Holden Top The Sales Charts - According To Holden
General Motors-Holden wanted us to believe they were top of the sales charts in
1973. According to a press release dated January 9th,
1974, by GMH Director of Sales Mr. J. Gl. Bradshaw, new vehicles sold and delivered totalled 177,589. This compared with 162,446 in
1972 and the previous best of 174,405 in
1964. "The record was achieved despite material and labor shortages and industrial disputes which affected plant production schedules throughout the year," Mr. Bagshaw said. "We lost tens of thousands of units," he added. Then, when the Holden realised it had definitely lost the title in December, it put another press release out on January 18th. This one read: Preliminary registration figures for
1973 show that GMH has retained its position as market leader for the 21st consecutive year.
Mr. Bagshaw said it was clear from the figures that Holden Kingswood was again top selling passenger car; the six-cylinder
Torana, top selling medium size car; and Toranas overall, the fourth biggest seller in the country. "Even Holden commercial vehicles, which include utilities, panel vans and one tonners, outsold many well known passenger cars," he said. Mr. Bagshaw said the figures were particularly gratifying in view of the severe production problems encountered by GMH throughout the year. Mr. Bagshaw said these problems created an extreme shortage of cars in December, although production of Holden and Toranas for the year overall was a record. "This will temporarily affect our share of registrations in December and January, despite the fact that we currently hold orders for 25,000 units," he said.
Ford Takes Market Leadership From GMH
Then, on January 23,
1974, Ford broke the news officially in a press release headed "Ford Takes Market Leadership From GMH". It read: In December,
1973, the Ford Motor Company took market leadership from
General Motors-Holden tor the first time in the Australian motor vehicle industry, according to official registration figures released today. Ford registered 10,285 vehicles for a share of 26.5 per cent, 1.1 percentage points ahead of GMH. In the passenger vehicle, market, Ford's ascendancy was even greater. Ford registered a share of 28.7 per cent, 4.6 percentage points ahead of GMH. Ford Australia's Director of Sales and Marketing, Mr. Keith Horner, said that the December figures reflected the strong public acceptance of the
Falcon/
Fairlane range, the success of the LTD and
Landau, which, for the last quarter, gave Ford luxury car leadership, and the Company's intensive efforts during the year to improve the quality of its vehicles.
"The result is most gratifying," Mr. Horner said, "in view of the fact that our stocks have been less than half the normal level since the Broadmeadows strike midway through 1973, followed by a series of crippling suppliers' strikes, and the New South Wales transport strike in December. It highlights the rapidly increasing trend in acceptance of our products which has been evident since
1968. "The December result is the first milestone on what we believe is the road to market leadership in the long term," Mr. Horner said. "Our January retail sales will be an all time record, and, based on progressive registration data, I think Ford will probably maintain leadership tor the second successive month.
"During the rest of
1974, we are confident that, with the strong public acceptance of our products, we will sell 150,000 vehicles in Australia. Whether Ford will maintain market leadership for the full year will depend on the size of the total market," Mr. Horner stated, adding, "If the market is around 550,-000 units. Ford's share will be between 26.0 and 27.0 per cent - probably not quite enough to keep market leadership for the full year. However, if the market weakens to around 500,000 units, we are confident that we will still sell 150,000 vehicles, which will give us a share of around 30.0 per cent, and market leadership for
1974."
But that wasn't the end of the story. GMH decided it had better tell everyone about the situation, and not just the people who read the business pages in the Age. It ran an ad, described at the time by one well-known finance journalist as "spurious". It was hard to understand the logic of the ad. GMH put the cars and their makes into certain categories, but the categories did not seem to relate too well. For instance, Leyland didn't crack a mention, despite the fact that it outsold Mazda in total units. Chrysler was most upset about the ad, too. It was relegated to seventh place when it actually was the fourth biggest seller. Also, the Holden figure excluded Statesman and the Falcon figure included Fairlane. We suppose this was for the benefit of the people who knew the exact figures. The ad included Holden commercials and Falcon commercials under the head "The Top Ten Cars of 1973".
What made things even more difficult to understand was that the 1973 figures did not reflect a car's popularity. They simply reflected each company's ability to supply the cars, and other company's abilities to supply parts to the manufacturers. The Japanese and Europeans, buoyant as their sales were, would have also scored better if they had better channels of supply. For instance, in one month Toyota ordered 50 Celicas. The Japanese parent sent only 15. So - were Holden's the number one for 1973. You decide.
THE TOP 10 CARS OF 1973 (according to Holden)
