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... PICTURE SET CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() In June 1954, Bert Kransen, the President of Chevrolet in the US decided to mount a takeover of Holden in Australia knowing that at the time, most Australians were still driving Vanguards, Zephyrs, auxhalls, Simcas and Chrysler Centuras and not buying Holdens in great numbers and especially, he thought, pre-1948 Holdens. After initiating the Holden takeover Bert Kransen sold all of his shares in Chevrolet to raise the required capital. In July 1954, it emerged that Holden was already owned by General Motors, the parent company of Chevrolet! President Kransen resigned later on that day, however Bert Kransen got Chevrolet thinking. What if Chevrolet and Holden could build a car together, thus catering to both the American and Australian markets. This way they could utilise the same chassis platform, running gear and engines. Even the radios could be used for both vehicles with the Australian car having a very large aerial in order to pick up American radio stations, which were the only ones available at the time. A centralised driving position would be compulsory to eliminate messy and outdated safety laws that required the steering wheels and gloveboxes to be placed on opposite sides of the dashboard in the USA and Australia. Australians preferred their gloveboxes in front of the passenger instead of the driver. Chevrolet had been building larger versions of Holden designed cars for many years. For example the 1957 Chevrolet Belair was almost an exact copy of the 1962 EK Holden Special. It is not well known that the V8 engined Belair had only six working pistons, the remaining two pistons could not be produced within the allocated budget. Chevrolet had already designed and produced their new 3 dimensional chrome V8 badge and were too embarrassed to change it after they realised that the cost of producing an actual V8 with eight operational cylinders was going to be far too expensive. It was decided that six cylinders would be enough and hardly any one would notice. Customers would marvel at the economy and not marvel very much at the lack of power. And not to mention the rattling noises coming from two conrods slapping around inside the engine block which only occurred after the engine was started up. At the same time, back in Australia, Hubert Quinn was a young car designer working at Holdenıs design studio at Fishermanıs Bend in Melbourne, Victoria. He was commissioned to work on a futuristic prototype for the 1970ıs which was still 15 years away. He needed plenty of time as full scale clay models could often take up to four years to dry and even longer before they could actually be driven. Hubert Quinn or HQ as he was better known, was approached by his GM counterpart from the US, who was on an exchange program, to share some of his ideas with the design department in Detroit as part of a feasibility study into building the Australian and American joint venture vehicle. However back in the 1950ıs there werenıt the luxuries we have today such as the internet or the telephone. All communication had to be carried out through the post or by using Morse Code which didnıt work very well at night time. This slight communication problem could explain why the doors were eventually welded up to meet safety regulations in both countries. Someone had misinterpreted the law in regards to kerbside parking, which in the two countries would be on different sides of the road and would be illegal and dangerous for passengers to alight from a vehicle especially into on-coming traffic. Traffic from the rear was deemed safer as the drivers were normally heading home and were tired. When reading the regulations they missed a couple of important words such as in Paragraph 32 which read: "Drivers should not be able to alight from a MOVING vehicle using the passenger door." After this error was noticed it was too late to change it as the doors were already welded up and the Design Department had closed for the day. The 1955 HQ Belair Monaro was an instant success, however only in Cuba. The central driving position was troublesome in that there were quite a few accidents where passengers either side would accidently bump the driver, causing the car to swerve and crash. For taxi drivers this became quite uneconomical combined with the early beta version of the Global Positioning System (GPS) that was often out by up to 120 degrees when turned on. However in later years the McClaren F1 Sports Car would copy this design after a Chief McClaren designer caught a HQ Belair Taxi home whilst drunk one night. The next morning it inspired him to create a one million dollar sports car with a centralised driving position and seating for three people, none of who could see or talk to each other. This tall tale came to us from Andy Ryan. He has created over 80 different cars made from all kinds of cars. He says he enjoys this website. Being in Australia, he's curious as to what people in the U.S. think of the Monaro. The story was inspired by GM's decision to finally build an Aussie car after 80 years of building American cars. Yeah, he put a bit of a twist in there! CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() CLICK-> ![]() ![]() |
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