Original subtitles

[CAR ENGINE REVS]

[♪ "BETTER" BY THE SCREAMING JETS]

NARRATOR: There's been a car industry in Australia

for almost as long as there's been cars.

From the outset, two manufacturers

have not only dominated the road,

but helped to weave the social fabric

of Australia's national identity.

GM Holden and Ford Australia.

The rise and fall of these two Australian icons...

became a rivalry...

-Holden! -...unlike any other.

For almost a century, it divided us.

These beasts of steel, chrome and rubber

have defined our tribes.

What was it about these brands

that made us fall in love with them,

and embrace them as our own?

How did they manage to not only survive

but thrive here for so long?

Aussie blood runs red or blue.

Which one are you?

Believe it or not, Ford and Holden

don't start out as rivals.

In the early 20th century, they're business partners.

In 1908, the world's first successfully mass-produced car,

Henry Ford's Model T,

hits Australian shores, and it quickly becomes very popular.

The Model T was the first designed car

that worked well on Australian roads.

MAN: Over 15 million of the Model Ts were sold

and what it did was really bring vehicles to the masses.

And what we saw is that democratisation of transport.

And, in Adelaide, the Holden family's saddlery business

has been around for more than half a century.

Edward Holden was interested in things that moved by themselves

rather than pulled by horses.

And he quickly realised he could utilise his father's business

to refurbish motor cars.

MAN 2: And Holden ended up with a contract

to make body parts and assemble body parts

for Ford chassis imported from America.

It was a cosy arrangement. Ran for about eight years.

However, it's about to change gears.

Until now, General Motors

has been exporting chassis to Australia.

They have a solid foothold in the Australian market.

But they want more.

General Motors thought,

"We're not gonna let Ford

dominate the Australian market,"

and they swooped onto the expertise

that Holden had acquired with Ford.

A deal is struck in 1924.

After building bodies for Ford and many other brands,

Holden agrees to work exclusively for General Motors

out of its new factory in Woodville, South Australia.

Ford makes a strategic decision.

They decided to cut out the middleman

and set up their own assembly plant.

In 1925, Ford Australia is born in Geelong, Victoria.

And so we had these two different American manufacturers

building cars in Australia.

In 1931, General Motors Holden is formed

and a rivalry commences between the two brands

that will last nearly a century.

MAN 3: With the introduction of Ford and Holden,

there came modern marketing.

And part of that process

was to create a sense of brand identification.

The logos of the two brands sum up exactly what they're about.

MAN 4: The Holden lion and boar logo goes back to the 1920s,

based on the fable that man invented the wheel

by observing a lion rolling a rock.

Ford's blue oval, highly recognisable.

That blue, all about superiority.

And the white in the Ford is all about cleanliness.

We see the colour, we see the shape of the oval,

and we immediately think about the brand.

AARON: It's not just the cars they produce

and the people that drive them.

It's the badge, it's the emblem, it's the banner.

It's what you march behind.

[TRAM BELL RINGS]

In Australia, the automotive landscape

in the 1930s is still in first gear.

And the roads are filled with imported cars.

MAN 1: There seem to be a lot of cars here.

MAN 2: Yes. Many of them are brought in from other countries.

There wasn't a great deal of other vehicles in the country.

There were some European vehicles here

and British vehicles.

But there wasn't competition

between those two key brands, Holden and Ford.

[SHOUTING]

In 1939, world events intervene.

Holden and Ford unite again,

this time against a common enemy.

Their factories are retooled

to produce machines for the war effort.

ARCHIVE: The giant wheels of industry whir

under the terrific impetus of conflict.

Every rivet driven home, every bolt wrenched to its place

is a nail in the coffin of totalitarianism.

NORM: Ford built Bren Gun Carriers by the hundreds.

Both companies built fuel tanks and engines for aeroplanes.

ARCHIVE: They are assembling a Gipsy Moth engine

entirely made in Australia

for an Australian-built trainer plane.

Workers are now producing products

that they would never have dreamed of making before...

ARCHIVE: ...molten metal turned to engines of war.

...including entire engines.

NORM: Although the technology existed in 1939,

it's very expensive to tool

for things like engines, transmissions and axles.

But the war actually gave them that capability.

The World War has been won.

But a new contest is brewing at home.

ARCHIVE: This is Australia.

Island continent of wide horizons and vast distances.

Australian conditions are a little bit unique.

We've got a little bit of everything.

The distances that we have

require quite unique engineering.

ARCHIVE: Capital cities lie hundreds of miles apart.

The nation of a thousand contrasts

needed specially designed transport

to meet local conditions.

NORM: But after the war,

the Australian government had asked

Ford, Chrysler and Holden

what were their plans to build an Australian vehicle?

And really, Holden was the only one to respond.

Holden formed a team of engineers

to look at what an Australian car might be.

Before this point, Ford and GM Holden had either imported cars

or assembled them locally, using mainly foreign parts.

When GMH really decides

to get into producing cars locally in Australia,

they're very anxious to prove that they are part of Australia.

They finally bit the bullet

and decided to build an Australian car

for Australian conditions for Australian consumers.

ARCHIVE: General Motors Holden executives

made complete investigations of Australian conditions.

Continuous ruthless tests

probing for any weakness, however slight.

NORM: Holden had been very clever

in hiding the details of the car

during its development.

So much so that a lot of people said,

"Oh, this is all smoke and mirrors.

You're not really building a car here."

And, in November 1948,

Prime Minister Ben Chifley unveils a feat of engineering

that will revolutionise the way Australians travel forever.

ARCHIVE: It's the first really big public preview of this car

about which Australia has heard so much

and there's an air of excitement.

The Holden 48-215, also known as the FX,

is the first locally mass-produced car

designed specifically for Australia.

It was kind of

the first really big manufactured thing that was ours

and there really was that sense

of coming into our own as a country.

The unveiling of the FX takes the nation by surprise.

ARCHIVE: And that's how she looks.

The car whose appearance and general design

had an element of secrecy for so long.

[APPLAUSE]

The four-door sedan is powered by a 2.2 litre engine.

Its robust chassis design is undeterred

by Australia's rough roads.

Dealers are reportedly holding thousands of orders

before the first one is even built.

And it catches Holden's biggest competitor off guard.

Ford were probably caught napping

by Holden's decision to put out a whole new car.

Holden managed to take a position of being much more

the car for Australia than did Ford.

Holden certainly adopted that first-mover advantage.

If you're first into the market, Australia's own car,

it's difficult for any other follower to come in and say,

"We're also Australia's own car as well."

We got off to that start first. We owned that territory.

For now, the title of Australia's own car...

will go uncontested.

NORM: Ford had to react to Holden.

They needed their own premises to compete, and chose Geelong.

The decision for Ford to set up in Geelong

was a major achievement for Geelong.

ARCHIVE: Its population of 90,000

has increased at the rate of more than 5,000 a year

for the last eight years,

making it one of the fastest- growing cities in Australia.

Automotive factories become significant additions

to our growing cities,

providing jobs, stimulating economies,

and building communities.

The car industry brings with it

a range of skills and jobs and opportunities

that were woven right into the fabric of the city.

WOMAN: In Adelaide, everything lives and breathes Holden...

having pretty much the birthplace

and seeing how it's evolved.

I'd say a majority of Adelaide worked for Holden.

There was always a family member

that worked at Holden or knew someone.

It was a part of every family.

And the car industry actually was the means

of providing good livelihoods.

DEE: For a lot of immigrants particularly,

their first jobs were on the factories of these brands

so there was that kind of seeped into families.

The 1950s sees the nation accelerating

into a new era of prosperity.

GRAEME: Cities began to expand far beyond

the confines of the late-19th-century city,

the horse-and-buggy city, and even the railway city.

GARY: So the population began to grow

and we started to see that urban spread of suburbanism.

And as those suburbs spread,

there was more demand for vehicles.

GARRY: The Ford versus Holden battle initially

was fought out on suburban streets and country roads

and in arguments over barbecues and over back fences.

GARY: People were living in close proximity to one another.

You know, people saw the types of cars you drove.

So there was this element of aspirational drive

to sort of keep up with the Joneses.

