page_title: Automotive industry in New Zealand
section_title: Early indigenous cars
hierarchical_section_title: Automotive industry in New Zealand / Early indigenous cars
caption_attribution_description: I thought some of you guys from overseas would like to see a Kiwi car park shot, so here you go. Nothing particularly rare here (not in NZ anyway), but the Citroen DS3 next to the RAV4 at the far right isn't an everyday sight. This was taken at Bishopdale Mall in Christchurch, New Zealand on Saturday 10th May 2014.
context_page_description: The automotive industry in New Zealand supplies a market which has always had one of the world's highest car ownership ratios. The distributors of new cars are essentially the former owners of the assembly businesses. At the dealership level they have maintained their old retail chains in spite of the establishment of the many new independent businesses built since the 1980s by specialists in used imports from Japan. Toyota entered into direct competition with those used-import businesses refurbishing old Toyotas from Japan and selling them through their own dealers as a special line. The nation's car fleet is accordingly somewhat older than in most developed countries.
  New Zealand no longer assembles passenger cars. Assembly plants closed after tariff protection was removed and distributors found it cheaper to import cars fully assembled. Cars had been assembled at a rate nearing 100,000 a year in 1983 but with the country's economic difficulties their numbers dropped sharply. Towards the end of the decade the removal of various restrictions as part of the nation's restructuring of its economy made available low-priced old used cars from Japan.
context_section_description: If steam-powered vehicles are counted, the first vehicles were believed to be a steam buggy constructed by a Mr Empson of Christchurch in 1870 and a steam buggy imported from Edinburgh by J L Gillies of Dunedin, also in 1870. There is no information about Mr Empson's vehicle. The first traction engine, an 8 hp Reading Iron Works Limited traction engine, had only been imported three years earlier. Gillies steam buggy was more probably a Thomson Road Steamer and not a steam buggy. Gillies sold the Thomson to the Canterbury Provincial Government in 1871 for ₤1,200. These were followed by Professor Robert Julian Scott's 1881 steam buggy, which was the first indigenous designed self propelled vehicle in New Zealand.
  There is debate about who made the first petrol driven vehicle. Timaru engineer Cecil Wood made a petrol engine in 1897, but later made an unsubstantiated claim to have created and driven a three-wheel vehicle in 1896 followed by a four-wheel vehicle in 1898. His first independently confirmed vehicles date from 1901.
  On 3 May 1898 a Nelson newspaper reported that a Mr Sewell of the Upper Buller had constructed a motor car and was to drive it to Wakefield that week. A letter to the Evening Post's editor later that year stated that there were two engineering firms in Wellington constructing motor car engines. Whether Wood, Sewell, or the engineering firms made a roadworthy vehicle at this time is not known as there were no further articles about them.
  The first New Zealand designed and constructed automobile known to have run was made by Frederick Dennison. It was a motor tricycle reported in the local newspaper on 8 May 1900. The article stated that Dennison intended to convert the tricycle to a four-wheel motor-car. He did so and drove it from Christchurch to Oamaru in July 1900. It was the only one made and was destroyed by fire on its return journey. A replica of this car was completed and driven in June 2000 in celebration of its first journey.
  This was followed by several models constructed by Wood between 1901 and 1903, A W Reid of Stratford's steam cars from 1903 to 1906, Gary Methven of Dunedin's petrol driven car, Pat and Thomas Lindsay of Timaru's steam cars in 1903, and Topliss Brothers of Christchurch's car in 1904. A Blenheim engineer, John Birch, constructed the Marlborough in 1912 and several cars named Carlton's between 1922 and 1928 at Gisborne. One of these is still in existence with the Gisborne vintage car club.
caption: Bishopdale Mall, May 2014
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