It’s an anniversary many Australian car fanatics never thought would happen, but the end of local manufacturing hit hard and the Repco Garage provides an insight on the journey towards it.
Since the late 1890s, Australia first constructed various cars due to the convenience of doing so due to the isolated location of the continent.
It wasn’t until 1925 when Ford announced its entry into Australian manufacturing by announcing its local headquarters in Geelong.
General Motors followed in 1948 with the launch of its Holden brand, Leyland Australia in 1950 and Toyota through Australian Motor Industries arrived in 1963.
Chrysler was next in 1951 and Nissan in 1966 were also around marking a strong time for the local industry, with other makes also among those including Volkswagen.
By the start of the 1990s, there were five manufacturers constructing cars in Australia and it didn’t take long until the first pulled the pin.
Back in 1981, Mitsubishi bought out Chrysler to take over its Tonsley Park facility in and two years later Leyland Australia ceased to exist.
Next to go was Nissan in 1992 leaving Mitsubishi, Holden, Ford and Toyota to uphold the Aussie honour not only locally, but importing as well.
Mitsubishi was next after the failure of the Mitsubishi 390 based heavily on the American Galant, but the writing was on the wall for the others.
Ford was first to announce it was withdrawing in May 2013 doing so on October 20, 2016.
General Motors and Holden were next to announce its leaving in December 2013, before doing it a year after Ford on the exact same date.
This left Toyota, but only briefly as it announced its departure in February 10, 2014 and was all wrapped ip on October 3, 2017.
It’s disappointing Australia’s manufacturing industry has ended and no matter what the reason was, it’d be awesome to get back.