GRAEME: We've somehow been persuaded, haven't we,

that a car denotes who we are?

It denotes our position in society.

ANDREW: It was basically every household.

So you're either a Ford family or a Holden family.

The rivalry is a rich tapestry and part of our history.

It sort of meant something.

While Holden are streets ahead,

Ford's still playing catch-up to the FX.

ARCHIVE: Ford Motor Company of Australia is today faced

with one of the most difficult policy decisions in its history.

Namely whether or not to go into the manufacture

of a completely built Australian car.

NORM: Ford did make the Zephyr in Australia,

but the Zephyr was really an imported car

that was assembled here.

They couldn't bring enough Zephyrs

in from England to match the Holden.

They couldn't compete.

In 1953, to capitalise on their market advantage,

Holden releases one of the most cherished cars

in Australia's history.

The FJ.

The FJ was the one vehicle

that really started Holden's future in this country.

ARCHIVE: The neighbours often take us for a drive

in their Holden.

It made a huge impact.

It was exactly what the Australian public wanted.

RICHARD: It's the car that everybody had

and it was uniquely designed for Australia

and Australian conditions.

It was a light six-cylinder, it gave excellent fuel economy,

it could tow a caravan, and hundreds of people wanted them.

By the late '50s, Holden's outselling Ford

by a huge margin.

It's turning out more than 150,000 cars a year.

And every second car sold in the country

has a lion on the bonnet.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ARCHIVE: The curtain rises on a new star, the new Holden.

Fashion-setting beauty to thrill the eye.

New finer performance and surging power.

1956, and the arrival of television

which dramatically shifts the way we communicate.

Viewpoints that were once exchanged in the streets

and over backyard fences

are now beamed straight into living rooms

across the nation.

MAN: A decorative instrument panel

and spacious lock-up glove box.

GRAEME: In the days of radio, you could talk about a vehicle,

but it was only when television came

that you could show what it looked like.

ARCHIVE: Look at the new Holden from any angle,

and you'll see things to win your admiration.

In economy, dependability, performance, styling...

And Holden are making the most of it.

MAN: See how much leg room there is.

Holden really tapped into that working-class, middle-class,

mainstream marketplace.

Mum and Dad and two kids,

that traditional nuclear family that we had.

Those traditional images

and traditional Australian values were very important

to drive that marketing strategy.

ARCHIVE: Australian as they come, that's Holden.

GARY: So it starts with advertising, marketing messages.

It continues into the showroom

where you're actually engaging with the brand.

ARCHIVE: Designed here, tested here, proved here.

Holden is the only car designed and built in Australia

for Australian motorists.

What's your favourite car?

-The Holden? -Yes.

-Aren't they wonderful cars? -Yes.

-You always happy in a Holden? -Yes.

Attaboy.

Try as they might, Ford is still struggling

to make a dent in Holden's "Australia's own car" image.

ARCHIVE: A study of the growing traffic on Australian roads

had indicated the necessity to build

a quality car with top performance,

good fuel economy, comfort,

modern design and attractive styling.

Ford Australia set itself to do just that.

In the late 1950s,

Ford Australia convinces their American bosses

that without a locally made car,

Ford may as well take their bat and ball and go home.

That's where the market was in Australia,

so we had to go unique.

There was no choice, really.

Ford Australia wants a car

that will turn the competition on its head

and drive the company into the future.

It will be built at Ford's new manufacturing plant

at Broadmeadows in Victoria.

It's a huge commitment for the Blue Oval.

You knew the market was there

if you had the right product to put into it.

Enter the Falcon.

ARCHIVE: A car is born.

Ford Australia launches the first Falcon,

the XK, in September 1960.

It's a styling revolution

that will underpin four models across seven years,

from the XK to the XP.

Sleek and modern.

And it features

a two-speed Fordomatic automatic transmission.

ARCHIVE: Here is the Australian Falcon,

a car of sculptured styling.

The event is splashed across the front pages

of newspapers across the country.

And Ford Australia has high hopes.

The Falcon, many Ford people believed it was their saviour.

ARCHIVE: A car with a proved background

and a great future in this country.

Initial sales look promising.

But it's not long before the wheels fall off.

ARCHIVE: Built to the highest standards of quality

in the Australian automotive industry.

Their difficulty was they didn't engineer it

for Australian conditions.

And so it was launched with great fanfare,

but it failed dismally.

The front ends fell out of them,

and they had lots of other small problems.

[CAMERA CLICKS]

Ford's bold move to place itself

on a level playing field with Holden

has spectacularly backfired...

allowing Holden to continue its market domination.

ARCHIVE: The time is now and the car is Holden.

In the early 1960s, Holden embraced a fresh new look

with the EJ and EH series.

[CAR ENGINE REVS]

ARCHIVE: The most breathtaking car in years,

new all-new Holden.

Between them, the new-look Holdens

sell more than 400,000 by 1965.

New-model Holdens, in those days,

you know, it's like a movie premiere.

We'd all get dressed up and go down to the showroom

and see this brand-new car.

AARON: My dad, he had an EH Holden station wagon.

A roaring 202, six cylinders. Sounded the part.

As a little kid in the bucket seat

bouncing along down the road in Ballarat,

I thought that that was

the biggest, fastest car you could probably find.

The EH sells over 256,000 vehicles.

The car is a major departure from previous Holdens.

Lower, sleeker, and features the iconic new red engine.

ARCHIVE: The new 115 horsepower engine

boosts Holden power by 53 percent.

It was the first car I ever drove.

It was a 179 Hydra-Matic Special with all the accessories.

That was the first production motor car that Holden had built

-that was competition oriented. -[TYRES SCREECH]

And the two companies are about to go to war

for the hearts and minds of young Australians.

[CAR ENGINE REVS]

And this is where it all plays out.

Originally constructed as a scenic tourist drive,

Mount Panorama in Bathurst is considered

one of the greatest racing tracks in the world.

AARON: It had been built as a racetrack

after the Great Depression.

So eventually, such a great racetrack

needs a marquee event.

So it really evolved from something very small,

and it got big very, very quick.

COMMENTATOR: 6.2Ks of the best racetrack in the world.

The track's unique. It's like nothing else in Australia.

It's narrow in places. It's steep. It's fast.

It's just like a ping-pong table.

AARON: You need a bit of everything to win at Bathurst.

You've got to have a bit of everything to go fast.

COMMENTATOR: Down to second gear for the first turn, Hell Corner.

AARON: It's Hell Corner. It's Mountain Straight.

It's Griffin's Bend.

It's the Cutting. It's Reid Park.

It's McPhillamy. It's Skyline. It's the Esses.

Forrest's Elbow, Conrod Straight,

The Chase, Murray's Corner.

COMMENTATOR: Now the main agony starts.

Pit Straight. There it is. That is Bathurst.

ARCHIVE: Fifty-seven entries in the Armstrong 500,

Australia's leading event for production cars.

A hundred and 30 laps, over seven hours' hard going.

The Armstrong 500, held at Mount Panorama,

is an endurance competition to decide which cars

have the best combination of performance and reliability.

REPORTER: They've all got to be standard models,

as from a dealer's showroom.

This was a production motor car race.

Therefore, everything was on an even footing.

You drove your race car to the track,

you raced it and you drove it home.

In the early days of Bathurst, there'd be anything.

There'd be little BMWs

and Minis and slow cars, fast cars, funny cars.

But we ended up, essentially,

with a track full of Holdens or Fords.

It was primitive in the extreme.

The pit area at the back of the track

was also the accommodations.

The track itself was not fenced, no safety requirements.

Those days they didn't have, you know,

race boots, no safety gear.

ARCHIVE: The race is over for the Mini Cooper.

BEV: It was a completely different world

of almost you'd say amateurish but intense frenzy.

And everybody helped everybody else

to make sure that the event

was worthy of a major race meeting.

RAY: As it developed over the years and the cars got faster,

it became more of a contest between teams,

a contest between drivers, a contest between manufacturers.

And the real racetrack rivalry came to public attention.

The inaugural Battle of the Brands takes place in 1963.

