ABSTRACT
By the mid-1930s the tariff that had evolved since the First World War had encouraged the development of an automotive industry that was essentially composed of two elements. One comprised the many local producers of mainly replacement parts who were sheltered by high, protective tariffs. Over much of the period protective rates had been progressively applied to more and more components. In the view of the Australian Automobile Manufacturers' Association 'full' local manufacture would eventually follow inevitably from the establishment of components manufacture. By 1936, experience had demonstrated this view to be fallacious. Providing high levels of protection for an increasing range of automobile components had created a fragmented components industry with many small producers, short production runs, poor product quality and outmoded technology.1 Rather than the manufacture of a 'completed' motor car, the tariff inhibited the adoption of mass production methods for the manufacture of either spare parts or original equipment, but was unable to encourage any commercial manufacture of the motive force of the vehicle: its engine.
