National Archives of Australia curator Anna Edmundson next to the oldest Holden registered in the ACT. Photo: James Coleman.
The joke among staff is that Teslas might not find themselves welcome in the carpark at the National Archives of Australia over the next few months.
“We’ve banned all Teslas from coming anywhere near the archives,” curator Anna Edmundson laughs.
The reason is what Ms Edmundson has spent years helping bring to Canberra – an exhibition devoted to the little-known stories behind the rise and fall of one of Australia’s most-loved brands, Holden.
And somewhere along the way, she’s caught the bug herself.
“In fact, I was talking to the Canberra Classic Holden Club about getting myself an old one, and doing it up,” she says.
Putting the exhibition together has tempted Ms Edmundson to get her own old Holden. Photo: James Coleman.
For Ms Edmundson, that’s part of what makes Holden such a fascinating subject.
“You wouldn’t be like, ‘Oh, I’m a Kellogg’s guy’. But there is something about Holden. That real sense of identity, sense of pride – not just obviously in the factories, but also Australians in general.
“Many of my father’s friends would only buy a Holden – they would never buy a Japanese car. And then obviously, you’ve got the whole Holden versus Ford thing.”
Open daily at the National Archives from 12 June, Rear vision: the Holden collection explores the company’s journey from humble origins as a South Australian saddlery in the 1850s to becoming an Australian manufacturing icon before, ultimately, its sad demise in 2017.
Ms Edmundson expects visitors to be most surprised by the fact that Holden existed almost a century before its first car.
“We have a 1948 Holden FX in the foyer for the duration of the exhibition – the oldest Holden registered in the ACT,” she says.
“But the company actually started 100 years earlier.”
Founded by immigrant saddle-maker James Holden, the business first left its name on horse-drawn buggies and Melbourne tram bodies before entering the automotive space through a deal with General Motors in 1931.
“One of the things that comes out from our archives is how inventive James Holden was right from the beginning,” Ms Edmundson said.
At the outbreak of war, Australia suddenly found itself in a very precarious place, fed only by supply lines.
Spurred on by prime minister Robert Menzies’ rallying cry of “all in”, the country immediately doubled down on efforts to build military aircraft, engines and vehicles domestically.
Holden stepped into the breach, helping produce everything from munitions to military vehicles and aircraft parts.
Holden’s first engine was for something much bigger than a car. Photo: James Coleman.
“It was a huge period of innovation for the company,” Ms Edmundson says.
Among the exhibition’s centrepieces is the Gypsy Major aircraft engine – significant because it predates any Holden car engine.
“This is actually the first Holden engine – so, way before they made a car engine, they made an aeroplane engine.”
The war effort also dramatically expanded Holden’s workforce, with women also making up around 35 per cent of employees at some factories.
An ‘interactive’ portion of the exhibition invites visitors to submit their own designs for a future Holden. Photo: James Coleman.
Ms Edmundson believes Australia’s first fully manufactured car may have arrived much later without the pressures of wartime.
“I think it absolutely sped it up, 100 per cent,” she says.
“It needed that push, it needed the government’s support, but it also needed a level of – not just technology, but – self-confidence.”
That confidence culminated in the launch of the Holden 48-215 in 1948 – a car most Australians now know by a different name.
“The original name was 48-215,” Ms Edmundson said.
“But as soon as the FJ got released … everyone started calling it the FX, and that’s based on the name of a particular new part in later models.”
It turns out Holden changed the front suspension on the car a few years in, with the abbreviation for “front crossmember” – “FX” – pencilled onto the parts list by GM designers.
Subsequent names, like the Torana, Camira, and Maloo were taken from First Nations languages – even if the peoples weren’t always consulted.
“They just plucked them out of dictionaries – at that period in time, they didn’t talk to the First Nations people about what the words actually meant.”
The archives exhibition also focuses on the people behind the cars, drawing heavily on oral histories from former Holden workers.
That connection extended to Australian music icon Jimmy Barnes, whose family worked at Holden’s Elizabeth plant. Archives staff even invited him to perform at the exhibition launch (he declined, unfortunately).
“It would have been nice if he’d come and perform for free for us,” Ms Edmundson laughed.
“We did ask.”
A 1:3 scale model of the Holden VE Commodore. Photo: James Coleman.
Another labour of love involved a detailed Lego Holden model that missed the initial deadline for installation in the exhibition space, but a staff member’s family came to the rescue and pieced it together over the King’s Birthday long weekend.
“Our colleague Grace deserves a bloody medal for that, her and her two young daughters,” she said.
The exhibition concludes with Holden’s closure in 2017, a chapter Ms Edmundson describes as “a very, very sad story”.
“It was just too expensive. We were getting cheaper models from Japan and Korea. Cars were getting smaller. They were getting more technologically advanced, and it was considered not financially sustainable.”
To the point it deserves a firm stand from the archives against modern rivals – like Tesla.
Rear vision: the Holden collection is open every day, 9 am to 5 pm, from 12 June to 11 October. Entry is free. Visit the NAA website for more information.