Holden's EH goes up against the British-designed

Mark 1 Ford Cortina GT,

driven by early Bathurst legend Bob Jane

and teammate Harry Firth.

-Ford's Cortina wins. -[APPLAUSE]

But, impressively, Holden's EH

places second on its racing debut.

That's where the real Ford versus Holden took off.

♪ Holden! Holden! Holden! Holden! Holden! Holden!

Despite Ford's win on the racetrack,

Holden's Red Lion is the king of the urban jungle.

Ford's Falcon is still grounded and in big trouble.

MAN: Performance is proof

that new Falcon is quality built by Ford.

If the next model isn't a success,

Ford will close operations in Australia.

NORM: The Ford had a bad name.

It was increasingly difficult to sell them against the Holden.

Ford had to do something desperate.

The plan is simple but insane.

ARCHIVE: An announcement to the Australian press

that five stock model Falcon sedans

would travel a total of 70,000 miles in nine days.

That's 112,000 kilometres,

or almost three times around the planet.

Australia's best drivers

are going to tag team behind the wheel.

It's hoped the collective star power

will draw an audience.

Ford's future in Australia is on the line.

ARCHIVE: Ford managing director Wallace Booth

gives them the start flag.

[TYRES SCREECH]

For nine days, they'll maintain a punishing average speed

of more than 110 kilometres an hour.

The whole premise was to address

the shortcomings of the original Falcon.

JOHN: It was because the Falcon

was getting a name for not being quite up to

the durability standards that Holden had set.

It was to change people's perception

of the Falcon as a car,

as an Australian car.

DICK: If you knew the countryside there

and just knew how loose

all the volcanic rock and stuff is around there,

it'd be so damn dangerous.

If the Falcon can make it here...

it can make it anywhere.

ARCHIVE: But it was this fact,

the 15 twists and bends, plus the big hill,

that caused the experts to say

that Ford had bitten off more than they could chew.

Just before 2:00 a.m., five battered Falcons

smash through the finish line.

ARCHIVE: It's all over, and even at this deadly hour,

there's jubilation from the entire camp.

The gamble has paid off.

NORM: It was a huge publicity coup for Ford.

It was a PR masterpiece.

It's the last time anyone will say

the Falcon isn't cut out for Australian conditions.

The Falcon XP wins "Wheels" magazine Car of the Year,

propelling Ford to a competitive position

in the marketplace.

RACHAEL: The Ford XP,

I just fell in love with the shape of that.

I love the bullnose fronts on them.

They're just a beautiful, beautiful-lined car.

Ford finds itself a champion.

At that stage, Ford was 12 percent,

14 percent share of the market

and GM Holden was 50 percent of the market.

But there was obviously a desire

that we were ultimately going to beat GM.

Holden produced something special for 1968.

The new-look HK.

Its handsome styling underpins three models across four years.

It introduces the iconic Kingswood

and its lion roars with Holden's first V8

in the form of an imported Chevrolet engine.

ARCHIVE: Holdens. Australia's own car.

Born again with youthful new lines

that match its pulsing new power.

JOHN: Kingswood was a bigger car, so it started to increase

the size of the Australian family car.

And that's what it was. They were family cars.

They had, in most cases, bench front seats,

so you could sit six people in them.

That was before seat belts.

The Kingswood station wagon

was basically part of my upbringing.

I learned to drive in one. It was my first car.

It represented a lifestyle to me.

Outdoors person, fishing, surfing.

It was part of my life.

GRAEME: The prime part of the market was the family car

and the family car was a fairly versatile thing.

In the family car market, the Kingswood faces off

with the newly bred Mustang-inspired Ford Falcon.

GRAEME: One of the great mysteries

of the Australian car industry

is why it wasn't more differentiated.

Why were the two main companies

selling us products that were very similar?

To some extent, it's simple economics.

But it's also one that I think

is exploited by the car companies

to create a sense that this was the Australian norm.

♪ Ford! Let it lead the way...

By the late '60s, Ford is leading the way

and focused on a high-performance future.

ARCHIVE: New Falcon is here.

[CAMERA CLICKS]

In 1967, Ford release the XR GT Falcon.

Australia's first produced V8 muscle car,

wearing the GT, or Grand Touring badge, for the first time.

It features a high-performance, 289-cubic-inch engine.

RAY: When Ford released the first Falcon GT,

the first Australian-built production sports touring car,

that opened the door.

The Ford racing team make a bold move,

entering three new XR GTs

in the 1967 Gallaher 500 at Bathurst.

The Falcon GT Superior V8 is well suited

to the Mount Panorama circuit.

ARCHIVE: Up Pit Straight and the Falcons mean business.

Five years' history here suggests Mount Panorama

is too tough for the big cars.

Is this showmanship or can they keep it going?

Falcons finish first and second.

JOHN: They all started to build better cars

so that they could win Bathurst.

The Bathurst thing was always big

and it just became bigger and bigger.

ARCHIVE: Out to drive you wild.

Holden hits back with the V8 Monaro HK Coupe.

ARCHIVE: Super-tuned suspension,

engines right up to a 250-horsepower V8.

I think the Monaro's iconic as a Holden.

Have you ever looked at one?

It is a good-looking thing.

It's a coupe. It looks sporty. It's got flow.

It's got a V8. I mean, what more is there to like?

♪ Monaro this year!

ARCHIVE: Make him show you.

GARY: The two-door muscle cars like the Monaro,

the ads were very much around very, very masculine images.

Fast driving.

GRAEME: The big car with the throaty muffler.

That denotes a certain kind of masculine Australianism

that people really responded to.

The young Australian male, they wanted to have a car

that they saw winning at Bathurst.

ARCHIVE: Mount Panorama, Bathurst.

The most gruelling event on the motor racing calendar.

In 1968, the V8s of the factory-backed teams

of Ford and Holden face off for the first time.

ARCHIVE: With an incredible burst of speed,

Des West shatters the old lap record by nearly five seconds.

NORM: The Monaro was a revolution for Holden.

Performance engine.

Four-speed transmission.

It was a sporty car.

And they took it to Bathurst

and they won straight out of the box.

So suddenly, the Monaro became the car to beat.

[APPLAUSE]

It's Holden's first win on the mountain

in an annual war of attrition that will rage for decades.

Bathurst in that period was the biggest and best showroom

anywhere in the country.

PHILLIP: The average guy with a family

could see his family car go on the track.

That was very, very significant to win.

GARY: If Ford Holden wins,

you're out in the showroom on Monday

wanting to buy that vehicle.

MAN: The majority of the public come to see the touring cars,

the Holdens, the Falcons,

and the cars that they themselves

can identify themselves with.

There's no question about that.

INTERVIEWER: Does Bathurst performance sell cars?

MAN: A gentleman has to take pride

in the vehicle that he owns.

Nobody wants to own a vehicle that's a loser.

REPORTER: Car dealers believe the best advertisement

is a chequered flag with the winning make

shining proudly in their showroom.

It was a catchphrase that became,

"Win on Sunday, sell on Monday."

And advertising became the big thing.

ARCHIVE: The outright winner, Falcon.

Ford fans versus Holden fans,

that narrative has worked incredibly well

for both of those brands.

You either drove a Ford or a Holden

and there was a lot of sledging going on

from day to day at school and other places

about whose dad drove what.

Eventually you're either in one camp or the other.

ANDREW: So it wasn't just about the customers,

there was also some internal pride,

and that's where it came out.

BEV: The rivalry between Ford and Holden

was a really intriguing thing.

It's intrinsic in the Australian idiom.

The rivalry then was seriously crazy.

I mean, it divided families.

People are born into one or the other, Ford or Holden.

GARY: Granddad had a Ford, Dad had a Ford, I've got a Ford now.

My son will have a Ford when he grows up.

It's very important to signal to

not only your friends, your in-group,

but also the outer group, which team you belong to.

It becomes almost a religious, ritualistic experience.

Pretty soon, V8 petro-hedonism

starts to leave its mark on the streets,

getting young, cashed-up buyers to tune in and pay attention.

MAN: What looks good in a show has to go well on the road.

Twenty-three different makes and models

in this year's 500-mile marathon.

At the 1969 Hardie-Ferodo 500,

the competition between the muscle cars is heating up.

