Written by Jeff Powell, Cobb+Co Museum
October 2017 marks the end of motor vehicle building in Australia, but the industry goes back further than most people realise. The first car with a ‘Holden’ badge was built in 1948, but Holden in Adelaide had been building car bodies for General Motors’ Chevs, Pontiacs and Vauxhalls since the 1920s. GM-Holden had assembly plants in other state capital cities by the 1930s. Ford Australia also had assembly plants in Australian capital cities since the mid-1920s. Yet vehicle building in Australia began even a century before the earliest motor cars.
