Holden in the bush: Why rural Australia fell in love with our homegrown car

BEFORE LandCruisers, Land Rovers and Patrols, the bush belonged to Holden — and tough, easy-to-fix early models might roll down country roads long after the last VF Commodores have carked it.

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BEFORE LandCruisers, Land Rovers, Patrols and SUVs, the bush belonged to Holden.

Four-wheel-drive just meant four wide tyres with which to plough through sand and mud, and traction control was a bag of wheat in the boot. Repairs could be made with a spanner or a screwdriver, maybe even just a good thump with a hammer, and a well-placed block of wood could hold a suspension together for hundreds of country miles which, long before we called them kilometres, included unsealed highways between capital cities. Holden won more sales in the suburbs, but its reputation for toughness and reliability was born in the sticks.

“It’s the bloodline of the country,” says 74-year-old Maurice “Mozzie” McMahon, of Port Augusta, and he is one of many rural Australians who have followed that line right to the end.

Maurice 'Mozzie' McMahon, of Port Augusta, with his restored 1954 FJ Holden panelvan. Picture: BERNARD HUMPHREYS

He started driving early Holdens as a teenager and, as the carmaker has begun to wind up manufacturing in recent years, he has restored a 1954 FJ panel van. “I always wanted a shaggin’ wagon,” jokes the former power station worker, truck driver and station hand who has bush-bashed Holdens through outback terrains from here to Perth.

“When we used to go out kangarooin’, we’d put the wide wheels from a Ford Fairlane on the FJs and they’d go through anything, up sandhills or anything, better than a Land Rover,” he says, then explaining that after the blood and guts of a hunting trip was hosed out, he and his mates would use the cars to take their girlfriends to weekend dances.

Mozzie is perhaps typical of the rural Australian who discovered a cheap, tough Australian-made car many decades ago and stuck with it, says Holden historian Don Loffler.

Maurice 'Mozzie' McMahon said he “always wanted a shaggin’ wagon”. Picture: BERNARD HUMPHREYS

“The conservative population of Australia took the Holden to their hearts because it proved so tough and so reliable,” he says.

“People couldn’t believe it, because the roads we had in 1949 (when the first Holdens were delivered) were absolutely appalling. The road wasn’t sealed all the way from Adelaide to Melbourne. These Holdens were driven hard over these terrible roads and nothing ever fell off. This amazed people.

“And if you did strike any problems with them, there were 500 dealerships around Australia so, for the first time, a family could undertake an interstate journey with confidence”.

The 77-year-old, who grew up in the little SA Mallee farming town of Wanbi, says his own mum and dad packed five kids into their 48-215 (FX) Holden and headed off across the Nullarbor track (there was no highway then) from Perth.

The cars were far from perfect, he says, and General Motors had cut every corner possible to save money, but Australians had forgiven the Lion its failings, which included a terrifying lack of stability and a tendency to roll.

“Farmers used to put a wheat bag in the boot. I’ve heard of workers at (smelter town) Port Pirie putting steel bars in the boot.”

Mr Loffler says he is “very confident” that Holdens will be beating about the Australian bush for many decades beyond the closure of the plant at Elizabeth this week, as does National Motor Museum senior curator Mick Bolognese, who is currently running a free exhibition of the famed Bush Mechanics EJ Holden stationwagon at the Torrens Parade Ground.

The EJ Holden wagon as it appeared on Bush Mechanics. Now on show in Adelaide, the car has lost its roof, which was cut off and turned into a trailer. Picture: National Film and Sound Archive

The rolling, working ruin was the star of the cult TV show, which featured members of central Australia’s Yuendumu community dealing with broken vehicles in the remote outback.

“They (Holdens) have always been built tough and they’ve proved their worth in the Outback,”: Mr Bolognese says.

“And something like an EJ, even if you’re not particularly mechanically minded, you can pop the bonnet and work out what’s going on underneath. Also, there’s plenty of parts, and even if you don’t have parts you can make things outs of mulga and spinifex and things like that.”

“Some of the older ones, like FJs, might outlive the (current model) VF Commodore ... in 50 years, with the VF, it might be really hard to fix some of the things that go wrong with them, whereas these purely mechanical machines ... people probably will know how to fix them even 200 years from now, so I do think these Holdens will be around for a long time.”