158 replies to this topic

[Heath]

I'm continuing to really enjoy this stuff! Thanks for your effort in researching & sharing it with us.

[308 Sunbird]

^ Couldn't of said it better myself H, very interesting stuff.

[Shiney005]

Thanks Ross. I knew a bit about Trentham, but nothing of Petone.  Do you know if they had a T or P after the body number on the BODY plate?  (Melbourne has M, Adelaide has A etc)

[neglectedtorana]

Thanks for all the info Laurie,

 

I will have to read more of this later when I have more time.

I do find the demise of Holden and Ford quite sad, not just because I love our cars but not having a manufacturing industry is such a waste of this great country and its hard working people and I do think there was a lot of short sighted government policy that led to the demise.

 

While driving in Temora earlier in the year I met a guy who worked at Pagewood who had bought an SLR he built there, he didn't still have it. He was so happy to see my car and appreciated that it looked very similar to original and was quite passionate about Holdens and I like to think a lot of our cars were built by passionate people who cared.

 

Safe driving everyone, Tom

[ewe-one]

Petone plant seems to be very much a GM VAP, so in the early days made mostly chevrolets and other GM brands including trucks.  Later vauxhalls and holdens.  I beleive it was later used to assemble fridgadire stuff.

 

Trentham was mainly holden assembly - HD, HQ, Torana, and commodores etc. - I guess as CKD units.  Vauxhalls may have also be assembled there.

 

I owned a 4 door S orchid 73 LJ some years ago that was a trentham car.  From memory there was only one identification plate located on the LH side of the rad panel, completely different from the Australian plates, and no compliance, ID or body number stamped on the wheel house.  It included a VIN/chassis no - in may case was 8B69DCZ7559580. Could Z7 be the assembly plant code?  

 

Never owned a Petone car so can't say what the plant code was.  

 

Sorry, don't know a whole lot about either of these plants other than they existed but I now have a quriosity to find out more.  I'm a member of the Wellington Vintage Car Club so will ask around and keep you posted.

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[Shiney005]

I owned a 4 door S orchid 73 LJ some years ago that was a trentham car.  From memory there was only one identification plate located on the LH side of the rad panel, completely different from the Australian plates, and no compliance, ID or body number stamped on the wheel house.  It included a VIN/chassis no - in may case was 8B69DCZ7559580. Could Z7 be the assembly plant code?  

That VIN number is similar to Aussie LH's. LJ's were a bit different. Z7 is probably plant and production line, but 559580 is a lot of cars to come out of Trentham I would have thought.

[ewe-one]

Did look a bit odd.  The reg papers lists it as 559580 however in the log book seems to be 55958C.  The plate is around somewhere, but that's the trouble - it's SOMEWHERE!

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[ewe-one]

That VIN number is similar to Aussie LH's. LJ's were a bit different. Z7 is probably plant and production line, but 559580 is a lot of cars to come out of Trentham I would have thought.

Prehaps it's all GMNZ vehicles produced.  If you look at the previous post 3rd attachment has a picture of the first car out of the Trentham plant that was the 271,392nd vehicle produced by GMNZ in 1967.   Could be possible to produce another 288,188 vehicles in 6 years.  Of course this is all speculation.

[yel327]

The Z prefix is simply the start of the PSN. Just like L, H and J. Pagewood started at H500000. Elizabeth started at L100000, Mosman Park at H600000. The Z sequence may have started at Z500000 or Z600000, not sure. It includes all vehicles assembled there so if there was any Chevys or Bedfords or whatever, they'll be included in that PSN sequence. Note that PSN's as we are talking started with the first HK's around September 1967. Prior to that there was a separate PSN system which is the little tag on the firewall, it reset a few times though whereas the system started with HK just counted up until it reached its maximum in most cases and went back to the start, eg Acacia Ridge reached H499999 and reset back to H100000, however Elizabeth just kept on going through the Mosman Park L600000 numbers. 

Thanks for all the info Laurie,

 

I will have to read more of this later when I have more time.

I do find the demise of Holden and Ford quite sad, not just because I love our cars but not having a manufacturing industry is such a waste of this great country and its hard working people and I do think there was a lot of short sighted government policy that led to the demise.

 

While driving in Temora earlier in the year I met a guy who worked at Pagewood who had bought an SLR he built there, he didn't still have it. He was so happy to see my car and appreciated that it looked very similar to original and was quite passionate about Holdens and I like to think a lot of our cars were built by passionate people who cared.

 

Safe driving everyone, Tom

 

He's telling you Porkies! He never built and SLR at Pagewood. No-one did. Only Toranas ever built at Pagewood were pre-LJ, and even then they were essentially a fully painted and hard trimmed body from Acacia Ridge, just final assembly at Pagewood.