Several interesting broadcasts are linked from this.
Roderick
Podcast: The ‘seeds of Holden’s demise’. Where it all went wrong for GMH Adelaide 'Advertiser' October 12, 2017.
THE “seeds of Holden’s demise” weren’t planted amid the recent turbulence of a changing global economy but way back in 1948, with the resignation of the visionary head of the company’s Australian arm, Laurence Hartnett, Adelaide historian Don Loffler argues.
Hartnett, an Englishman and former director at Vauxhall Motors, was headhunted by General Motors to rescue the company’s ailing Australian operations in 1934.
In 1944, he was charged with delivering Australia’s first fully locally produced car, the 48-215, which was finally launched in 1948 and became affectionately known as the “FX”.
But the brash Hartnett clashed with General Motors’ American managers over the styling of the front mudguards or “fenders” of the first Holden.
Hartnett thought building the fenders into the side of the car in a single panel would make the car more economical to produce but GM passed on Hartnett’s design and went instead with a rejected GM prototype.
So upset was he at the parent company’s decision, Hartnett resigned and, sadly, wasn’t invited to the unveiling of the car by Prime Minister Chifley in 1948.
Don Loffler, who has written several books on Holden’s early history, argues Hartnett’s departure was the beginning of the end for the company.
“I’m going to argue that the seeds of Holden’s demise were sown right from the start, that Holden was destined to be behind the times for decades”, Loffler says in a new episode of The Advertiser’s local history podcast Heaps Good History.
“General Motors wanted to be in command of the whole project to produce this new Australian car and their ideas as to what the car should look like, were different and dare I say it, behind the times”.
“General Motors was not going to be lectured by an Australian - well, he was an Englishman, really, but he’d become ‘too Australian’ according to General Motors.
“Of course they won out but then Hartnett argued so vigorously with them that eventually ended up with this awful compromise of a car with two separate mudguards.
“Now that was not the way of the future at all, not even the General Motors way. So the very first Holden was old-fashioned when it came out.”
“Hartnett was a visionary and this was proved again and again. He was ahead of the game”
“So, I ask, what would have happened if Hartnett stayed on, if they’d given him his wish, I suggest it would be a very different company, right through.”
Loffler says GMH became so “deluded by the runaway success” of the first Holden and the subsequent the FJ and FE models, which were popular, solid and reliable cars but cut corners on the most basic features “to save money”.
“It’s what I call short-term gain for long-term pain,” Loffler says.
“When the FE Holden comes out, finally, in 1956, with a nice piece of styling, can you believe that turn indicators were only put onto the Holden special model?
“Please don’t try and tell me it was too expensive; they were not trying.
“By the time GMH woke up to themselves it was too late.”
“They’d lost the sales and you can’t suddenly put airconditioning, windscreen washers, all the goodies, radios, onto a car in one go.
“When you realise you’ve lost the plot, you can’t do that - it’s economically impossible.
“And I suggest that they dropped the ball and it was never to be picked up again, or when it was it was too late.”
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