Despite the success of the EJ and later model Premiers, neither they nor the Brougham (released in 1968) were replacements for Chevrolet or Pontiac, which remained the agships for GM-H until the last examples left the GMH assembly lines in early 1970. Holden Statesman models would ll the void from 1971.

Let’s look back now on some key models, engines, milestones and eras.

1959, Belair, auto

For the ten-year period between 1949 and 1959, all Australian GM-H assembled Chevrolets came equipped with the marque’s famous six-cylinder engine, the origins of which Pics: The small block Chev V8 was available in Australianassembled cars (including the Impala) long before it was used to power the first generation HK Monaro.

can be traced back to 1929!

The 1959 Chevrolet is best known for its exaggerated horizontal tail ns, but for Australia it also marked the introduction of the Belair, the rst GM-H-assembled car with automatic transmission, two years ahead of Holden offering it.

Strong rumour has it that Dame Pattie Menzies, the wife of former PM, Sir Robert Menzies, was regularly chauffeur-driven in a black government-owned GM-H-assembled 1959 Belair sedan. When the scheduled replacement time rolled around, Dame Pattie objected. That ’59 Chevrolet, reportedly, remained in the government’s ministerial eet until 1967. It would seem that Dame Pattie liked the tail ns!

1960-1966 283ci V8 power

The big news for GM-H in 1960 – outside the launch of the FB Holden – was the introduction of the small block Chevrolet V8 engine, which now powered all GM-H-built Belairs. It was a low compression 170bhp, 283 cubic inch V8. It would be at least another eight years before a similar engine would be offered in a Holden. This engine would remain unchanged through 1961 and 1962. In 1963 the 283’s horsepower rating was increased to 195bhp via higher compression heads, and this engine would continue to power Aussieassembled Belairs through to the 1966 models.

1965-1968 327ci V8 and fourdoor pillarless Impalas

Up until and including 1964, all four-door pillarless hardtop Export RHD Chevrolet Impalas that came to Australia as new cars were fully imported as Single Unit Packs (S.U.P.). Accordingly, they commanded a signi cantly higher retail price than the equivalent GM-H Australian-assembled Belair four-door pillared sedans, resulting in only very limited numbers coming to Australia.

Pre-1965, these cars were only available through the principal capital city GM-H dealers such as Melbourne’s Preston Motors and Sydney’s Stack and Company. These dealers had directly imported them to Australia as Export RHD cars supplied through Chevrolet’s Export Company in the USA. General Motors Holden had nothing to do with S.U.P. importation, contrary to commonly held views. Equally, GM-H did not openly discourage these capital city dealers from directly importing Export RHD

Impala four-door hardtops.

Nevertheless, by 1965 GM-H could not continue to ignore the popularity of the fullyimported RHD Impala four- door pillarless hardtops. So, from 1965 GM-H commenced assembling RHD CKD versions of the Impala and Pontiac Parisienne four-door hardtop while continuing to assemble conventional Chevrolet Belair and Pontiac four-door sedans. It’s complicated, we know!

These GM-H assembled 1965 Chevrolet and Pontiac four-door hardtops were equipped with Chevrolet’s 327 cubic-inch V8, which developed 230bhp. This engine would be installed three years later in the newlylaunched HK Holden Monaro.

In 1967, the 327 engines tted to GM-Hassembled Impalas generating 240bhp and in 1968 increased again to 250bhp.

With the release of the 1967 Chevrolet, GM-H no longer offered a Belair version or the Belair’s genuine Howe leather interior which had been a feature of GM-H assembled Chevrolets since the 1920s!

From 1967 GM-H would offer Australian customers the Impala but in either a fourdoor pillarless hardtop form (Sport Sedan) or conventional four-door sedan (conventional xed B pillar design).

1968-1970, the final GM-H Chevrolets

The last Aussie-assembled RHD Chevrolet passenger sedan model was released by GM-H in 1968, with the decision to no longer build Chevrolets in Australia. The remaining 1968 vehicles continued as ‘run out models’ through 1969 and into early 1970, yet were promoted as current models.

From late 1969 onwards, the nal versions were tted with separate front seat lap and shoulder safety belts to comply with the introduction of Australian Design Rules in 1970.

In 1976 GM-H did brie y test the Australia market with a handful of fully-imported 1975 Chevrolet Caprice sedans that were sold through selected major city GM-H dealers. They arrived as complete LHD cars which were then converted to RHD by sub-contractors.

Wrapping it up

While GM-H built many outstanding vehicles under the Holden brand post1970, many of these vehicles were heavily in uenced by Chevrolet designs.

Despite there being almost 50 years between drinks for the marque in Australia, the name Chevrolet still commands considerable respect locally. This is clearly demonstrated by the thousands of privately-imported Chevrolets on Australian roads and by the many new Holden vehicles that have been rebadged as Chevrolets by their owners. So it is perhaps not surprising that HSV, with GMH’s blessing, has returned the famous brand to Australia.