KITS AND PIECES — CROWTHER UTE: BIG AMBITION, LITTLE SUCCESS
ROLY CROWTHER NAILED KIWIS’ LOVE OF UTES LONG BEFORE THE JAPANESE CAME TO THE PARTY. IF A KIWI SEDAN WON’T FLY, SURELY A UTE (WITH GULL-WING DOORS) WOULD!
One of the most easily identifiable cars is the gull-winged Mercedes-benz 300 SL. It is an amazing looking car from any angle. The doors by themselves make a statement, never mind the beautiful lines of the car. The Germans definitely knew how to do those doors; the members of the British Commonwealth, not so much.
As far as we can recall, there were three attempts by Commonwealth countries to make a massproduced car with gull-wing doors. The most well known of these is, of course, the Delorean, which is more famous because of a movie than for anything else. This was an Irish-manufactured car that at least got off the ground, no pun intended, with approximately 9000 produced between 1981 and 1982. In Canada, a less successful attempt was made to build a gull-winged car. It was called the ‘Bricklin SV-1’ and between 1974 and ’76 almost 3000 were built.
The third Commonwealth country that tried to mass-produce a car with gull-wing doors will come as a surprise to many. Very few people reading this story would ever believe it was right here in New Zealand where such an attempt was made. Albeit it was an Australian idea, and they were intended for the Australian market, but it was a New Zealand design, and they were going to be manufactured here. Our attempt occurred around about the time the Bricklin was ending production, leaving a heavy debt in the Canadian Government’s hands, and long before the Delorean motorcar was even a glint in Mr John Delorean’s eye, a glint that would eventually leave a large debt for the British Government.
Rugged, reliable, with gull-wing doors
Our story starts with the Thiess brothers, who held the Toyota franchise in Australia. They had heard about Roly Crowther’s attempt to mass-produce a sedan with a unique variomatic gearbox system across the ditch (see New Zealand Classic Car Issue No. 348). This got them pondering the viability of devising a version of this car that could be used in the outback, which would be rugged, simple to repair, and reliable. They commissioned Roly to design a small utility vehicle that they could sell through their car dealerships across Australia. Interestingly, they stipulated that it had to have gull-wing doors, as they believed that it would differentiate the car from the competition.
By the mid ’70s, Roly was making good money from selling Rolomatic car-washing machines,
which were manufactured in his Auckland factory. Despite having been severely singed by the failure of the Crowther sedan, he still had a dream that New Zealand would one day be able to lay claim to another massproduction vehicle.
Roly was excited by the opportunity to design a car that would be useful in both Australia and New Zealand, and believing that this car could do for New Zealand what Holden did for Australia, he set about designing a vehicle that would cope not only with the Australian outback but also New Zealand conditions and roads. Although the prototype had gull-wing doors, Roly did not believe that the average Kiwi farmer would be impressed by them, so any car made for the New Zealand market would have had conventional opening doors. The chassis was made the same way as the Crowther sedan using cut and folded sheet to give it strength and rigidity. Attached to the high sills of the chassis was a roll cage, ensuring the safety of its occupants should it roll over.
Although the prototype had gull-wing doors, Roly did not believe that the average Kiwi farmer would be impressed by them, so any car made for the New Zealand market would have had conventional opening doors
The ultimate utility vehicle
Roly envisioned at least three versions of this car would eventually be marketed. Obviously, the ute would be first, as that was what he had been commissioned to do, and there was a ready market in Australia and New Zealand. The intention was to follow the ute — thanks to the flexibility of having a fibreglass body — with a station wagon and a four-seater soft-top. His plans also included a panel-van version. Roly believed that the ute, dubbed the ‘Toiler’, would outperform a Holden ute in every respect apart from carrying capacity and engine power, which were not required for many inner-city commercial vehicles. It would have been one of the cheapest commercial vehicles on the market.
This time, the engine would be a conventional 1100cc Renault R8 and would be mounted in the front. Roly designed the Toiler so that one man could remove the engine from the car in 12 minutes. As mentioned in last issue’s article, the variomatic gearbox first introduced by DAF (in 1958, for the DAF 600 cars) would connect the engine to the rear wheels. As the ratio constantly varied, there was no need for any other gears, and the shudder experienced by conventional automatic gearboxes as they changed from one gear to the next was non-existent. The gear stick had only three positions: forward, neutral, and reverse. Another unique side effect was that the cars could be driven just as fast in reverse as they could be forwards. The gearboxes were simple to repair and relatively cheap to produce.
