Austin Rovers' web site, AROnline, in the "Rover in New Zealand" section, states that CKD car registrations for Rover brands assembled between 1 January and 30 June 1963 totaled 127 (can we safely say Rover Series 1 P6's??)
Having read Mark Websters' book entitled "ASSEMBLY New Zealand Car Production 1921-98" I would come to the conclusion that P6's were only assembled in NZ from CKD kits and exported to Australia, as I have yet to find any evidence of Australian P6 assembly. My chassis numbers correspond with what Rudiger Wicke states in his website for CKD R/H drive kits for export as all my window glass has NZ standards etching marks, if this is any indication of NZ assembly, and as always I stand willingly to be corrected. And as you ask Chris, it would be interesting to get other info from Aussie/Kiwi P6 owners, starting with Ron in Sydeny, eh what? Do you have similar etched glass Ron?
The following was copied from:
http://www.roverklubben.se/histe.html
The New Zealand Rover story
The First Rover sold in this region of the world was from a firm Cooke Howlison Ltd. It was in 1908 and it was a Rover 8 hp sold to Doctor Fulton. There is no current knowledge of where the car is or what happened to it.
Cooke Howlison went on to become General Motors agents, beginning with Buicks and had no further links with Rover. Recently they took over the BMW franchise and when the Rover-BMW merger took place they were granted the Rover franchise as well. They are generous in their support of the club through Rover NZ.
In 1931, Frank Searle, the Chairman of the Rover Board went to New Zealand to inspect the newly opened Rover factory there. This was a factory to assemble Rover Family 10s, that was opened at Petone (Pit-tone-ee) in Wellington. It lasted only one year. The Depression was a major factor in closing the plant.
After this, Frank Searle returned to England and lived out his life at his estate, Alton Hall.
The Nelson factory was originally building Triumph 2000s and Triumph Heralds, not Rovers, when AMI shifted assembly to Nelson from Christchurch - then Rovers, then Land-Rovers.
When the company (Associated Motor Industries) was absorbed into first Leyland and then NZ Motor Corporation, it also assembled Leyland trucks and buses, then Austin Princesses and Minis, Jaguars and Daimlers!
Then NZMC got the Honda franchise, so it began assembling Honda Civics (early '80s) then Accords. But Honda ended up absorbing the NZMC plants and so the plant became a Honda plant until it closed in 1998.
I visited the site in July 2001 and interviewed people who worked on all these cars.
Thanks to: Mark Webster, deputy editor NZ Classic Car magazine
Here are the Rover figures:
Rover P6 2000 4-cylinder, April 1968 to December 1971, total 2473
Rover 3500 V8, May 1971 - April 1975, total 1345
Rover 3500 V8 (for Australia), June 1972 - October 1976, total 1806
Land-Rover 88* & 109*, February 1975 - August 1987, total 4339
Land-Rover (NZ Army specials), March 1980 - February 1984, total 630
Rover SD1 3500 V8 auto, April 1979 - December 1981, total 696
Rover SD1 2600 six-cylinder Auto, August 1979 - December 1981, total 280
Rover SD1 2600 six-cylinder Manual, August 1979 - June 1981, total 392
Figures thanks to Mark Webster and Honda NZ.
From early 1973 most of the 3500 automatics that came to Australia were assembled from completely knocked down packs in New Zealand. One fascinating piece of trivia connected with the New Zealand assembly is that the base units had their roofs cut off at waist level in the UK factory so that more bodies could be packed into containers. The roofs were subsequently welded back on in New Zealand.
The New Zealand Rovers were assembled at the Associated Motor Industries plant in Nelson. Substantial tariff reductions were possible for vehicles imported into Australia from New Zealand under the New Zealand-Australia Free Trade Agreement, but to gain the concession the cars had to meet a specified level of Australian and New Zealand content. This was achieved by using some Australian and New Zealand components and New Zealand labour.
Regards,