Golden Age: The Holden FC

Dandenong
Since beginning local manufacture in 1948, Holden had built more than 290,000 motor vehicles in Australia. And because they'd sold every one of them, there were still plenty of customers languishing on the waiting list, some of them for years at a time. The only solution was to ramp up production even more, so in 1954 the company embarked on another £7¼ million expansion programme ($320 million in 2024), which would include upgrades for Fishermans Bend, Pagewood and Woodville as well as Fortitude Valley, Birkenhead and Mosman Park. The jewel in the crown, however, would be an all-new assembly plant to be built to Melbourne's south-east, on the outskirts of what had lately been the satellite city of Dandenong.

Rare image of Dandenong under construction, c.1956.

Hitherto a dairy farming region, post-war immigration (especially from Greece and Italy) had forced Melbourne outwards in a new style of conurbation called "suburbs", and Dandenong was next in line to be absorbed by the blob. Finding a workable combination of cheap land, good transport links and abundant labour, Holden purchased a 153-acre site in March 1955 and broke ground on yet another state-of-the-art assembly plant. The plan was that Dandenong would take over vehicle assembly operations from Fishermans Bend, allowing the Bend to become a dedicated engine plant (as well as remaining head office); Woodville would remain the primary location for body panels. In theory, Dandenong would be capable of 152 bodies and 168 complete vehicles per day, meaning Holden overall would be in with a shot of completing more than 72,000 cars a year. The this would lay the foundation to work towards the ultimate goal of 100,000 per year.

The Dandenong body and assembly plant opened late in 1956, having cost nearly £4.5 million ($198 million). Sadly, there were no public-facing Art Deco buildings this time, just a huge area of sawtooth-roof warehousing punctuated by an office block for the adminisphere. From the moment it opened it was the fourth-largest GM-H plant in Australia, employing more than 3,480 people – so many that Holden was even moved to shell out for the council to build them their own train station, so their workers could commute to their new jobs. The Dandenong station opened either on 1 October or 18 November 1956, and was not accessible from the road, as the only way in or out was via the gate to the Holden factory.

Dandenong's front gate. Apparently the redgum is still there.

Holden was just one of the "big three" of Dandenong, along with International Harvester and Heinz, who spearheaded the industrialisation of the region. In the ten years after their arrival, more than two hundred other factories were built, attracting immigrants the world over who heard there were good jobs going (indeed, it is said Holden even had recruiters on the migrant ships to sign them up on the trip over!). Between 1948 and 1959 Dandenong's population increased from 6,000 to nearly 30,000, and the council was moved to build Doveton Housing Estate to ensure sufficient workers lived close to their places of work. Those who didn't take the train parked their Holdens in the 1,000-space car park out the front of the factory – and by 1958, many of those Holdens were the mid-life update to the ultra-successful FE, the FC.

Distracted by the Shiny
The mid-life update of the Holden FE saw GM-H take an already great car and add chrome – an oversimplification, maybe, but not by much. When the new Holden FC launched on 6 May 1958, the only thing anyone could talk about was the shiny new radiator grille. This was a styling update, and Holden made no apologies for it.

For a humble set of wheels in 1958, you could do worse than an FC Standard. Much worse (source).

Naturally, some journalists wondered whether Holden might've taken it too far for the ultra-conservative Australian market. All that extra chrome could've represented a real risk, but as usual they'd got it spot on, as Australians were ready to indulge in a little extra glamour and frivolity. We were getting used to seeing the latest Chevrolets, Pontiacs and, yes, Ford Customlines rolling around local roads, so the ground was already prepared. The front bumper had been doubled with a moustache-like piece that merged into the lower part of the radiator grille, which contained the parking lights and, on Specials, the indicators as well. Being flat and long rather than round, the frontal light treatment created the impression of a stronger, wider car – even though not a single panel had been changed from the FE. It was evidence of how well Holden's aesthetic design and visual language department – better known as Alf Payze – knew his business. 

