A Trip to Trafalgar

A 1930s butter factory transformed into a stunning showcase of Holden history. 

Nearing the second anniversary of Holden pulling the pin on car manufacturing in Australia, there seemed no better time to make the trip east to visit the Trafalgar Holden Museum. Well, it turns out there was, but we’ll tell you more about that later.

So, on Saturday morning, we fired up the car, plunged into the Burnley Tunnel and then motored along the Princess Highway into West Gippsland to drop in on the charming township of Trafalgar. It’s just an hour and a half outside of Melbourne with a smooth run through the outer eastern suburbs.

Darting off the highway and crossing the railway line, it was hard to miss the Holden Museum with familiar flags and signage adorning the old butter factory opposite the railway station. Yep, it’s just as easy to get there by jumping on a country train bound for Bairnsdale or Traralgon.

The Trafalgar Holden Museum facade

The first thing you notice is the tram to the right of the entrance.

“What’s that got to do with Holden?”

Fortunately, there were plenty of people inside who were all too happy to answer any question that came to mind, or handball it to someone who could. The first friendly face we came across was Neil Joiner, who owns many of the cars in the collection as well as the museum itself. He collected our ten dollars for admission and wished us a great visit.

With Holden paraphernalia occupying just about every spare piece of real estate, half an hour could be spent scouring the foyer and the shop before you even see a car. But with an urge to check out the collection straight away, we wandered through the door to find the first bunch of cars.

The history hits you immediately. On our left was a cream Holden FX facing the very last Holden Commodore made in Australia on our right. The challenge was to fathom the sheer significance of the latter. It’s in town for a good time, not a long time, and its place in Australian history is worth the price of admission alone over the next couple of weeks.

Inside the last Australian-built Holden Commodore

Ambling through this section of the museum paints a picture of how the early Holden models progressed not just in terms of styling, but in both features and pricing. You can pick Holden’s periods of domination and vulnerability with a glance at what they took to market and how much it cost to have it in your driveway. Hint, the early ones could easily drain your whole year’s salary in one hit.

The fifties, sixties and early seventies models are best represented in this section and more than a couple hail from the Gippsland region which brings a unique local flavour. At the moment, there are some rare beasts hiding in the corner, from a menacing black HSV GTS-R W1 to a Sandman concept and for good measure, the millionth Holden that rolled off the production line.

This place has got everything.

A big milestone in Holden’s history

For those keen on what’s hiding underneath the beautifully pressed bodywork, there’s a room that is sure to light your fire. We’ll call it the propulsion room, as there are a couple of motors to examine as well as an interactive cutaway driveline and suspension display. With every indication that we built them tough down under, the pair of utes waiting outside prove this point to a tee.

This area is packed with history. From oodles of historic signage to a cabinet featuring a genuine Holden payslip, you can easily spend the day browsing the items on display. There is also a movie room that was showing the brilliant ABC motoring series, Wide Open Road, which consumed at least 40 minutes of our visit.

A Holden pay slip

If bent eight monsters leave you a little weak at the knees, you might need to hold the handrail walking into the Monaro room. As you’d expect, the cars in here have some serious presence. As the light catches the bodywork, you can’t help but smile at an era of exhilaration.

Inside the Monaro room

There is plenty to satisfy performance car fans including some classic modified Holdens that wouldn’t have looked out of place with their bonnet up in a suburban driveway on any given weekend. For many, this will bring back fond memories of a simpler time when the car you drove defined you and cruising down the main street for the sake of it made so much sense.

It’s not over once you have scoured the main building. When you head out the back, you will see a Holden World War II workboat built for the Australian Armed Forces. It’s a chapter of Holden’s rich history that goes far beyond popular passenger cars and right to the heart of Australia at war. It sits outside another shed featuring at least two dozen more vehicles, from a Holden-bodied Vauxhall Cresta to a Lloyd Hartnett 600 from when a former GM-H CEO decided to go it alone.

Another highlight of the back shed is the rare Mount Isa ambulance that’s a little bit ute, a little bit sedan and a little bit panel van. It’s a fascinating piece of Australian automotive history that we’re all the better for seeing preserved and displayed. There are a couple more modern examples in this section of the collection including some original nineties and noughties sedans, an eighties Statesman as well as two sporty Toranas.  

A VX Commodore interior

If chronological order was the aim, we didn’t quite nail it. That’s because there is another room accessible through a doorway to the right just after you walk through the entrance. This is all about Holden’s very early history building bodies on imported chassis and even before propulsion came from combustible fuel and a spark. Holden’s crucial role in the war came to light again in this part of the collection with examples of military products produced when Australia needed them the most.

Early Holden-bodied vehicles

So, if you bleed red (technically we all do!), this is a very worthwhile trip to learn a little bit more about modern Australian history. It doesn’t matter whether you come from a Ford family or don’t care too much for cars, as the experience transcends the motor vehicles themselves.

We didn’t pick a half bad day as the sun shone on the old butter factory, but there’s an even better time to visit. In under two weeks’ time, hundreds of Holden fans will converge on Trafalgar for what’s called the Route 69 Cruise to mark the second anniversary of the end of Holden mass-producing motor cars. It’s a big deal for the town and for the museum, and you can bet we’ll be motoring down the Princess Highway again on Sunday October 20 to write about it.

You can find the museum on Facebook and its opening hours can be found on the Trafalgar Holden Museum website. There’s more on the Route 69 Cruise here.

And as for why the tram is there? Well, we can’t steal all the museum’s thunder!

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