Book review: “The Passion for Holden”

The book was officially launched at Harrington Library, where Midcoast Council library manager Chris Jones reminded guests that events such as this were yet another facet of your  library serving the local community.

This is Joel’s second book, the first having been “Legends of the 48-215”, which was an instant success, so much so that it inspired him to write another, which was to cover Holden’s contribution to manufacturing a local car for Australian conditions.

For those not familiar with General Motors’ place in this country’s motor car evolution, the initial book covered the birth of the now iconic FX Holden, more correctly known as the ’48-215’, which was officially launched by the Prime Minister, Ben Chiefly in 1948, to critical acclaim.

The ‘Humphy’, as it is affectionately known to Holden fans, was lauded in the media of the day, as ‘Australia’s own car’, ‘Built tough for Australian conditions’, with General Motors proudly spruiking ‘General Mot a link in the chain of Australia’, not doing any harm in stirring our passion to have a car built with good old fashioned Aussie know how!  

So the author is well qualified to guide us through from the birth of the Holden in 1948 right up to the General’s decision to cease local production in the last quarter of 2017.

This book is an impressive guided tour through the fortunes of Holden from its humble beginnings when James Alexander Holden established his leather business in Adelaide in 1856, to the present day.

By 1879 the business was on a roll, and James’s 20 year old son Henry now being involved in the business which was in need of additional capital, leading to a partnership with Henry Frost to establish Holden and Frost Ltd. (How ironic that  “Holden’s” first two directors shared a common first name, Henry!) .

The company boomed as “Carriage and Motor Trimmers” and by 1914 they were producing their first custom made car bodies based on their extensive experience building and trimming horse drawn vehicles.

This attracted a link with General Motors and by 1918 the firm was building/assembling more than 1500 vehicles for the General, and became the undisputed leader in this field in Australia…. and this, I would suggest, is where this book picks up the main game in some detail.

The book comprises some 190 pages with hundreds of high quality photographs in both colour and black and white, many of which may not have been previously seen, having been sourced by the editor with the full support of GMH from the General’s archives. It is divided into 18 chapters, devoted to various models from 1948 to 2017, starting of course with the now iconic ‘Humphy’ through to the present, which was to have been the final model in 2016, the Commodore SV6 model.

But just as the final touches were being put to bed in early 2017, the author got wind of Holden’s plan to build a limited edition run of a mere 1800 “Redline” specials, as their ‘swan song’ tribute to the workforce at their historic Woodville plant.

So the 18 chapters are joined by a Stop Press section and with the full support of Holden who made some fresh details and photos available for inclusion in this book.

Unlike many similar motoring books, Joel’s tome has avoided the almost ‘de rigueur’ listing of endless statistics and minute details of various models.