the year assembly of the Fordson tractor was introduced in New Zealand. In 1965 a parts depot opened in Auckland leading the transfer of operations from Wellington to Auckland and in 1972 a transmission and chassis manufacturing facility at Wiri, Manukau City. The Auckland assembly plant was also completed in 1972 and began building Falcons the next year. In 1981 an alloy wheel plant was opened at Wiri. By 1987 most operations had been moved from Seaview to Wiri, Auckland and the Seaview plant was closed in 1988 after 52 years. Ford New Zealand underwent a major restructuring in 1987–88, including relocation of all operations to Wiri. Products made by Ford New Zealand up from the early 1950s until the 1980s (with exception of the Falcon/Fairmont range, and low volume American product until the 1960s) were predominantly British. Generations of New Zealanders grew up with Anglias, Escorts, Cortinas, Zephyrs and Zodiacs just as New Zealand's immediately preceding generation grew up with Canadian sourced (for Imperial Preference tariffs) but locally assembled Model Ts, Model As and Ford V8s. All were successful. Falcons from Australia were very popular running a close second to Holden right through from the 1960s to the 1980s. In common with other countries in the Asia Pacific region, Ford New Zealand marketed the Mazda-based Laser and Telstar, which replaced the British Escort and Cortina in the early 1980s. Unlike Australia, however, the Sierra was assembled and sold locally in New Zealand in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, though generally only available as a wagon. A wagon version of the Telstar was eventually offered in New Zealand, based on Mazda's GV platform – in fact New Zealand was the only country outside Japan where this body style was available. It continued to be marketed locally, along with a sedan version called the Telstar Orion, until 1997. This sharing of models between Ford and Mazda led to the creation of a joint venture called Vehicle Assemblers of New Zealand (VANZ), in which Ford New Zealand held a 74 percent equity. This had followed the closure of Mazda's own assembly plant in Otahuhu in 1987. The Mazda 323 and 626, were assembled alongside the almost identical Ford Laser and Telstar until well into the 1990s. This was in contrast to Australia, where Mazdas were not assembled locally. Ford Australia switched to importing those models from Japan with the closure of its