ARCHIVE: All the cars are carefully scrutineered

to ensure they're standard off-the-peg machines.

Ford enters its new high- performance XW Falcon GT-HO.

And in the red corner, with a significant makeover,

Holden's GTS Monaro.

Newcomer Colin Bond is behind the wheel

for the Holden dealer team.

COLIN: Because we were running serious production motor cars,

you had to look after the cars when you were driving.

You couldn't drive them flat out.

It was a long race and you had to make the things last.

COMMENTATOR: But still in the lead,

Bond pilots a careful course

through the final bends

as he heads for the chequered flag.

Winning driver Colin Bond

becomes an instant hero for Holden supporters.

But it's the two rookie drivers that place third and fourth

that are destined to fan the flames

of the Ford versus Holden rivalry like no other.

Peter Brock and Allan Moffat.

[CAMERA CLICKS]

[WIND HOWLS]

And off the track,

another challenger to the status quo is emerging.

ARCHIVE: Now, a breathtaking, carefree, new beauty.

Stylish, exciting, daring to be different.

DEE: From as early as the 1960s,

car manufacturers were targeting women

and there were so many social changes in Australia,

the car for a lot of women, you know,

became a symbol of freedom.

GRAEME: Women who want to go out and work

need the means to get to the job

and that often gets them into the car.

GARY: That era of feminism certainly was a driver behind,

I guess, brands getting into that market.

Probably for many years,

it overlooked that female market for vehicles.

You walked into a showroom,

the salesman spoke to Dad and not Mum.

But that started to shift as feminism grew.

BEV: I'm the one who works.

I'm the one who has a regular life.

I was the first woman they had allowed

to sign a sale contract in her own right at that point in time.

GRAEME: Many women actually begin secretly

to go and take driving lessons.

When they get their licence, they come back,

plonk it on the kitchen table

and they say, "Now it's time for me to get a car."

Girls in particular, when you're living at home,

your car's the first space that's yours.

GRAEME: So there's these most intriguing discussions

that were taking place

in many families about how men and women,

husbands and wives

renegotiated their status

and often, it's the motor car

that's the centre of that discussion.

Excuse me. Who is the boss of your house?

-I am. -Oh.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

As the '60s roll to a close,

a sense of change is blowing in the wind.

-♪ Ford, -♪ Ba-ba-ba ba

So Ford gets groovy with its advertising.

-♪ Ba-ba-ba ba -♪ It's a going thing

Holden gets far out with colour selections

for its newest small-car offering...

the Torana.

I moved into the Torana studio, which was new.

They established that because Japanese

were coming in with smaller cars.

REPORTER: This is one of

the most closely guarded buildings in Australia.

In it, 60 men have been working three years

on a $20-million secret.

RICHARD: One of the hard parts about designing a new car

is that there's such a long lead time

or gestation period from the first sketch

to when the car is finally launched,

and this can be four or five years.

Designers drawing inspiration

from every activity during daily life,

whether it's furniture, architecture,

pop culture, anything.

ARCHIVE: This is not 1948. This is 1969.

RICHARD: With the Torana,

we were right on cue with the music scene at the time,

what was happening, just socially.

We'd like to say it's a combination

of Australian, European

and American concepts.

They captured the market far beyond

what we thought we could do at that time.

These bright colours certainly attract your attention.

Let Us Alone, Strike Me Pink

and some few other outrageous names,

but they were fantastic.

The four-cylinder one covered the mums in the market

and the six-cylinder versions

became successful in the motor racing field.

[CAR HORNS BLARE]

ARCHIVE: The field will soon be on its way

in the 1972 Hardie-Ferodo 500.

A hit with consumers,

it's time for the little six-cylinder Torana

to prove itself a giant killer at Bathurst

where the cars lined up on the starting grid

are the most powerful the nation has seen.

In the blue corner, the XY Phase III Falcon GT-HO.

One of the fastest four-door production cars on the planet.

In the red corner, Holden's LJ Torana GTR XU-1.

Leading the charge for Holden

is young rising star Peter Brock.

BEV: His ability to focus was uncanny.

He'd get in that car and suddenly nothing else existed.

He was one with the car, one with the track.

Behind the wheel for Ford

is the Bathurst 500 reigning champion Allan Moffat.

BEV: Now Allan was intense, amazing.

People didn't understand Allan. A very private, shy person.

MAN: You've also been described as introverted.

Do you think that's apt?

Yes, it is. I don't enjoy swanning around

and big-timing myself.

BEV: Peter and he are polar opposites, but Peter understood

Allan's need, passion, determination to win.

And the two together,

boy, you knew you had a fight on your hands.

[CAR ENGINES REV]

[INDISTINCT ANNOUNCEMENTS]

GARRY: And the public loved it.

And they adopted Brock and Moffat

like knights in shining armour.

COMMENTATOR: Forrest's Elbow,

French holding second, Brock very close.

Over the early laps, Moffat and Brock

tussle for the lead in slippery conditions.

COMMENTATOR: ...down to Forrest's Elbow.

Ford looking for a way past two.

Falcon's definitely slower...

Moffat, in his powerful Falcon,

widens the gap on Conrod Straight.

But Brock's lighter and more agile XU-1

makes up time on the mountain bends.

Then, while trying to keep the more nimble Torana at bay,

Moffat loses control and spins out.

Peter Brock and his XU-1 take their first Bathurst win.

It's a day that gives birth to legends...

and pours petrol on an already fierce fire.

GARRY: I think the Ford GT-HO and the Torana

were the two standout early muscle cars

that set the tone for the real battle that followed.

Holden's unexpected win is a red rag

to a blue bull for Ford.

Both have plans already underway

to put the ultimate supercar on the street.

But that's about to become a huge problem.

-[CAR ENGINE REVS] -[TYRES SCREECH]

[CRASH]

The rising popularity of production car racing

is what's driving sales of performance vehicles.

REPORTER: The Nepean Rescue Squad

had to spend considerable time

freeing the bodies from the wreckage.

Road tolls in the early 1970s

are the highest in Australian motoring history.

MAN: Once you associate

youthful behaviour with motor cars,

I think you have to use the word "problem".

BEV: Some young guys would go out there

and wipe themselves out on the road.

There weren't too many women,

unless they were passengers in the cars.

Pass someone else on a hill at 70 miles an hour

and all the girls in the back seat scream.

By 1972, performance cars

are becoming the enemy of the people.

[SIRENS BLARE]

It starts with a front-page article

published in "The Sunday Telegraph".

The attention-grabbing headline hits a nerve.

GRAEME: The road toll, truly horrendous.

Almost as many people are killed on the roads

as had been killed in the Second World War.

So there was a serious problem

of how Australia was going to adjust

to this new beast that had been unleashed

-in their environment. -[TYRES SCREECH]

The New South Wales Transport Minister

is calling these supercars

"bullets on wheels" and he vows to fight for a national ban.

Ford has already invested heavily

in its new XA Phase IV GT-HO Falcon.

And Holden's not far behind

with plans for a wild V8-powered XU-1 Torana.

DAVID: It certainly had effects on boardrooms

in Ford and Holden.

They all decided very quickly

that the political fallout was too dangerous.

Before they even roll off the assembly line,

both cars are consigned to the scrapyard of history.

DAVID: Both manufacturers

wanted to beat the other guy with their new toy,

and both of them had to put the toys

back in the box for a while.

But they are about to be faced with even bigger problems.

[CAR HORN BLARES]

In 1973, an oil embargo in the Middle East

is sending petrol prices soaring across the globe.

ARCHIVE: Making motor cars is our biggest secondary industry.

When it sneezes, the economy catches a cold.

GRAEME: For a long while, Australians lived in a world

which seemed to be full of limitless possibilities.

There was as much oil as we would ever want.

The oil crisis of the early 1970s

when literally the oil supplies were cut off for a while

made us realise just how vulnerable we were

in driving our cars to that supply of oil.

So I just kept looking at that fuel gauge and I thought,

well, 20 yards isn't worth it, so I'll stay in the car.

If I break down on that, I'll cry.

-You've got two miles of cars... -Really?

...to reach the station.

