Holden’s role in Adelaide
RICHARD ABBOTT: How Holden shaped Adelaide (Tim Horton, InDaily, August 19, 2013) could have easily had a completely different story ending if it had not been for the 1953 Redex Round Australia Trial. A then unknown driver, Les ”Possum” Kipling from Leigh Creek and his navigator John Hughes from Quorn, in their brand new Holden were among 192 vehicle crews that departed Sydney to drive on the then extremely rugged outback tracks around Australia. Possum, together with four other crews arrived in Melbourne for the final stage, having travelled a rough and dusty 6,000 miles (9,600km) without losing a solitary penalty point.
In the last leg to Sydney, in an especially arranged off-road stage, Possum’s Holden broke a U bolt, forcing him to finished a credible tenth. While not winning the trial, Holden’s endurance was proved and acclaimed to be up with the world’s best vehicles. This caused then flagging sales to literally soar overnight and therefore ensure Holden’s future success.
How do I remember so much? In September 1953, my country one-man school teacher drew a blue outline map of Australia on the blackboard and every day extended the meandering pink line to show us the Redex Trial route.
Today, motorists can view a plaque at Port Wakefield acknowledging Possum Kipling’s epic Redex Trial feat – a feat that proved the reliability of Australia’s own Holden to the Australian motoring public and at the time unknowingly shaped Holden Adelaide’s future into the 21st century.
MARGARET BOLSTER: Fabulous article by Tim Horton. It is indeed worth reaching for more anthropological framework to make sense of where we’re at as a nation, as a car manufacturer, and at moment when most decisions are being taken in the context of hubris, power and greed, feed into a collective hunger for truth and inspiration.
It’s certainly not enough to throw a bag of cash at the problem: too quick, too easy with someone else’s money, if the outcome is to be a relic of the past.
But it is very useful to turn the pages of history back to post-war Germany and the story of the Volkswagen Beetle -the peoples’ car.
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In 2013/14 the equivalent would be a subset of the Prius: self-charging batteries, a small/sleek/simple statement, easy to park, cheap to maintain, not your ridiculous plug-in to the greedy grid concept but self-sufficient; a statement for the many who are tired of endless choice, of technology leapfrogging over itself to beat yesterday’s bright idea; a kangaroo, perhaps a wallaby, to export to the weary battlers of Europe and Asia.
Now that would be worth Holdenizing.
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