Comments by "Helmuth Schultes" (@helmuthschultes9243) on "American Reacts to Australian Mopar/Chrysler Day in Adelaide" video.

  1. Well Adelaide was the manufacturing base for Chrysler, until the factory was fully b.v taken over by Mitsubishi, afterva period assembling these in parallel to the Chrysler vehicles. The Chargervwas at lesst in NSW used by highway patrol not sure of other states. But as well as slightly boosted motor output they had 300kg of lead mounted in the rear end, to make handling better. The rear was too light in basic empty form and lost rear end too easily. From memory the were second after Leyland as total local manufacturer to close operations. Yes others like VW were gone sooner, but they basically had assembly of knockdown parts shipped from Germany not full local manufacture. Though most car companies were importing some parts to various levels. That was minimised by very high duties on imported parts, so to keep final car prices low much effortvwas used to get parts of local manufacture including licensed suppliers using design from original company so cutting duty because it was locally made. On many parts companies like Lucas and Bosch were major local manufacturers, but many others like Repco ( shafts cams brake drums/discs ) and PBR (other brake parts), other car manufacturers got their local suppliers setup local manufacture. Start ofvdeath of ALL car manufacture was dropping the protective duty with volume low in Australia, keeping prices competitive with full import from plants with lines delivering total Australian volumes there was just no way to be competitive. Government support for some time helped, but some like GM were seeming, if not in fact, using government ( tax money ,) subsidies as cash cows. When cutoff from gov support all closed manufacturing though some engineering remsins. GM however even sold their very extensive proving ground while Ford retsin theirs Toyota bought one that was used by trucking companies, various smaller car businesses, shared access on brakes, tyres , Abs development and Nissan for quite a while. Nissan retained casting plant for alloy parts and engine blocks, however all sent to Japan for machining and finishing.
    1