Leyland Australia
British Motor Corporation (Australia) was a motor manufacturing company formed in Australia in 1954 by the merger of the Austin Motor Company (Australia) and Nuffield (Australia) Pty Ltd. This followed the merger in 1952 of the Austin Motor Company and the Nuffield Group in the United Kingdom to form the British Motor Corporation. Following further corporate changes in the UK in the late 1960s, BMC Australia was absorbed into the newly established British Leyland Motor Corporation of Australia, the name of which became Leyland Motor Corporation of Australia in 1972, and then JRA Limited in March 1983.
In 1949, the British Austin company bought the Melbourne based Ruskin Body Works and used the factory to make ute and tourer bodies for fitting to imported Austin A40 chassis.
In 1947 Lord Nuffield purchased the former Victoria Park Racecourse, Zetland, New South Wales as the site for a car assembly plant. Nuffield Australia opened their new, 57-acre (230,000 m2) assembly and factory building in March 1950. The facility was initially set up to assemble Morris Minor and Morris Oxford models from CKD kits. Previously these cars were imported into Australia as assembled vehicles.
In 1954 the Austin Motor Company of Australia and Nuffield Australia merged to form British Motor Corporation (Australia) with the Nuffield facility at Victoria Park becoming the group headquarters of the new company. Austin and Morris vehicles were assembled at the facility and subsequently it was to be the design and manufacturing centre for BMC Australia.
During a period of significant postwar reconstruction, migrant assimilation and technical innovation, the factory employed a peak of 7000 people from 35 nations. The only plant in Australia to manufacture the complete vehicle, it introduced to Australia the in-line transfer machining of engine blocks, the “rotodip” paint process, automatic conveyor assembly processes and major advances in just-in-time and flexible manufacturing concepts.
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