Inside The Abandoned Cyclone Factory: The Tragic Death of Australia's Last Garden Tool Empire

Inside The Abandoned Cyclone Factory: The Tragic Death of Australia's Last Garden Tool Empire Three hundred and fifty thousand garden tools a year off a Wonthaggi drop-forge line. Cyclone wasn't a brand. It was the shed default of Australian life, where green shovels were forged from three-tonne steel coils. Every Australian shed. But in May twenty fourteen, Griffon Corporation's Ronald J. Kramer bought Cyclone for thirty-six million US dollars. Twelve years later, Griffon sold AMES Australasia for two hundred and thirty-five million and closed the factories. Fifteen workers walked out. Today, the site is big-box retail. On the Bunnings shelf: a grey Chinese Cyclone shovel, five dollars cheaper than its green Australian counterpart. This is the story of a US corporation killing its factory by stocking a cheaper version of its shovel. This is not just the story of a Wonthaggi factory. It's the story of a company that killed itself for five dollars. #CycloneTools #WonthaggiFactory #AbandonedFactories #LostFactories #IndustrialDecline #AustralianManufacturing