A sort of Holden & GMH History

Sarge wrote:

another find

credit Frank Robins and Thomas Maher on FB

Sarge
Is that Fleetways car hauler prime mover a Holden or GMC or something else?????

Brocky45,
I am surprised that nobody has answered your question, so I will have a go. No doubt those who know more than me (or think they know more) will howl me down. My source references include the books "History of Holden" by Norm Darwin, "Horses to Horsepower" by S A Cheney and several others, although it is many years since I read them.
I think the Prime Mover you asked about has GMC at the front of the grille. They used the same sheet metal as Chevrolet, their parent company within the General Motors group.
Holden never used their name on anything larger than a car or car-based light commercial vehicle.
General Motors started in Australia by purchasing the motor body builder Holden and Frost, or Holden Brothers and Frost (depending on which reference you read) in the mid 1920's, that is the source of the name.
The companies, variously called General Motors Australia, General Motors Holden, or Holden Motor Company, started by building bodies for many makes of cars from USA, Britain and Europe, when the Australian Government had a much higher tariff on complete cars, than on incomplete ones. This was an attempt to support the body building industry which had lost most of its horse drawn vehicle work with the advent of the motor vehicle.

In later years the company developed the "Australian" car, the Holden, which started with a rejected styling exercise, seen by the then head of General Motors Australia in a visit to the Pontiac works in USA in 1946. The first three prototype Holdens were built in USA.

The companies imported Vauxhall cars and Bedford trucks from General Motors in Britain, all the cars, including Marquette and Yellow Cab, and the trucks built by General Motors USA, (I have the remains of a Yellow Knight truck from the mid 1920's) along with Maple Leaf trucks from General Motors Canada. Many of the trucks were supplied with Holden motors.

For many years, the Holden Companies built bodies for, or assembled many of the vehicles they imported, attaching their body plate to them all. Many Australians, not being vehicle enthusiasts, think that the "Holden" or "Body by Holden" badge means that their old vehicle is a Holden.

In the 1970's, the company introduced the Holden Commodore, which it advertised as the first "World Car" that was to be sold in USA as (I think) a Chevrolet, in Britain as a Vauxhall, in Germany as an Opel, and a few others, with parts sourced from whichever country in the world could supply them most "efficiently" (read "cheapest")

Recently, after accepting millions of dollars in subsidies from the Government, General Motors announced it was withdrawing from the Australian market and no cars are built here now.

Mid 1970’s the company announced it was not economically viable to build a 4WD in Australia. We got the One Tonner.
Japanese came, evaluated the market and produced a variety of 4 X 4 vehicles suited to Aussie and world conditions. Most parked up their Land Rovers and bought them.
What a wasted opportunity!
Government officials could have asked GM what needs to change so it would be viable.
Just my view from back then.

In the early 2000s, dunno exactly when
Holden made what I believe was very ahead of it's time, Commodore wagon 4x4 and Commodre 1 tonner 4x4

Very much a go anywhere machine and a pretty good deal but a little ahead of their time

They sold them okay but not in big enough numbers to warrant production

I dunno how many years they tried to make them, maybe 5 years

In the 70's a company called Overland made Holdens into 4x4 using I think Dana components

We (the Princess and myself) have had 4x4 Commodore wagon and one tonners for many years now and have had a fairly good run out of them

Paul

www.carsales.com.au/cars/holden/overlander

Paul, my recollection is that these were very expensive when first released and initially only in the top trim level (Adventra, anyway, but may be remembering this wrong).
Likewise the Commodore panel van.
About the same time, Ford released the Territory which was a roaring success, as I recall. Unlike the Adventra, it didn't just look like a slightly jacked up wagon. Still see plenty of those.

Jarrod.

Dunno Jarrod, the adventra we bought cost us less than a standard Falcon wagon

It was a runout deal and the 1 tonner equivalent was on the lot for a couple of years when I done a deal
But I feel your probably spot on about the pricing but I couldn't comment for sure as I never even considered a Holden until I bought these
I was a Ford man


Paul

An hour or two after I contributed my reply to Brocky45, I remembered the name of the man who chose the Pontiac design to be the first Holden. It was Lawrence (later Sir Lawrence) Hartnett, who, I believe, was the last Australian to be head of General Motors Australia.
After he left GMH, he designed and built several examples of the Hartnett car. Rumour has it that the three major car builders in Australia at the time, Holden, Ford and Chrysler, put pressure on the steel producers to stop them selling panel steel to him, so he was unable to mass produce the cars.

I have never seen a Holden Four-Wheel-Drive (except for the miriad Japanese? models from the 1990's and more recent) but I have seen several of the Ford Falcon 4 x 4's that were offered in the 1980's.

The Holden (car based) One Tonners were built to take advantage of an anomaly in Australian taxation laws. In order to qualify for the commercial vehicle tax concession, the vehicles had to be supplied with sides and tailgate. These were hinged and easily removable. Many of these parts were removed as soon as the new owner took delivery of them and were never used. I learned this when I worked in the Head Office of a large pastoral company.

I once met Colin Box, a Melbourne man who showed Holden how to make a four-door, six-seater Ute (that is a Pickup truck to you, Brocky) and Wagon. He purchased the components from Holden and his build was so good that his vehicles carried a full Holden Warranty. After a few years, Holden realized how many he was selling, so refused to sell him more and themselves built a similar vehicle.

Colin Box was from Colac not Melbourne
I went to school with his boy

Paul