The interior didn't reinvent the wheel, it just took the lessons of the last decade and applied them (source).

But like the Holden FJ before it, the FC was more than just a pretty face, focusing on small quality-of-life improvements that added up to a big difference. In the cockpit, the full FE horn ring had been cut down to half a ring to make the instruments more visible, and the gauges had been given black hoods with matching black panels behind the switch gear to cut down on distracting glare (the black steering column was a running FE change – formerly it had been body-coloured). The seats and door trims had been given extra pleats, and there was a new vertical-bar radio speaker grille. The driving position had been made slightly better and it was a nicer car to drive all-round, with sharper steering (3.2 turns lock-to-lock rather than 3.8), better gear linkages, and a more responsive engine.

Although the bumpf didn't mention a power increase, subsequent road tests revealed the standby 132ci Grey straight-six had been given lifted to 54 kW at 4,000rpm, while torque peaked at the same 149 Nm at 1,200rpm. That meant peak torque was available at just 40km/h, so mountain roads could be dealt with by a single downshift to second. The better performance was owed to another small increase in compression ratio, from 6.8 to 7:1 – still a low ratio, even in 1958, but one that allowed Holdens to continue using low-quality fuel. A new camshaft grind and stronger rocker supports supported this increase with smoother breathing, reduced valve bounce and less frequent tappet adjustment. 

The "station sedan", as the wagons were still known, was the ride of choice for suburban dads (source).

Unfortunately, kerb weights had grown from 1,080 to 1,094kg for the Special, and only some of it was because of the extra chrome. Work had begun on toughening-up the flimsy, rust-prone FE almost as soon as it had gone on sale, and most of the mechanical upgrades on the FC had been running changes to the FE first. Combined with smaller but wider 13-inch wheels, that meant the FC could no longer be considered a performance car like the FJ had been. Acceleration was adequate and nothing more, as the engine still didn't like revving and Holden had (wisely) matched the gear ratios to the sorts of driving their customers actually did. That meant the same car that could lurch from 0 to 50km/h in just 4 seconds would take 19.8 to reach 100km/h – but the surge from 40 to 65km/h when you pulled out to overtake lasted just 5.6 seconds.

The standing quarter was 21.6 seconds, and the top speed was 136km/h, but those sorts of figures interested the Holden buyer not a jot. It was close enough to its market rivals not to matter, especially when most of those cost more and started falling apart the moment you introduced them to a corrugated road. The drum brakes would hardly pull your face off, and they were prone to overheating if abused, but that was normal for the era and it was the same for everyone on the road. If you resisted the urge to thrash it, fuel economy figures around 10 litres per 100km were possible, giving it a range of 400km between trips to Golden Fleece.

The price was virtually the same as the outgoing FE, with a Standard sedan for £1,110 ($43,400 in 2024) and the ritzy Special going for £1,142 ($44,500). And let's be honest, the Special was the one you wanted: not only did it come with indicators, side flashes and that lovely radiator grille, the chrome side pieces even made two-tone paintwork possible, hiding the seam between the two visits to the spray booth. Like the FE before it, there were some seriously lovely colour combinations to be had, such as Royal Marine over Skyline Blue, or Hialeagh Green over Cape Ivory.

Promo image of the ute. Note the body-coloure grille and headlight surrounds.

At the other end of the scale, the commercial range initially featured grilles, headlight surrounds and taillight surrounds in body colour to differentiate them from the passenger cars, but quickly switched to the same chrome units as all other FC models. This time the panel van was based on the utility rather than the station wagon, its 1.9 cubic metres of load volume meaning few loads were refused. In a rare misstep however, the extra weight of the FE's body-strengthening programme actually saw payload ratings decrease, with the ute dropping to 388kg and the panel van to just 378. It didn't end up mattering much though, as most tradies paid no heed to such trivialties and carried on overloading their ute or panel van to frankly dangerous levels.