Well, I'd last out, but I don't think my little girl will.

So I might be pulling out.

-[PULLS HANDBRAKE] -I'll make it now. [LAUGHS]

GRAEME: Ever so gradually,

the preference for the large six-cylinder car

began to decline and people began to look

particularly to Japanese-made four-cylinder cars.

The floodgates have been opened

and it doesn't take long for the sharks to circle.

We've been doing about $40 million's worth

of imported cars. I suppose it'll go over 60 million.

GARY: Ford and Holden were so focused on themselves,

they didn't see the threat of Japanese and Korean vehicles

entering the marketplace

and they didn't see the shift

in consumption behaviour.

Despite all this, Ford and Holden

continue to ride the wave

that's kept them afloat in the past

by competing against each other with big, powerful cars.

For Holden, that comes in the form of a brand-new model

of its homegrown family-sized car.

Across five models from HQ to WB.

It will underpin Holden sales throughout the 1970s.

Suddenly the Kingswood

became an iconic middle-class Australian family car.

DEE: Mum had a Kingswood station wagon.

When we were going on long car trips,

you'd have two kids in the middle seat

and then one or two of you

would buzz the back and you'd go in the back,

lie on top of all... all the packing and stuff like that.

And nowadays you think,

man, that was probably a little bit dangerous.

But, you know, there was seven kids,

but it got us from point A to point B.

[CAMERA CLICKS]

DEE: And I used to get really bad car sickness.

I reckon that smell of hot vinyl

would probably still make me throw up today.

ARCHIVE: Now, on the wings of change,

Holden announces a fantastic, exciting range

of totally new cars.

The HQ features a new ground-up design, the first since 1948.

It's also available as a station wagon, luxury Premier,

-Statesman and Monaro models. -[CAR ENGINE REVS]

The Monaro was all done in Australia.

I was fortunate to have been involved

in the development of that car.

It had a lot of refinement

that we didn't have in Holden cars before.

It was a complete design,

doesn't matter how you look at it.

It always looked good.

MAN: Bathurst winner Peter Brock

tests the new Holden Monaro GTS four-door.

The HQ's smooth body design

creates arguably the best-looking Monaros.

They were accepted in the marketplace

as the benchmark for good value and clean, progressive design.

BROCK: For the guy who likes and understands motor cars,

this Monaro GTS four-door does everything better than most.

And Holden once again gets quirky

with colour themes like infrared and ultraviolet.

We tried to blend

a sort of a more international look into the car

so it wasn't a flamboyant American car.

We took the best of both worlds

and sort of married it into that.

MAN: New Holden Monaro GTS four-door.

It's the great way to move.

[CAR ENGINE REVS]

It became an Australian icon product.

Ford is thrown a curveball.

Ford USA has decided to retire the Falcon in America,

a move that also threatens to clip its wings down under.

Ford Australia tasks its local design team

with creating a new car from the ground up.

The XA, XB and XC

will fly the Falcon flag throughout the '70s.

The XA was a much improved, quieter, smoother vehicle

than the prior models.

Curved side glass which gave you improved package.

So it was a much more modern vehicle.

Yeah, the XA Falcon was definitely the total break

from no longer being just an Australianised version

of a vehicle which was also sold in the USA.

Almost 130,000 XA Falcons are sold,

a far cry from the HQ range.

But Allan Moffat showcases the XA's pedigree on the racetrack,

winning the 1973 Bathurst 1000 against Peter Brock

and Holden's LJ Torana XU-1.

It's a constant game of one-upmanship.

[CAR ENGINE REVS]

And, as the mid-'70s kick in,

Holden and Ford both get lucky with an unexpected hit.

The panel van.

It's available and new to a van.

You get bucket seats,

sports instrumentation with taco and clock,

stick shift or optional T bar automatic, six-inch-wide wheels,

and best of all, a tailgate that opens down.

GRAEME: When you sell the idea

that the car is a liberty machine,

it's a freedom machine, then of course everybody wants one.

Enter the Holden Sandman.

GARY: When we think about cars being an extension of oneself,

the brands or the products that I buy

is who I want to be seen to be.

And if you bought a Sandman,

you want to align yourself with that surfy culture.

DAVID: You could actually have your surfboards in them

or strap them on the roof and throw a mattress on the floor

in the back of the panel van.

But Ford's not far behind with its bedrooms on wheels,

the SurfeRoo and the Sundowner.

And it's not long before they all have their nicknames

like the Sin Bin and the Shaggin' Wagon.

Real horny.

And if you saw a guy in a panel van, you're like, whoa!

"Don't hop in the back."

The whole area is padded out in a crushed brown velvet

with a mosaic mirror on the roof.

ARCHIVE: Don't laugh, it could be your daughter inside.

Those thoughts must cross the mind

of many an anxious mother

as one of these powerful V8 mag-wheeled

four-on-the-floor travelling jet palaces rolls past.

It's a whole new motorised way of life.

♪ Life has never been this good

But Ford and Holden's small-car offerings

are struggling to compete.

JOHN: The rivalry between Holden and Ford

was so intense, it became an obsession.

And that obsession allowed Toyota

to creep in without being noticed.

REPORTER: High petrol costs has seen buyers switch

to smaller, fuel-efficient Japanese models.

By the mid-'70s, Japanese manufacturers

have a sizable and rapidly expanding share

of the Australian car market.

ARCHIVE: When a lot of people

start getting uptight about their cars,

that's the day the people who build the Australian machine

look, listen, start fresh over

and come up with new Torana 6 V8, the car for its time.

March 1974 sees the introduction

of the midsize new-body LH Torana.

And at Bathurst in 1975 and 1976,

Holden's V8 Toranas score crushing wins

against Ford's XB GT Falcons.

But in 1977,

there's more friction

between Ford and Holden tribes than usual.

I remember my first big shattering disappointment

in my motorsport fandom

was when Colin Bond left Holden to drive for Ford.

One of Holden's favourite sons has done the unthinkable.

It was unheard of to change brands.

It was just unheard of.

Moffat and Bond are a formidable team

behind the wheels of their XC Falcon hardtops.

Brock rides low in his A9X Torana...

the weight of countless Holden fans

resting heavily on his shoulders.

The early stages of the race are a cat-and-mouse game

between the front runners Moffat, Brock, Price and Bond.

COMMENTATOR: Two Fords,

two Marlborough Holden dealer team cars.

Moffat then takes a commanding lead.

ARCHIVE: This race belongs to Moffat.

With just ten laps to go, the race leader runs into trouble.

ARCHIVE: Consternation for the Moffat team

as the lead Falcon starts displaying signs of fatigue.

Moffat ran out of front brakes completely, you know,

wore the brake pads, the backing plates,

the pistons, there were none.

And Moffat is forced to slow down.

I was catching him at ten seconds a lap.

A lap ahead of Brock's Torana,

Bond is set to take the chequered flag.

ARCHIVE: The second Falcon of Bond and Hamilton

soon catches up with the slowing Moffat X Car.

The temptation to pass is strong,

but team tactics prevail.

And then the sign came out.

The team orders him to stay behind Moffat.

COMMENTATOR: Colin Bond just sitting

and not making any attempt to manoeuvre.

He's playing it strictly to instructions in this,

the final half lap of the 1977 Hardie-Ferodo 1000.

RAY: Allan Moffat owned the team,

but there was nobody within cooee of catching them.

If you're number one and you own the team, you win the race.

Moffat doesn't just want to win the race,

he wants to do it in style.

That aerial shot from the Channel 7 telecast

of the two Fords crossing the line together.

Two XC Falcons, hard tops,

with the helicopter coming over the top.

And it's one of the iconic shots from Bathurst.

Allan Moffat leads Colin Bond across the line in formation.

[CAMERA CLICKS]

It was very good footage.

Channel 7 and the others thought it was great.

Two cars going down the straight together.

I was quite happy at the time that we let him win.

He was quite happy. [LAUGHS]

[CHEERING]

COLIN: And I still think it's probably one of the races

that if you ask someone who won in '77,

they would know it was the Ford one-two, basically.

From a Holden fan's perspective, it was devastating.

