Quote:
Originally Posted by arm79
When you're pumping out hundreds of thousands of cars per year then you'd want to hang onto them and they would certainly be desirable for non-car building nations to obtain.
But do you really think an overseas country would have found our little manucturing plants desriable enough to invest mega millions in to build 40,000 cars a year?
Thats an odd way to look at it from someone who worked for a manufacturer.
They weren't told to bugger off, they were asked to "put up or shut up".
We had 2 manufacturers with aging products whose sales were constantly dropping off a cliff. Both their products requires major refreshes and updates at a cost of I'm sure around a couple of billion $$$ and even then these products were fast falling out of favor with the vast manjority of buyers.
So when the line was drawn, they chose to shut up. Its not as if Ford hadn't been half out the door for decades. Holden the same in recent times. Without government funding it just proved they weren't viable businesses. And we all know they/we are too expensive to export from, so nothing there.
They were simply failing businesses that we were throwing good money after bad with no end in sight. It had to come to an end sometime, it was inevitable. To me the blame falls squarely on Ford and Holden, one trick ponies that did nothing to keep up with the times.
And yes, I do think unions probably had something to do with it. Unions have their place, but in Australia they are overlords with too much power. They love nothing more than driving businesses into the ground.
And if it wasn't that, then current costs resources and supplies costs would have killed them off anyways.
If you look at it honestly and without bias you can easily see what happened.
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I just wish the remaining three companies got together and agreed to level out the playing field in terms of what they were building locally.
When you think about it, a large sedan and its derivatives were being built by all three, four if you included Mitsubishi. Once the tariffs were phased out, suddenly other brands and body styles became more desirable and affordable. Which then left Ford, Toyota, Mitsubish and Holden all selling a product that was losing popularity. That factor has been discussed many times over the years.
If the remaining car manufacturers had done some collaborative planning, it could have diversified the locally made car fleet, in the process offering more opportunities for local businesses and governments to stay Australian made.
For example, Mitsubish could have made the Outlander medium SUV locally instead of the 380, catering to private sales and rentals.
Holden could have made another large sedan in the form of the Commodore, while spinning off a Territory-style large SUV. This would appeal to private customers, fleet, taxi and police sales.
Toyota could have made the Corolla hatch/sedan, catering to private, rental and fleets needing a smaller vehicle. The Hilux Ute would then be targeted at tradesman, government departments and police.
Ford could then have made Ranger and Everest, both aimed the private market, with additional sales coming from police and government land services.
That combination would have offered a wider variety of locally produced cars, catering to more applications in both the private and fleet markets rather than them all essentially making the same thing.
In the end, all of them were flogging a dead horse.