Flexible fibreglass
The bodies would be fibreglass, as this material is very economical when building less than 50,000 units per year. It is also easy to change the shape of the car, as moulds are relatively simple to make and alter. The body had several safety features that were only just appearing on mass-production cars, such as impact-absorbing bumpers and a sloping nose to minimize injuries to pedestrians. And being fibreglass, if worst came to worst, it was cheaper and easier to repair than its steel equivalent. The windscreen came from a Mark III Ford Zephyr. The interior was kept simple to allow it to be easily cleaned, as befitted a vehicle that would be used on a muddy farm. It had body-hugging seats designed to hold the occupants in place when encountering rough terrain. Instruments and tail lights were sourced from Toyota.
Once again, along with the financial support of his silent partner, Blair Webster, Roly got on with the job of building the prototype.
The prototype was finished around June 1976 and tested at the Pukekohe racing track. On one occasion during testing at Pukekohe, the car accidentally rolled but survived, and thanks to the flexible properties of a fibreglass body, it suffered relatively little damage. The occupants were only shaken and walked away unharmed. As the car was relatively unharmed, testing continued for the rest of the day.
Renault and Toyota play their cards
Unexpected interest came from the Renault motor company, which was keen to see how its engines were being utilized. The managing director of Renault flew over and was taken for a ride in the Toiler. After seeing the prototype, Renault saw the potential for the little ute in the narrow streets of Europe and offered to be a 50-per-cent partner. With such backing, production would have been assured, but Blair Webster was not so keen on Renault becoming involved and feared the little New Zealand company would quickly be swallowed up by the corporate giant. With the sort of financial clout that Renault could bring, Blair feared that the big business might start insisting on too many changes that would take the vehicle away from its Kiwi roots.
Once the prototype had finished its testing schedule, Roly started on another
10 pre-production vehicles and began to consider what was needed to go into full mass production: approximately 1000 units per year. It was at this point that clouds once again began to appear on the horizon. The Thiess brothers decided to pull out, and Roly lost access to this very important chain of dealers in Australia. Roly believes that this was because Toyota was not keen on having a little Kiwi upstart being sold on the same showroom floor alongside its products. Even though Toyota had nothing intended for Australia that would compete with it at the time, the Toiler was not a Toyota and hence not welcome.
It was way beyond Roly’s and Blair’s private income to finish the development process themselves. Roly started hunting around for other financial backers but was unsuccessful due to what he says was, “the timidity of the New Zealand businessman to take financial risks”. There was hope when a Fijian company, PA Lai & Co Ltd, took out an option to buy the manufacturing rights and copyright to build the vehicle in Fiji, but it also backed out and Roly was left with eight partially built cars and a prototype. He could not afford to continue, so the project was cancelled. The prototype was put into storage and the partially built cars were sold as scrap. There was a second yellow Toiler that was completed. Over the ensuing years, the Crowthers lost track of it. Perhaps this second Toiler also survived and is buried in somebody’s shed somewhere.
A safe pair of hands
It was a sad ending to a great dream. The Japanese obviously thought the idea of a small utility vehicle was worthwhile. The most successful example of this was the Subaru Brumby, which was introduced to New Zealand in the late 1970s. The Brumby would be available here until the early 1990s, with thousands sold. Roly clearly had a marketable vehicle. Even with the benefit of hindsight, it is still hard to imagine what might have happened, as it would have come onto the market only a few years after the demise of the Trekka, a vehicle designed and built in New Zealand that had failed to capture the imagination of the home market.
I met Roly and his son, Roly Jr, at the end of 2010, and they showed me the two cars stored in their Mount Roskill, Auckland, factory.
Three months later, Roly passed away, and I lost track of the cars until this year when a friend told me that he had seen a strange car called the ‘Crowther’ at the Terry Rush Collection in Feilding. Terry had first been introduced to Roly Jr by Colin Waite, a mutual friend. At the time, Roly Jr was intending to sell his Mount Roskill factory. The problem was what to do with the Crowther prototypes. He had offered them to Southward Car Museum in Wellington, but Southward was not interested in taking them unless they came with the ownership as well. As Roly Jr wanted his family to retain ownership of the cars, the deal fell through. Colin suggested that he try his good friend Terry Rush. Roly Jr was aware of Terry’s amazing car collection, and the two got in touch with each other during 2012.
Despite the fact that neither car was mobile, and the Crowther sedan did not even have a motor, Terry knew that he should not pass up this opportunity to be the caretaker of two very unique New Zealand cars. When we visited Terry earlier this year, he had placed the cars on jacks so that I could photograph them. As the cars have been stored inside for most of their existence, they were still in remarkably good condition. Apart from the rotary motor for the sedan, almost all the parts are there. At this stage, Terry has no plans to restore them but is merely looking after them in the hope that their next caretaker will return them to a driveable state. For now, they are safe and in good hands.
The Japanese obviously thought the idea of a small utility vehicle was worthwhile. The most successful example of this was the Subaru Brumby, which was introduced to New Zealand in the late 1970s