FAMILY CAR FOR NEW ZEALAND

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31477, 18 September 1967, Page 1

FAMILY CAR FOR NEW ZEALAND

Auckland Plans To Mass Produce

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, September 17. Plans for mass producing a car in New Zealand designed specially for the New Zealand market and containing a high proportion of locally made components will be put before the Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr Marshall) and the Minister of Customs (Mr Shelton) next week.

Behind the plans is the Aucklandbased group of companies, Australian and New Zealand Industrial Engineering, Ltd, which has had the prototype car under test in New Zealand for the last four months.

Tonight Mr Shelton said he and Mr Marshall would look at any proposal with interest. But, he said, “because of the financial situation the Government has no plans for granting further import licences in the motor industry at the moment.”

The car, a family five-seater with a top speed of more than 90 miles an hour, could be on New Zealand's roads next year with Government approval to import engines, gearboxes and instruments, Mr I. O. Gibbs, managing director of the group, said today. It would cost about 52400. He claims that the project would save “many thousands of pounds” of overseas exchange and would alleviate the shortage of new cars. Sir Laurence Harnett, who has been described as the father of the Australian car industry, has been retained as the technical adviser for the scheme.

Between 1934 and 1947 he was managing director' of General Motors-Holden’s, Ltd, Australia, and conceived and establishe.. the Holden factory.

Mr Gibbs said that' though a European organisation was providing the main technical consulting support, Sir Laurence Harnett’s wide experience in organising motor vehicle production was considered most valuable to the group’s plans. He said that the major feature was that the car had been designed throughout so that it could be manufactured by methods most suited to New Zealand’s engineering capacity.

Not Economic AU motor-cars at present assembled in New Zealand had been designed to be manufactured by sophisticated methods appropriate to the mass production industries of their own countries.

These methods were quite uneconomic to duplicate in New Zealand, and by designing the vehicle for New Zealand conditions it would have at any level of production a significantly higher New Zealand content than imported, locally assembled vehicles. He said the company manufacturing the vehicle would be New Zealand-controlled and the public would have an opportunity to participate at some stage. 4000 A Year Sir Laurence Harnett said they would aim to produce 4000' cars annually, rising to perhaps 10,000. He estimated that in the initial stages 200 men would be employed, with a further 200 employed by sub-contractors.

The capital of the company involved and the likely factory site were labelled “confidential” by Mr Gibbs, who said the prototype car would be unveiled at a later stage. Mr Gibbs said the Anziel group had been working on the car with its associates for three years.