Their designs of the late 1960s – the Kingswood, Falcon, Charger, Torana, Monaro and others – form the transitional myth of Australian motoring, the rise, peak and subsequent decline of our national automotive industry. It’s as though car design erupted along with open-necked shirts, stubbies and colour television.

The truth is much richer. Ballarat automotive historian Norm Darwin is the author of ten books, and his latest is Early Australian Automobile Design – the first fifty years. In it he comprehensively traces the amazing story of how Australia built a car industry out of enthusiasm, tinkering, innovation and downright opportunism.

It’s a large format book of over 300 pages, full of pictures of long-disappeared start ups and makes of Australian manufactured vehicles. Names such as the ‘Australian Horseless Carriage Syndicate’, the ‘Roo Manufacturing Company’, the ‘Southern Six’ and the ‘Marks-Moir’ are examined in detail. Some survived just a few months; others continued to produce vehicles for years.

It tells the true story of the input of Australian engineers into the design of Holden cars. They were not simply knock-offs of US models, but rather conceived and built with specific Australian conditions and consumers in mind.

The story of Australian designers struggling with adequate ventilation in our heat versus denying access to dust from our largely unsealed roads is just one aspect of the story (the answer was early streamlining), as is the contribution of pre-World War II designers and production managers to designing and producing armoured vehicles (early versions included the ‘Corrobboree’ and ‘Boomerang’) through to trucks, marine engines, gun tractors and aeroplanes such as the Bristol Beaufort and Beaufighter.

For a young man who cut his automotive teeth on the showroom floor of his uncle’s British Motor Corporation (BMC) dealership in Adelaide collecting the sales brochures of Austin and Morris motor cars, and whose first vehicle was the iconic FJ Holden, Norm Darwin really had a dream career working in the design and development department of General Motors-Holden’s (GMH) alongside such acclaimed designers as Phil Zmood and Leo Pruneau.

He began as an apprentice with the State Electricity Commission (SEC), but found it wasn’t to his liking. A fortuitous meeting with a secretary at GMH led to him becoming a technical clerk at the manufacturer.

The secretary also became his wife, Heather, by the way.

Beginning in the engineering drawing office in 1969, Norm Darwin knew he had come to the right place for a young man with a passion for cars.

“Holden in 1969 was a great place to work, and working in engineering was a real buzz,” he says.

“I was employed at the start of the HQ program. It was a major program and they started employing quite a few draughtsmen. They’d built the Holden Hurricane in that year, a very slippery looking experimental car.”

It was also the year of the GTRX Torana, another experimental car that was ahead of its time, but sadly ahead of its budget as well.

Darwin spent four years working in the drawing office before taking up the role of budgeting and cost officer for the division. He worked with the legendary Leo Pruneau, who introduced the Commodore to Australia; Phil Zmood, who led the design team for the LJ, LH and LX Toranas and was appointed the first Australian director of design for GMH in 1983.

The HQ program is a favourite of Darwin’s. He own a meticulously restored 1974 HQ Holden Monaro Coupe 308 GTS in a stunningly reflective Monterey Green, and a 1970 Pontiac Firebird – a car which had much impact on the HQ style, especially the ‘coke bottle waist’ popular at the time.

Heather says they bought a Monaro new in 1971.

“$2135 it cost us,” she says.

“If you look at my Firebird, and the (Chevrolet) Camaro, there’s a lot of HQ design comes out of those,” says Darwin.

The HQ was criticised for its handling, however. A Cadillac engineer named George Roberts wanted to ensure the higher-powered model would stay on the road under acceleration.

“He decreed the suspension should be ‘idiot-proof’. If a driver in a HQ runs into a tight corner, the car is not going to get him into trouble. So the suspension was soft and it would just plough on, if you like. Well the press like a nice handling car and it was anything but that.”

Darwin says a redesign of the suspension system by 1978 meant that the Holden handled better than a BMW at the same time.

His collection of automotive literature and resources is one of the best in Australia, and contains rare books, journals, bound copies of long defunct magazines, and workshop manuals. Darwin’s study is a cornucopia of memorabilia, models and research papers. He’s completing a PhD on Australian automotive design at RMIT, through the School of Architecture and Design. It’s a proud achievement  for the 72-year-old, who is one of the pre-eminent minds about the topic in the country.

Deep down though, it’s still the grease and the hard metal that inspires Norm and Heather. Aside from the Camaro and the Monaro, there’s a glorious ‘57 Chevrolet in the shed, their grandson’s ‘68 HK Kingswood, Norm’s father’s ‘27 Oakland roadster and a ‘36 Chev ‘Sloper’ in the process of restoration.

The Sloper, so named for the two-door incarnation with a sweeping rear, is the forerunner of the hatchback, Norm says. The rear seat would fold down and you could load up the car through the boot.

Another great Australian design breakthrough, he says.

And Norm Darwin would know.

Early Australian Automotive Design – the first fifty years is available from Ballarat bookshops; Autoparts in Ballarat; the Ballarat Swap Meet this weekend, and through Norm and Heather’s website.