#TheHerald180 | City with a rich motor industry history

Legend has it that the birth of the nation’s motor industry — and mainstay of the Eastern Cape economy for close to 90 years — took place in a boardroom at the world’s automotive powerhouse of the time, the US city of Detroit.

Henry Ford and his board were considering expansion of their industrial empire.

Ford automobiles were already being exported to and sold in SA.

“Ford wanted to increase sales in the wealthy nation at the tip of Africa, so called for a map of Africa,” motor industry old-timers often recalled.

The way to do this, Ford decided, was to start building cars in the south of the massive continent.

He stuck the map on the wall, studied it and pointed to a tiny southern spot next to the Indian Ocean,” ex-Ford employee and late motoring journalist Bob Kernohan said.

Ford was then known to have said: “This place called Port Elizabeth [Gqeberha] looks pretty good.

“It’s a port and it’s sort of halfway between Cape Town and Durban and we can send the cars upcountry to the goldfields of Johannesburg.”

And so the decision was made. Ford established its first local plant in the heart of Port Elizabeth in 1923.

In fact, the city’s rich motor industry history goes way back to 1896 when the first car was imported to SA, a two-seater Benz Velo.

The car was shipped to Port Elizabeth and then transported to Pretoria to John Percy Hess, who became the sole agent for Benz Motors in SA.

The cars which rolled off the GM production lines included Holden Cadillac, La Salle, Oldsmobile, Buick, Chevrolet cars and trucks, GMC and Bedford trucks, Opel, Vauxhall and Isuzu bakkies and trucks.

Also in later years GMSA produced Suzuki ST 90 and SJ 410 vehicles and the iconic Hummer.

Volkswagen started operations in April 1951, when the first fully-assembled Volkswagen was sent from the company’s Wolfsburg factory to SA Motor Assemblers and Distributors (Samad).

The first locally assembled Volkswagen was driven off the production line in Uitenhage (Kariega) in August 1951.

But before that, a franchise agreement was signed in 1946 between the SA company Industrial and Commercial Holdings and the Studebaker Export Corporation for the local assembly of Studebaker cars and commercial vehicles.

Samad was launched as a public company with an initial authorised share capital of R1m.

In November 1948, the first Studebaker (a commercial vehicle) rolled off the production line.

And a year later, in June 1949, Samad entered into an agreement with Austin Motors of England to assemble Austin vehicles in Uitenhage.

In February 1950, the first Austin left the production line.

Troubled times in the eighties saw Ford close plants and General Motors US selling to local directors.

The Delta Motor Corporation was formed and traded till GM returned in 2004.

At various times, the city was home to the manufacture of Citroëns from France and Land Rovers from the UK.

As pointed out by the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber, Volkswagen Group Africa and Isuzu Motors South Africa today serve as the anchor original equipment manufacturers in the metro, coupled with a number of semi-knocked-down assemblers.

Apart from the assembly of motor vehicles, the Bay is home to other industries which provide parts to vehicle manufacturers. 

* The above excerpts are from an article published in The Herald in July 2020.

The Herald