Welcome to our Website
To a vast number of Motoring enthusiasts, Sir Laurence (Larry) Hartnett is considered to be the father of the Australian Motor Car Assembly Industry through his efforts to oversee the first Holden produced at the General Motors Assembly Plant , even though he was forced to return to Detroit just months before the release date in November 1948.
What may surprise some is the realisation that Australia had a well established Motor Assembly Industry going back 30 years before the first Holden rolled out of the Holden Assembly Plant at Fisherman’s Bend.
The primary focus of this Website will be to give due recognition to those early Pioneers of the Australian Motor Industry who had the foresight and the blind determination to attempt to establish a viable Motor Car Assembly Industry in Australia.
The deeds of such Pioneers as Charles Innes, Frederick Hugh Gordon, John Joshua Hughes, David Buchanan Martin, Donald Harkness, Joseph Hillier, Christian Fredriksen, William T. Kelly, Clarence Chic and many others have slipped in history without any recognition for the hard work, foresight and risks that they under took to challenge the might of the American and European Car manufacturers thirty years before this feat was achieved by General Motors Holden.
To be successful, the Holden venture needed the full support and backing of Governments (both Federal and State) and also of the Trade Union movement. Contrast this to the total lack of support afforded to these early Pioneers.
We are indeed fortunate in that quite a number of the vehicles assembled by these early Pioneers have survived and through the median of this Website we will endeavour to tell the stories of such long forgotten marques such as The Australian Six, The Pioneer Lincoln Six, Summit, Chic and several other marques, who collectively produced somewhere in the vicinity of 1800 to 2000 cars in the period from 1918 to 1926.
Survival was the order of the day for these early Industrialists, consequently little was documented as far as production numbers, models, sales figures and other statistical information that is churned out by current day manufacturers. Herein is the problem of current day researchers and owners.
What is a relatively simple task for present day car owners to establish Model and Year of manufacture for their pride and joy can be a nightmare for some of the owners and other interested parties for vehicles assembled in the Vintage era.
The friends of this Website have over the past twenty or so years been collecting and collating a vast array of data for such items as casting dates, engine numbers, axle numbers, chassis numbers where available, in an attempt to build a profile of the cars assembled. This information is used by owners to ascertain such fundamental detail as the year of manufacture of a particular car.
Can You Help?
One of the objects of this Website is to create a forum where interested people can share information, a photograph of Grandfather’s Australian Assembled car, whether it be an Australian Six, Lincoln Six, Summit or Chic . A relatively small snippet of information, photo or document may be just the key that is required to unlock one of the many mysteries that are associated with all of these Pioneering men who followed their dreams to establish a viable Motor Assembly ventures.
Please bookmark our Website and make regular visits as we do have quite a wealth of new information that will be placed on this Website as time permits.