Rear view looks at the history of motoring in Queensland through the pages of RACQ publications.
The January 1950 edition of The Road Ahead featured a story on the state of Japan’s automobile industry and its recovery from the impacts of World War 2.
“Information about motoring in Japan is usually slight and ill-informed, but the picture is now clearer than it has been for some time,” the story began.
At the time, the fledging GM-backed Holden was the only car maker building a truly Australian car, with Ford producing the partly imported Zephyr at its plant in Geelong and the Falcon still a decade away. Several other companies including Chrysler and the Nuffield Group, which manufactured the British marques M.G., Morris, Riley and Wolseley, were also preparing to establish factories here.
Despite the outstanding success of the new 48-215 Holden, also known as the FX, which claimed around 18% of sales, the majority of the 205,269 vehicles sold in Australia that year were still imported from Britain and Europe, with North American cars mainly imported from Canada garnering around 8% of the market.
However, Japanese car makers including Toyota had already identified Australia as a potential market with The Road Ahead story identifying Toyota, Nissan and Ohta as the three leading Japanese vehicle manufacturers.
The trend in design among these Japanese manufacturers was toward small, highly economical cars. This was “evidently affected by economic conditions”, with petrol restrictions in place.
The story highlighted Toyota’s Toyopet as being typical of the trend. It was a four-seater, under one-litre capacity and with a claimed top speed of 57 miles per hour (92km/h).
We are familiar with the global success stories of Toyota and Nissan, but what about Ohta?
Established in 1922, Ohta was one of the largest Japanese automotive manufacturing companies by the 1930s. It produced cars from 1934 until 1957 when it was acquired by rival car maker Tokyu Kurogane Kogyo, which in turn was taken over by Nissan in 1963.
However, Japanese car makers including Toyota had already identified Australia as a potential market with The Road Ahead story identifying Toyota, Nissan and Ohta as the three leading Japanese vehicle manufacturers.
The trend in design among these Japanese manufacturers was toward small, highly economical cars. This was “evidently affected by economic conditions”, with petrol restrictions in place.
The story highlighted Toyota’s Toyopet as being typical of the trend. It was a four-seater, under one-litre capacity and with a claimed top speed of 57 miles per hour (92km/h).
We are familiar with the global success stories of Toyota and Nissan, but what about Ohta?
Established in 1922, Ohta was one of the largest Japanese automotive manufacturing companies by the 1930s. It produced cars from 1934 until 1957 when it was acquired by rival car maker Tokyu Kurogane Kogyo, which in turn was taken over by Nissan in 1963.
Motels boom on the way
Motels, positioned on or near major highways, have been common around Australia for decades, offering a convenient short-term stay for travellers.
However, in the 1950s motels were only just starting to pop up in the United States and yet to make an appearance here.
The January 1950 edition of The Road Ahead featured a story on this emerging accommodation option with the heading, “The Motel – America’s answer to the tourist accommodation problem”.
The story explained that motels, short for ‘motor hotels’, were becoming big business in the US.
The same edition of The Road Ahead revealed that a motel was being established on the outskirts of Sydney and accurately predicted this would be the first of a “chain of these tourist hotels which will ultimately stretch from Sydney to Cairns”.