Chrysler City

During the height of local car manufacture, Adelaide was Australia's answer to 'motor city' Detroit. Even today, the southern Adelaide suburb Tonsley is better known as Tonsley Park, the factory where Chryslers were built and assembled.

Story: James Cockington

During the 1930s Chrysler, Plymouth, DeSoto and Dodge chassis were imported into Adelaide by Chrysler-Dodge Distributors. Importing complete cars was restricted by law, so the bodies were built locally by the Adelaide body-building firm, TJ Richards.

Just as General Motors had done with its Australian body builder, Holden, Chrysler took over both its Australian partners after the war.

Realising that the operation had outgrown its premises at Keswick, Chrysler decided to build a brand-new factory on the Main South Road at Tonsley Park. The name of the factory was later changed to Chrysler Park.

The new company’s first success was with the 1962 Chrysler Valiant, based on the US company’s Plymouth Valiant. Pacers and Chargers were also manufactured here at a time when Chrysler joined Holden and Ford to become the Big Three muscle car manufacturers. Sadly, that ended all too soon. By the end of the seventies, Tonsley Park had been taken over by Mitsubishi, which continued local manufacture and assembly until 2008 when it too announced it was pulling out.