♪ We love football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars

♪ Football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars

ARCHIVE: That's football, meat pies,

kangaroos and Holden cars.

♪ Football and meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars

It's clear Australia's own car needs a big win.

Holden wants to replace the successful full-size Kingswood

with a new family car

that is smaller and more fuel efficient.

I believe the consumer is telling us that he wants a car

that is more manoeuvrable, easy to operate within the city,

a little smaller on the outside.

Holden decides to adapt a European GM Opal design

and start building it down under.

It's unveiled in 1978.

Meet the Commodore.

The Commodore, I think, was a game-changer for Holden.

It was a downsizing, and it was a really good car to drive

and it was a good-looking car.

It had a European flavour which the people liked.

It had clean styling.

DAVID: And it did initially have the image that maybe

this was where the market might be going for the future.

JOHN: The new Ford model was due to be released

on March the 28th, 1979.

And we brought our entire sales team together

to blunt the Ford release.

ARCHIVE: A new Holden so advanced,

it will challenge all your ideas about Australian cars.

JOHN: Holden were very worried.

We had downsized as a consequence

of the energy crisis.

Ford didn't do that.

We were holding our breath

that we could sell a smaller-size family car.

And we set record sales in the first six months.

And it's time to prove that the Commodore

is the car Australia is waiting for.

DREW MORPHETT: Of all the long-distance

motoring events around Australia,

this is to be the longest, fastest

and most taxing on cars and competitors.

To proclaim the Commodore's credentials,

Peter Brock, his co-driver and navigator,

are driving for 20,000 kilometres.

Fourteen days non-stop in the Repco Round Australia Trial.

DREW: Peter Brock,

the fastest long-distance driver

in Australia,

suited to this type of charge.

BEV: He was competing against the world's top rally drivers

in a field that he wasn't used to dealing with.

DREW: With Portman losing two and a half hours,

it's now the expected Ford-Holden battle.

The Commodores have nearly

a four-hour advantage over the field.

At all odds, he beat the world's best drivers

over the harshest course anywhere in the world.

And that to him was probably

the most satisfying event in his life.

MAN: Well, really, none other than Peter Brock.

[APPLAUSE]

The Commodore's one-two-three victory

captures the country's imagination

and confirms Holden's claim as Australia's own car.

However, Ford has a surprise in store.

ARCHIVE: Introducing new Ford Falcon GL.

A world-class family car without a world-class price.

Released in 1979, less than six months after the Commodore,

the XD Falcon is a Design Award winner.

Part of the XD programme

wasn't just in getting a more Europeanised,

more precise, tighter-looking vehicle.

We decided to do an emissions programme

and improve the Falcon performance.

As it turns out, the fuel efficiency

of the XD Falcon is just as good

if not better than the Commodore.

[CAMERA CLICKS]

DAVID: All of a sudden, marketing decided, well,

maybe this isn't a bad combination

of better fuel economy and bigger vehicle.

For savvy car buyers, the wait is worth it.

I think within about 12 months of that

we'd got to number one in the marketplace.

You know, you didn't have to squeeze your family

into that little car.

Falcon Alloy Head 6. Ton of room.

Beautiful performance.

And economy that makes some of your small cars, well...

ARCHIVE: Don't settle for less. Falcon is the answer.

AARON: When I think back

to how Holden and Ford marketed their cars,

their brands, themselves,

there's a few little sniper shots

across at the other mob along the way.

Some still talk about how big their car is.

JOHN: Rivalry marketing is a risky subject.

The last thing you want to do is give your competitor

some reference in your advertising

because it could indicate a little bit of anxiety.

Holden wheeled out an ad with Peter Brock driving

their radial-tuned suspension that was pretty trick,

with a couple of pointed references

to maybe the other brand's cars at the time.

ARCHIVE: Now watch some competitive cars.

Same test, same driver.

So Ford responded

and put their drivers out in a field on a runway

and had race drivers

weaving in between race drivers in their car

to show how good their suspension was.

ARCHIVE: And the point we're making

is that no matter how a car looks

when it's driven around witches' hats,

it's how a car performs

when your life's at stake that really counts.

We never felt better about Falcon

and Falcon never felt better.

AARON: And the marketing elements of each brand

were just as bitter as the race drivers were

or the car salesmen were.

And they would stop at nothing

because it was all about beating the other mob.

ANDREW: Advertising of vehicles

has certainly changed and has evolved

but what hasn't changed is bringing the vehicle to life.

It's the story. It's the emotion.

We believe we've got an emotive brand

so that's what we want to play with.

We want to emphasise that. We want to bring that to life.

♪ We're moving with you...

Suddenly, for the first time ever,

Holden is playing second fiddle to Ford.

JOHN: It was tough going for a while.

That first year after Falcon was not easy.

But there is still one arena that really counts

and where fiery, affiliated passion is on display.

ARCHIVE: The scene is set for the 1979 Hardie-Ferodo 1000.

COMMENTATOR Bond's got him down at Forrest's Elbow.

Ford's looking for a way past, too.

Bathurst 1000 in the '70s, for me, was an eye-opener.

In terms of being a festival,

it was a drink-a-thon for a lot of them.

They would go up midway through the year and dig a big hole

and bury their stack when the police

decided to keep alcohol levels down.

To keep it refrigerated,

they'd run underground lines

to the major power source.

So it was this atmosphere of these guys in army greatcoats

with every badge that they could con from any race team

and these hats, and they were diehards.

[INDISTINCT ANNOUNCEMENT]

BEV: You know, this raw enthusiasm for a need for speed,

an outlet that they weren't getting anywhere else.

It wasn't an era where, you know,

money was big and professionalism existed.

It was a raw, enthusiastic, incredible atmosphere

that had to be seen and experienced.

[CAR HORNS BLARE]

This is an economic goldmine for Bathurst.

And the money and the people that flowed through the town

and the restaurants and the pubs, phenomenal.

-[BAND PLAYS MARCH] -[CHEERING]

But there are people who don't cotton to it.

They don't like the invasion, they don't like the noise.

Some of the people that live in the centre of the circuit

are not all that much in favour of the car race.

But only one man can lay claim

to having been here before the race started.

He was here in 1932

and he's not all that fussed about racing cars.

It's a curse, really. A curse to us.

A curse to the... I'd say it's a curse to bear this,

the mighty pollution,

this glorifying of speed... has on young people, you know.

He'd stuff cotton wool in his ears

and just bear it for the rest of the day.

But he couldn't abide it.

[CHEERING]

[CAR ENGINES REV]

At the 1979 Bathurst 1000, Ford fans are still talking

about the Falcon's high-flying one-two finish in '77.

But one man is determined to change the narrative.

Peter Brock.

RAY: By 1979, Peter was at the peak of his powers.

He was driving better than he'd ever driven before.

GARRY: Brock had something to prove.

He was always setting the bar higher and higher.

After qualifying for pole position,

Brock is off to a flying start in his Holden Torana.

Not even Moffat can catch him.

With just a handful of laps to go,

Brock's built up an enormous lead.

He's almost 40 kilometres ahead of the next car.

But he thought, "No. Bugger it.

I'm gonna do something different here."

BEV: Peter wanted to prove that this car was so good

he could go out on that last lap and get the lap record.

By the last lap, Brock is pushing his Torana

to its absolute limits.

RAY: I think he just said, "One lap to go. Let's have a go.

Let's have fun on the last lap."

COMMENTATOR: Listen to the crowd warming up.

The chequered flag unfolds a page in history as Peter Brock

in the Marlborough Holden Dealer Team

comes across to take the chequered flag.

Brock wins by six laps

and breaks the lap record on his last lap.

COMMENTATOR: ...of Australia's greatest race, Peter Brock.

It's Brock's fourth win, equalling that

of his long-time rival, Allan Moffat.

It's also the last time a Torana

will take the chequered flag in the Bathurst 1000.

[COMMENTATOR SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY]

It's the end of an era,

and the beginning of a new one.

1980.

The new VB Commodore faces off

against the XD Falcon for the first time.

It's the beginning of what will become a 40-year battle.

There are also some new faces on the circuit.

Dick Johnson, the laconic, laidback Queenslander,

but, boy, he could strangle the best out of a car.