And of course, this being the 1950s, when Holden could do no wrong, the FC was an immediate sales success. It hit the market just as the first generation of Holdens (which had served their owners for nigh on a decade now) came up for replacement, and trading them in for FCs just made sense. With Dandenong now online, Holden hit their target of 100,000 vehicles in 1958, with a final total of 191,724 FCs produced between May 1958 and January 1960. An FC became the 500,000th Holden built and the 10,000th to be exported, with the model supplied to more than fifteen countries including South Africa (just embarking into an exciting new era called "apartheid"), Thailand, Hong Kong, Fiji (still British colonies at this point so technically not countries), and Singapore (which was about to be granted full self-governance by Britain and so yes, technically now a country). At the start of the decade Holden had held a solid 20 percent of the new car market: by the end, at the peak of the FC's tenure, that had risen to an incredible 50.3 percent. The nearest competitor was being outsold four to one, and Holden salesmen boasted they had the easiest job in the world.

Two-millionth Holden breaks the ribbon. Colour images of the day reveal it was bright red.

What made it truly impressive was that the FC's success came at a time when the competition was finally starting to get it together. Where the 48-215 had benefitted from being the best in a field of one, the FC launched into a six-cylinder family sedan market that was not only getting crowded, in some cases it was a difficult choice. In their June '58 edition, Motor Manual ran a head-to-head between the Holden FC, Ford's Mk.II Zephyr, the Morris Marshall ( a local, Morris-branded version of the Austin A95 Westminster), and the Holden's own GM stablemate, the Vauxhall PA Velox. All were assembled on Australian shores and were far better than anything the FJ had faced, but all had their little foibles that could veto a purchase. 

It might've been quite good as a British Austin, but as a local Morris it was, like all British cars of this period, rather out of its depth (source).

After extensive road-testing, Motor Manual concluded that the Marshall offered the best handling, and its huge fuel tank gave it excellent touring range, but there was too much road shock coming up through the steering wheel once you hit the dirt. There was also a fair bit of sticker shock involved, as it retailed for an eye-watering £1,459 ($57,000 in 2024). 

Yes, I know the badge says "Cresta", it's close enough. It's hard to find images of the '58 when the '60 was so much more attractive (source).

The Velox (assembled by GM-H themselves and sold as an up-market alternative to a Holden) was probably the best car overall, offering a similar ownership experience to the Holden, but with a better engine, better interior, and generally just better overall. However, "similar to the Holden" wasn't good enough when the asking price was £1,437 ($56,000) – even if it wasn't as pricy as a Marshall, it was still £232 more than the Holden.

As we know, the Mk.II was the first Zephyr able to justify its extra cost. No wonder Ford made it the linchpin of their expansion plans for coming decade.

Surprisingly, it was the Zephyr that came closest to unseating the Holden, featuring the most powerful engine in the test (64 kW), but with a question mark over its fuel economy and concerns that its MacPherson strut front suspension didn't do enough to isolate the body from the rough stuff. And at £1,362 (just over $53,000), it still cost £157 more than the Holden. Overall, while the British cars were better whenever you had a sealed highway under you, none were as comfortable as the Holden when the going got tough. What's more, the FC's extra boot space and sensible placement of the spare tyre (where you could retrieve it without emptying out the entire boot first) gave it an edge over the others even before you sat down to with your bank manager to talk finance. Wheels magazine wisely summed it up as: "A worthy continuance of the combination of features which made the previous model so popular. The designers have steered an excellent course through the paths of compromise. Holden has far fewer faults than many cars with higher price tags and imposing overseas origins."

But as Uncle Henry taught us, "A man learns nothing from winning," and that went for companies as well. Holden had worked hard to get where they were, but after ten years there was a definite "born to rule" mentality setting in, that would come back to haunt them once their rivals started releasing seriously competitive machines. Holden might've been banking plenty of cash reserves, but the hard lessons – the kind you can only get from losing – were all going to their rivals, especially the other two Detroit giants at Broadmeadows and Mile End South.