Tariffs and import licensing
In 1907 the government introduced a 20% tariff (import tax) on cars that arrived in New Zealand already assembled, to protect local coachbuilders and car assemblers. The tariff was reduced to 10% during the First World War, and from then until 1924 more cars were imported assembled than unassembled.
In the 1930s tariffs increased, but continued to favour unassembled cars. British cars attracted a tariff of 5% for unassembled and 15% for assembled. The tariff on cars from the rest of Europe and from America was 50% for unassembled and 60% for assembled.
The government introduced import licensing in 1938, which restricted the number of vehicles imported. Buying a car was no simple matter – the intending buyer chose a model from a list, then faced a long wait. Those with overseas funds could import any car they liked, but had to pay tariffs on them. This intervention was designed to keep down the cost of imports, and to protect car assembly and related industries in New Zealand.
Driving Mr Rhodes
At first only the wealthy could buy cars – people like doctors and sheep farmers. Most drove themselves. An exception was Robert Heaton Rhodes, a Canterbury landowner and member of Parliament, who bought his first car, a Rover, in 1907. After backing it into a ditch, he employed a chauffeur.
Car assembly industry, 1900s–1970s
Car assembly had its roots in earlier trades. In the early 1900s, coachbuilders and wheelwrights quickly moved into building bodies for imported motor-vehicle chassis.
One such firm – Rouse and Hurrell of Courtenay Place, Wellington – took up a Ford Motor Company agency in 1908. It was renamed the Colonial Motor Company in 1911. In 1922 Colonial built New Zealand’s first specialised car assembly plant – a steel box of nine floors, based on the Ford assembly works in Ontario, Canada. At over 30 metres high, it was Wellington’s tallest building at the time. The top two floors were used for administration. Assembly of cars from imported packs of parts started on level 7, and finished vehicles were driven out from the ground floor. The company built smaller assembly plants in Parnell (Auckland) and Timaru. In 1936 Ford built a new factory in Lower Hutt and took over the assembly and distribution of its vehicles,
Morris cars were assembled by Dominion Motors, founded in 1912 by Charles Norwood. It built a factory in Auckland in 1935.
George H. Scott became the official factory representative for Austin in 1919, having been the agent since 1909. Out of this company and its distributors emerged Austin Distributor Federation (ADF), the assemblers of the Austin brand.
In 1926 General Motors opened a plant in Petone, Hutt Valley. At first it produced American Chevrolet, Pontiac and Buick cars, adding Oldsmobiles in 1928. Its first British Vauxhalls were built in 1931, along with Bedford trucks.
Todd Motors developed out of an Otago-based Ford agency, and in 1935 built a car plant in Petone. It assembled Chrysler and Dodge cars, and, by arrangement with the Rootes group, Hillman (including the popular Minx), Humber and Sunbeam models.
Australian Holdens were imported as assembled cars from 1954, and the first FE series Holden emerged from General Motors’ Petone plant in 1957. A large new plant at Trentham in Upper Hutt was opened in 1967. Here General Motors built such vehicles as the Holden HQ series, Commodore, and Vauxhall Viva.
In the early 1970s more than 80% of new cars were supplied by General Motors, Ford, Todd Motors and Dominion Motors. The New Zealand Motor Corporation (NZMC) was formed in 1970 by the merger of ADF and Dominion Motors.
Japanese cars gained an increasing market share in the later 20th century. The first Toyotas were built in Christchurch and Thames in the late 1960s. NZMC entered an assembly arrangement with Honda and built cars in Nelson, in a plant that had been set up for British Triumphs in 1965. In 1975 Todd Motors replaced its Petone plant with a large new facility in Porirua which produced Mitsubishi vehicles.