I don't really try to portray to be someone that I'm really not.

I just do my own thing in my own time

and if nobody likes it, well, that's just too bad.

He's a privateer with talent and big dreams,

but no factory backing.

But I had to fund all my own stuff

on a very minimum sort of wage.

It's very difficult to sort of fund something like that.

Johnson's Falcon is built from a used car.

We built the XD Falcon,

which was an ex-police patrol car from Maryborough.

And Johnson, the battler, needs every dollar he can get.

DICK: It was ten grand for pole position and second was nothing.

Guess where we ended up. Second.

[CAR ENGINES REV]

Johnson picks up the start,

a slow start by Kevin Bartlett...

Johnson gets off to a flying start.

DICK: From that point on,

here's me cruising around leading the race

and bugger me dead if this rock didn't appear on the racetrack.

COMMENTATOR 1: Oh, we've had another bang.

Is that the race leader?

COMMENTATOR 2: Dick Johnson.

He has gone into the fence.

He's hit a rock. Demolished the car.

Demolished his chances.

COMMENTATOR: In all of my years in racing,

I have never seen a man

so emotionally shaken as was Dick Johnson.

The Commodore's win is overshadowed

by drama off the track.

MAN: I know the viewers across Australia

are absolutely shattered

by what has happened the same as you are shattered.

We all feel the same.

GARRY: And there was such a great wave of sympathy.

Ford fans and Holden fans started ringing Channel 7.

"What can we do? How can we help?"

A national appeal

raises what would be worth more than $300,000 today

to get Johnson back on the track.

GARRY: Ford got on board

and offered to match dollar for dollar

and that enabled Dick Johnson to come back

and win the damn thing the following year.

[CHEERING]

[CAMERA CLICKS]

♪ Newspapers all told me I should drive a smaller car

♪ They said that in the future, families won't travel far

♪ But when the road is long and I'm driving through the night

♪ And my kids are sleeping peacefully

♪ I know I was right

♪ It's times like these I'm glad I drive a Falcon

The 1980s are very good for Ford.

Not so much for Holden.

Dick Johnson's success on the racetrack

is a key ingredient

that helps the Falcon edge out the Commodore

as Australia's top-selling car.

It has taken Ford 22 years to knock Holden off the top spot.

And they manage to retain it for the next seven years.

But as the decade kicks into gear,

the automotive landscape in Australia

continues to change dramatically

for both manufacturers and consumers.

ARCHIVE: If all the Toyota Coronas sold in Australia

were parked end to end

they'd reach from Melbourne to Sydney.

That's a quarter of a million Coronas

and a quarter of a million people

who've chosen Corona for its reliability, comfort,

and all-round good value.

The Commodore and Falcon may be Australia's biggest sellers,

but increasingly, the consumer has a far greater choice,

particularly in the small-car market.

Ford and Holden were heavily invested in the large sedan car.

And it was only gradually

that it began to dawn upon them and the market

that there was a much greater appetite for smaller cars.

Four-cylinder cars of the kind

that the Japanese were already making.

JOHN: It was inevitable that Toyota became

the number-one brand because of the cars they built.

They were building a world car.

The more they built, the more cost effective it became.

And Holden were building Holdens for Australians

and Ford were building Falcons for Australians.

Despite all of this, Ford and Holden

remain obsessed with each other.

They refuse to shelve their large, powerful sedans.

And in the early '90s,

the Japanese aren't just knocking on the door,

they're kicking it down.

GARRY: When the Nissan GTRs came along,

supporters of the V8 muscle power normally aspirated,

Fords and Holdens, were livid.

COMMENTATOR: Winfield Nissan

have got the great race by the throat.

This new turbocharged threat

challenges Australia's deep-rooted tribal war.

Ford and Holden fans were great rivals,

but they were friendly enemies.

COMMENTATOR: Jim Richards, Mark Scaife

in the Winfield Nissan GTR

winning the 1992 edition Tooheys 1000

over Dick Johnson and John Bauer.

GARRY: The only time they joined forces as enemies

is when somebody else intervened

and upset the Ford versus Holden formula.

[BOOING]

COMMENTATOR: The natives are restless.

I'm just looking to see

if I can find any Nissan flags out there.

AARON: The fans hated the Nissans.

They wanted the Fords and the Holdens to be up the front.

The winners of the great race for the second year running,

Mark Scaife and Jim Richards.

[BOOING]

And the crowd are really getting worked up

and I know why they are.

GARRY: I was on the balcony emceeing the presentation,

and both Ford and Holden fans took up the half-full beer cans

and were throwing them.

COMMENTATOR: I hope Wilko's wearing his can-proof vest.

We had to dodge those to get through the presentation.

JIM RICHARDS: I can't believe the reception.

I thought Australian race fans had a lot more to go than this.

This is bloody disgraceful.

I'll keep racing, but I tell you what,

this is going to remain with me for a long time.

You're a pack of arseholes.

ANDREW: Australians have always been passionate

about their vehicles

and there's an element of tribalism

where they want to come together.

Go, the mighty V8 Commodores!

-The battle lines were drawn. -Go, Ford!

Go, the Holdens!

It is definitely to do with the history

of being a full-blown Australian vehicle

and to be manufactured here.

ANDREW: What makes a superfan is loyalty.

The ability to stick through thick and thin

and we certainly know with motorsport that's what we see.

Go, the Holdens! Yeah!

And it gives people an opportunity

to display their passion and their emotions

for their vehicles, which is wonderful.

Ford rules!

ALL: All Fords are shit!

That's what we race to do. We want our fans to cheer,

we want them to be happy.

BILL: They just wanted Ford versus Holden.

They wanted the big bangers.

They wanted the maximum-capacity car.

The big, powerful, noisy machine out there banging away.

Just the red versus the blue

and that was all they wanted in life.

That was just the atmosphere.

It was seeing the crowd and just understanding that...

[LAUGHS] there was this mad, crazy Australian battle.

[CAMERA CLICKS]

REPORTER: For Australian touring car fans,

they say it's a dream come true.

Ford Falcon against Holden Commodore.

It's just like going into time warp,

for me, going back about nine years.

And from 1993, Australian touring car racing

returns to its V8 roots.

A ring-fence is thrown around the competition

with the rules being rewritten

to only allow Falcons and Commodores.

DICK: We sat down and said what was it like years ago

when we had all the fans

who used to come to the race meetings?

All the television that had great ratings.

And it came down to Ford versus Holden.

So we went back to the future. V8 Commodores, V8 Falcons,

and out of that became V8 Supercars.

It's the most successful period

of touring car racing in Australia.

It's when the commercialism grew.

It's when the teams went from paying to race

to being paid to race.

You're selling millions of dollars of merchandise,

of multimillion-dollar television deals.

It's been nothing short of amazing.

Many in Australia and around the world

see the dawning of the new millennium

as a fresh beginning.

But for Ford and Holden,

it feels more like they're nearing the end of the road.

Their market has once again shrunk

with half the cars on the Australian roads

imported from overseas.

It's beginning to look

like that all that Ford and Holden can bank on

is nostalgia and the loyalty of their rusted-on fans.

And that's exactly who Holden's design team

decides to appeal to as they scramble for ideas.

It starts with a concept car on display at the 1998 Motor Show.

The covers came off this concept car

and the media swarmed around it

and they're going, "Hey, guys, we're over here."

It wasn't called Monaro yet, it was just VT Coupe.

It was the groundswell of people and media saying,

"Well, it's got to be a Monaro and you've got to make it."

A lot of people went nuts. "Yes, you've got to do this thing."

Following an overwhelming response

from the public and media, the modern Monaro is born.

No one knew about it.

Jaws were on the ground. This thing looked amazing.

RICHARD: A sedan-based vehicle

with lots of room, lots of style, lots of pace,

but at an affordable price,

and something that suited the market.

So much like the early Monaros,

they found their niche in the market.

This new one did exactly the same.

The public was ready for it,

which was why it was so successful.

And of course it wasn't just successful only in Australia.

We sold the Monaro around the world

as a Chevrolet and a Pontiac as well.

And more than 40,000 are sold in America.

