£l3m Motor Plant Covers Former Sydney Race Track

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28819, 13 February 1959, Page 13

£l3m Motor Plant Covers Former Sydney Race Track

SYMBOLIC of the rapidly increasing horsepower of Australian industry is the £l3 million engineering plant that has risen on an old race track in Sydney, New South Wales. Where thoroughbred champions once galloped at Victoria Park, 1000 motor-vehicles now roll off the assembly line each week. The grandstands, saddling paddock and turf oval /have disappeared. The 57-acre racecourse at Zetland, only three\ miles from the heart of the city, now carries huge workshops, assembly lines, offices and concrete roadways. From it the British Motor Corporation (Australia), Ltd., is producing several types of motor-cars and trucks formerly shipped from Britain or assembled from imported parts. By 1965 the company expects to have more than 600,000 of its vehicles on highways throughout Australia and south-east Asia. This is only one of several car. manufacturers now supplying a nation which ranks as the world’s fourth most motorised nation. Special steels are milled in New South Wales; castings for engines, electrical equipment, glass and rubber come from Victoria; wheels are made in South Australia and exhaust pipes* in Queensland. Two hundred contractors and suppliers have found new markets worth £lO million a year. In addition, many subcontractors in different States are kept busy manufacturing motor parts. Subsidiary

B.M.C. (Australia) is the subsidiary of a British company, formed in 1951, to take over the Morris and Austin interests. Three years later the Australian company came into existence, planning to build new workshops and assembly lines at Zetland where English cars had been assembled for the local market since 1950. Today it has a large measure of autonomy and plans to invite Australian investment within the next few years.

By' 1958, with half its projected plant completed, the pany had attained a production figure of 50,000 vehicles a W?. Further expansion is going on rapidly. When the plant reaches full capacity, B.M.C. plans to spend £25 million annually on materials and equipment ordered within Australia.

A notable feat was celebrated on July 29, 1958, when the 50,000 th Morris Minor produced in Australia came off the assembly line. The new plant is stream-lined and ultra-modern. Because it is new, it has some features that are in advance* of anything the motor industry possesses in other countries. In various operations it comes close to automation.

The unit factory is ’ a good example. This M&re engines, transmission and suspension are manufactured, and components assembled into complete units. A single building, it covers four acres. The interior is like an abstract of the New Guinea jungle v You enter a forest of tubular steel, wiring, steam piping, and conveyor belts, most of it vertically laced throughout the vast shop like hanging vines and jungle liana. On ground level, dense ranks of machinery force you to change direction constantly. The uproar of production makes talking difficult. 39 Operations

There is one type of machine here that carries out 39 separate operations and needs only a single man to control it This is the multiple-purpose transfer machine which converts rough castings into cylinder blocks. A series of these machines is in operation, used for drilling, boring, milling, reaming .spot-facing and tapping. They work under push-button control, operated by electrical relays, and automatically show the cause of any stoppage or breakdown by indicator lights. It is impressive to watch these castings being transformed into finished engines, borne slqwly along on endless belts, without

the intervention of human hands.

By comparison, the great press shop is conceived in terms of space and massive independent structures. This is where, at the touch of a lever, sheet steel takes on the curved outline of a motor body. Tall, cleanly painted presses flank long wide aisles; some weigh 750 tons and are set in concrete foundations deep under floor level. Heavy overhead cranes and a 400 ft conveyor belt carry these embryo bodies along to the stage where they acquire doors, boots, bonnets and grilles and then pass, across an overhead bridge, into the assembly building nearby. This, when completed, will be by far the largest of all shops. Total length is 570 ft, with 300 ft separating its side walls. It has 900 ft of floor tracks, while its overhead conveyors cover 4600 ft. The first section, ' where body shells are painted, again largely by automatic means, is a model of remote control. This is the rotodip. Patterned on the elaborate system used by B.M.C. in Britain, it is even more modern in conception.

The B.M.C. plant as a whole is an outstanding example of thoughtful planning and compact design. Even so, its planners have had to spread themselves over a very large area. To make an inspection of its main operations

requires a walk of nearly five miles. A vast amount of organisation has likewise been essential to arrange for the distribution of finished cars and trucks over a continent the size of Australia. A large network of distributors, agents, showrooms, and sales staff' has been built up in all States. Many Problems

The supply of ''replacements and spare parts has likewise caused many problems. Based on that forecast of having 600 000 vehicles on the roads by 1965, the company estimates that at least 50,000 different types of spare parts will be needed to keep them in service. The present parts store, occupying 52.000 square feet, is to be nearly trebled in size at a cost of £1 million. Within two years the output of spares and accessories is expected to reach 20 tons each day, rising to 30 tons by 1965. They will be supplied to the public through 15 distributors in the main cities, 1300 dealers and 10.000 garages.

The difficulties of meeting an urgent demand for some part can be imagined, when the breakdown may have occurred in Perth, 2000 miles away, or in north Queensland, a distance as far as from London to New York or Cairo. (Commonwealth of Australia News and Information Bureau.)