For a time it appeared as if Frankston would become the site for Australia's motor car industry. The Peninsula Automotive Engineering works assembled Hartnett Cars in 1952.
This failed to give an edge to the local area in securing major motor plants. Ultimately the General Motors factory was sited at Dandenong rather than Frankston.
Nevertheless Frankston still does have a very important link with the Australian motor industry, in the former home of Sir Laurence Hartnett.
Hartnett was born in England in 1898, attended Epsom College Surrey and went into an engineering apprenticeship with Vickers, the leading English engineering firm.
Harnett served in the RAF in the First World War, travelled widely after the war and then in 1934 became General Motor's Managing Director of the Holden Motor Car Company.
Instead of winding up the company as his American employers wanted him to do, Hartnett expanded production for several years. He then went on to play a key role in aircraft manufacture during the Second World War.
After experimenting with car assembly in a small plant in Frankston he sought to have a major Holden plant established in Frankston.
This bid failed, however Hartnett's house Rubra in Watts Parade Mt Eliza is a reminder of his role in motor manufacturing, an industry central to the modern character of Frankston and of most other places in Australia.
|