Twice as many as sold at home.

AARON: It went on the racetrack, won the Bathurst 24 Hour.

It was a performance car that Holden fans had to have.

RICHARD: Just by pushing boundaries a bit,

this is how these things evolve

and how you can have success stories.

That one was absolutely a success story.

Ford's unveiled the latest weapon

in its struggle to overhaul arch-rival Holden,

the new Falcon will go head to head with the Commodore

in a $500-million bid to recover industry leadership.

Ford refuses to accept second place.

They unveiled the new look, European-inspired

BA Series Falcon in September 2002.

COMMENTATOR: And here it is, the BA Falcon race car.

It's officially revealed at Bathurst,

tipping its hat to past Ford glories.

COMMENTATOR: This is a re-enactment

of the fabulous Ford one-two finish

at Bathurst in 1977.

And heralding a promising future.

COMMENTATOR: The V8 Falcon race car,

the man who's given the honour is of course Dick Johnson.

COMMENTATOR 1: Look at this.

COMMENTATOR 2: That's a beautiful car.

Within months of its launch,

the BA Falcon takes out "Wheels" Car of the Year,

a first for the Blue Oval in over three decades.

And more importantly, outselling its Holden rival,

knocking the Commodore off its perch.

Following the production model launch,

the BA's flagship sports models are released.

[CAR ENGINE REVS]

Ford has fallen short of the GT legends since the 1970s.

But the new GT badge Falcon

is a high-powered return to its roots.

The quality of the cars that we were producing in Australia

were awesome cars.

I think the XR Turbo in particular was a special car.

It was a cult car.

The BA is a Supercar champion three years in a row.

And driven by Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup,

is victorious at Bathurst in 2006.

Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup!

Winners of the Supercheap Auto 1000!

[CHEERING]

Well done, you've broken a drought, Craig, for Ford.

Thank you very much. I love youse all.

Still, the Red Lion is on the prowl.

[CAR ENGINE REVS]

MAN: There's a basic law of nature

which says the mightiest...

-[ROARS] -...will lead.

[ROARS]

Launched in 2006,

the VE Commodore is the first Holden

that's been entirely designed,

engineered and built in Australia

since the demise of the HQ in the late 1970s.

RICHARD: It was a very exciting period

when we were developing the VE.

Not since the HQ did we have

an all-new architecture from the ground up

and that's what designers love.

You're not hamstrung by what's already existing.

This is a clean sheet of paper.

We know how to do this.

Now we've got the opportunity, just watch us.

[APPLAUSE]

AARON: This was the brand that always found a way.

Come up with something new and different

to capture the attention of Australians.

Power on. Absolutely superb.

It's also the most expensive and largest automotive project

in Australia's history

and earns the car the nickname the Billion Dollar Baby.

Good evening. The global financial crisis

is affecting financial markets

right around the world, including Australia.

The global financial crisis

brings car manufacturers to their knees.

And some don't survive.

GARY: Consumers started to reduce spending,

reduce their consumption.

Also, you know, people were concerned about driving V8s

as insurance policies went up,

as fuel prices started to creep up,

registration increased,

a move away from V6s

and into sort of smaller four-cylinder vehicles.

With the booming popularity

of imported SUVs and dual-cab utes,

the mighty Ford Falcon is in a death spiral.

Sales plummet and many workers lose their jobs.

If you lose the car industry, then you lose a key component

to having a manufacturing sector in our nation.

GARY: The 2007 global financial crisis

presented more challenges for Ford and Holden.

We saw families, again, constrained in their spending.

NORM: The high cost of the Australian dollar

impacted our exports

and low-cost imports flooded the country.

In May 2013, Ford makes a shock announcement.

They will end manufacturing in Australia by the end of 2016.

Manufacturing is not viable

for Ford in Australia in the long term.

BILL: They were totally unscrupulous

about what worked for them.

It was all about selling cars. Can't blame them for that.

After a century of bitter rivalry,

you'd think Holden fans would celebrate.

But they don't. They're in mourning as well.

BILL: You don't have a rivalry if you don't have opponents.

You've got to keep your enemies strong enough.

They would have desperately wanted to keep each other going,

to keep the whole concept going,

to keep the tradition going, the culture.

RICHARD: When Ford announced the closure

of their manufacturing,

it put the shivers through the industry.

So we were on notice, and I think it told us

that we need to do everything we possibly could

to keep things going.

When you open the door to the new Commodore,

your mind opens too.

When you get behind the wheel, you'll know why.

Technology. Luxury. Quality.

Goosebumps.

In 2013, Holden releases the VF Commodore.

The newest model is celebrated by some

as the greatest car ever made in Australia.

Years in the making.

Over 3.3 million kilometres of testing.

RICHARD: That was the pinnacle for Holden.

We were able to introduce even more technology.

It was a fabulous-value equation.

It did everything well.

It really was a world-class car.

It's also Australia's last great muscle car.

RICHARD: We're sending performance cars to the US

and they're loving them.

In fact, the VF Commodore became the NASCAR.

The car that's always turned heads, now changes minds.

Sadly, that was the last one we did.

In September 2016, Ford shutters its Geelong plant,

the birthplace of Ford Australia.

In October, it shuts Broadmeadows.

REPORTER: After 91 years, Ford's rich history in Australia

came to an abrupt end

with the last Falcon rolling off the assembly line.

The remaining employees said an emotional goodbye

and left the grounds for the very last time.

Very sad. I miss something. My heart is empty.

Yeah, sad day. Sad day for Australia.

It's not just for Ford, it's Australia.

MAN: There's people with tears, there's people devastated.

It was just a really emotional day for a lot of the workers.

It was a really emotional day.

I'm working with people that have been here for 42 years

and they're devastated, you know.

It's not really the thin end of the wedge

because the wedge is nearly all the way in

so there's not much left.

Then in 2017, Holden builds its, and Australia's, last car.

[APPLAUSE]

RICHARD: It was quite sad because, you know,

the ability, the passion and the creativity was still there.

It felt like a tragic irony.

[CHEERING]

[CAMERA CLICKS]

Today is a very sad day for Holden and for South Australia.

And now, GM and Ford have gone and the Holden badge has gone.

That Australianism, that Australian identity is gone.

The cities and towns

that have been home to these mighty firms

have been defined by their presence.

There were towns that, particularly in South Australia,

that were almost being abandoned.

And just seeing all the families that are affected,

it was like doomsday.

It was so sad to see.

The disappearance of the car industry has brought with it

the disappearance of a ladder of opportunity

that was available to people in previous generations.

The local car industry is done.

Holden's managing director always said

Australia needed three manufacturers.

GARY: The market in Australia became too small.

They probably lost the battle with Japanese imports.

It's a tragic end for an industry

that helped Australia become what it is today.

RICHARD: Sadly, I can't think of another country

that had the ability

to actually design, engineer and manufacture cars

in the same country

and then give it up.

2017. It's the last time

Aussie-built Falcons and Commodores

face off on the track at Bathurst.

WILL: You could sense chatter amongst the paddock,

amongst the fan base,

that this was the end of an era.

COMMENTATOR: How great is that?

Holden took the win.

But will these brands ever truly disappear?

Today, these iconic symbols are being immortalised.

Nostalgia for the past means

the fans are keeping the dream alive,

Spending up big to get their hands

on their dream Fords and Holdens.

RACHAEL: Now it's just whether we're restoring them,

whether we're getting our kids to be inspired by them

and just keep the love alive.

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen...

In the showrooms and on the racetracks,

it's been a fierce rivalry unique to Australia.

RACHAEL: We know if the passion dies, the cars will die with it.

So we don't want to give up, and we probably never will.

Whether red or blue,

our homegrown cars were so much more

than just a means of transport.

We grew up in them.

We were liberated by them.

But the stories of these cars didn't end

when they were tossed on the scrapheap of history.

They remain indelible in the snapshots of our lives,

our family stories, and in our folklore.

ANDREW: Cars play an incredibly important role in our lives.

Ultimately, it's a core part of your existence.

And I think they tell stories and that's what we want.

They enabled us to grow as individuals

and as a nation.

They may be disappearing from our streets...

but their legends will live on.