Oz Super Cars?

[Madaya]

Mates, I've had this thought for a while. I hope I can introduce some decent input on the thread. All goes into the pot, but please, just serious input requested.

So we have lost the Big 3. No apologies to Toyota, I hope you keep building good, world class cars here in Oz. It's not for no reason that you have a large market segment.

We will shortly have some huge empty sheds, full of tooling equipment, slowly rusting.

Is it possible to combine our workers, skills and technology to actually build a truly original, world leading motor car. I envisage 5 classes of vehicle, from fwd city to high performance (sorry lads, but we have to accept that NA V8's are dinosaurs waiting for the asteroid, keep chomping the evergreens if you disagree) sports cars - SUV's.

Put the wheel in front of the left seat for most of the models, discounts for RHD models (of course, normally we have to pay more), get a government that is not run by foreign concerns (in the auto sector). Surely this Great Nation Australia can present to the world the best of our Engineering and Skills.

We have given the world so much in (Florey, Marshall and Warren, please add to the list...)

[93EB_SXR6]

In short: no, unfortunately it's never going to happen. Automobile manufacturing in Australia is deader than the Thylacine.

[malazn mafia]

If someone could perfect the art of 3D printing in variety of materials and patent it, then it may be possible. Much cheaper to CAD everything than do the traditional methods of car development such as producing stamping dies or clay models.

[Spammy]

Originally Posted by Madaya

Is it possible to combine our workers, skills and technology to actually build a truly original, world leading motor car.

.)

Given they have never built a world class car before, why would they start now?

[mik]

No doubt we could build them, the problem is whether we could build them to a price that people would buy them over cheap imports/whitegoods with 5 year warranties and still make a profit, probably easier to build a prototype........ send it over and build them in china and have them shipped back................ govco would not dare let an importer go broke.

[MLR]

http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=689

http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=40927

http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=11224789

3 threads why Ford Australia died, or committed suicide.

Low quality assurance, low build quality, low after care, engineering from the 80's, all for a premium price.

You could find the same threads in some Holden web sites stating all their common faults which seem to never get noticed/recalled/redesigned.

Who is to blame ? Ford Australia and Holden.

Why is it that anything newish and around 5 yrs old which cost $40,000 new is now worth $8000, because they are crap.

You would think that if a Korean company can have all the panels line up, painted correctly, not have bits fall of them,with a good warranty, at a reasonable price, ect ect, we could, but we couldn't.

Both Ford and Holden took their customers for granted, they are now reaping what they sowed.

Sad but true.

[jpblue1000]

Of course Australian manufacturing could build an ultimate range of cars. We are a well educated wealthy nation, so nothing technical could stop us.
What we lack is vision, from the individuals claiming Australia is dead to our politicians who look to the next opinion poll not the future and the neysayers and self entitled who stand in the way.
Coming from an engineering and design background I declare building the thing is easy...marketing it, financing it and selling it is the hard thing.
No technical problem is so big it cant be overcome with cash and or time.
Social, political and financial issues prevent it from happening.

JP