Assembly plant closes

Press, 20 August 1984, Page 28

Assembly plant closes

PA Wellington Vehicle production has ended at New Zealand’s oldest motor-assembly plant General Motors’ Petone plant was the first big one to build cars in New Zealand, beginning in August, 1926, with a four-cylinder Chevrolet sedan. Assembly of Bedford trucks began in 1931. During the war the plant produced Bren gun carriers. It resumed car production in 1947 and produced its 100,000 th vehicle, a Vauxhall

series E, in 1952. Holdens were first produced at Petone in 1957. With the opening of GM’s Trentham plant in 1967, the Petone works concentrated on refrigerator production and the assembly of commercial vehicles and components. It began assembling Bedford CF vans in 1977, and 9072 were built by the time the final unit came off the assembly line last week. Axle tubes continue to be assembled at Petone, but ally until the end of this .’ffljnth, when the plant will

close. When GM announced last year that the plant would . close, 277 people were employed there. The last 155 leave this month, taking early retirement, redundancy, or jobs at the Trent- • ham plant. The sha Petone plant has been bought by the Owens Group, mainly for container storage and warehousing. Part of it will be leased by a Wainuiomata-based company, Brugger Industries, to expand its production, of pr&ed-steel trailers fof’ export. ‘ '■