The British Car Industry: what went wrong? (in 5 minutes)
Vložit
- čas přidán 17. 02. 2023
- DoCARmentary No.1
DISCLAIMER: Not everything about British Leyland was bad...
However, a lot of it was and in this short summary I delve into the key history of the corporation, what made Britain such a renound car maker in the 1950's and 60's (1963 marked the peak success of British motor manurfacturing) and the dreadful actions that ultimatley led to its downfall.
Enjoy...
Interested in classic car motorsport? Check out my Castle Combe video here:
• Castle Combe Autumn Cl...
Please like, comment, subscribe and support!
VIDEOS I USED...
• British Leyland
• British Leyland's qual...
• Leyland Strike
• British made motors ta...
• British Leyland MGB
• Motor Show in Earls Co...
• British Leyland 'Indiv...
• Mini Cars Off Producti...
• Austin Allegro Vanden ...
• Video
• 1970s Japanese cars | ...
• Leyland Marina product...
MUSIC
Springtime- Jeff Babko: • Springtime - Jeff Babk...
Fox in the Field- Mark Mothersbaugh:
• Fox In The Field - Mar...
Gold- Rob Simonsen: • Gold - Rob Simonsen - ...
One of the problems is that the British refused to update outdated technology. This doomed the motocycle industry. Companies like BSA, Norton and Triumph contined to release lightly modified versions of their leaky, unreliable vertical twin bikes. But the Japanese were introducing better-built models, with new engines every few years, to address any issues. It was no contest, and the British Motorcycle industry totaly collapsed.
I will only Japanese cars now
Had Vauxhalls, Rover, VW, Ford
Only the 2 Toyota’s I’ve had have been rock solid
@BE5T D4D same for me too mechanically Toyota or Honda but rust do eventually creap in
@@ToxCcc really?
I thought all modern manufacturers used galvanised steel?
My Auris is 2011
Exactly. They got complacent and eventually got caught with their pants down.
Same with shipbuilding. They blamed the workers, but the real issue was refusal to accept that welding the hulls (not rivetting) was the future.
Easy, the uk car industry went "that'll do" when Japan and Germany went "no it won't "
exactly. The "we are content" or "good enough". To the Japanese, there is no "good enough" in their philosophy. In the US, they won't bow down to the Ford F150 with their Tacoma. They are always challenging. the British just didn't have it.
The very same as Tesla today - NOTHING is ever good enough - bc nothing is static any longer in the modular 🌎 we live in today!
@@alfs3
You mean Tesla, the company that can't make correctly fitting panels, and also has been calling their LKAS as "full self driving" is saying "not good enough"?
A reminder that musk in 2019 said that there would be robo taxis by 2020, it's 2023 and they admit to regulators that it'll probably never happen.
A large part of the problem is that the pre world war two generations tended to avoid buying from those countries because of the war but the younger generations less so. If the allies had dismembered Japan and Germany Anglo America car making would be where it was post world war two
@OscarOSullivan no, it really wouldn't. Look at how British cars were. As with so many things Britain was too cockey and entitled and it's cost us.
In Germany we say "If you own a British car you'll spend the weekend under it."
I was impressed with the old Triumph Spitfire because you could lift the bonnet, front fenders and all up to gain access to the engine all the way around ... and then I came to learn why.
@@abrahamdozer6273 Gott schütze uns vor Sturm und Wind, vor Autos, die aus England sind.
Only the weekend? Must have been a good one!
German jokes are not funny , at least we have a sense of humour
@@twotubefamily9323 Really, I've had three British-made cars and the German saying is accurate. A sense of humour?...maybe,... a thin skin?,...definitely. 😀
My first two cars were British fun to drive, great ideas, completely lousy quality. Every person I know who had a British car hated Lucus. While the Japanese emphasized quality, the British ignored it. It is as costly to build poor quality cars as it is to build good quality cars. Instead of emphasizing consistancy British industry seemed to emphasize craftmanship, get it to fit rather than build it to fit. The story was that for the MGA line they had 3 different sizes of front fenders so they could find the best fit.
Ah Lucus, the prince of darkness 😂
I had an MG Midget and later a TR6. Parts were ordered from a few mail order companies. After ordering parts from one place in California they sent a bumper sticker along with the order. It said "Why do the British drink warm beer? Because they have Lucas Refrigerators."
@@BryanM63 - my ex back in the 80s had a MG Midget. We put that bumper sticker on it. LUCAS: PRINCE OF DARKNESS!
I have memories of that damn car just shutting off. Seriously. Bopping along and then "nope - we're done." HATED that car.
I had an MGB back in the 70’s. They were fun to drive, but I hated the Lucas electronics and those “knee action” shock absorbers you had to check and refill periodically.
I drove a Datsun whilst in Singapore in '73. It had a radio, air con system and a driving 'feel good' factor. I went back to the UK and the BL vehicles I drove seemed ancient by comparison! I told friends about the Datsun coming with a built in radio , they just laughed at me!
I was brought up with exclusively VW Beetles. When I very first saw under the skin of a friend's British car - it was in the seventies and I must have been at least twelve - I was both shocked and amused in roughly equal measures by the inelegant and poorly executed 'engineering'.
Did you mean radios weren’t standard equipment? Gosh what would people do while driving then?
@@kitnanaai Whistle!
@@kitnanaai buy a small radio
The first thing FORD did when they bought Jaguar was add Lincoln’s wiring harness to all Jaguars thus ending Jags constant electrical problems
I would like to know how a Lincoln wiring loom fitted into an XJS or XJ 6 0r 12 cyl.
On the contrasry, Ford took the Jaguar AJ-V8 in house designed engine and used it in their Lincoln LS400 and Thunderbird models.
When I was a kid I worked for a man who’d been an executive at Volvo. He told me the story of when he’d been to the one of the BL plants in the 70s. “They still had stamped dirt floors. On the line they stood on dirt. You can’t build a good car standing on dirt in the cold.”
I worked in UK car plants in the 1970's and never saw a dirt floor anywhere, I'm calling you out on that one.
@@Hattonbank Could have been earlier, could have been the old man spinning a yarn for me. He was quite convincing, for what its worth.
They nationalised it. It was the old version of woke.
@@rogerconnolly3688 Baloney.
It was only BL that was nationalised and it was only for a few short years before it was returned to the private sector. BMW dealt the final blow to the Rover Group by refusing investment in Longbridge but keeping the Mini (a Rover design not BMW) in production at Cowley. The rest of the previous BL/Rover production of JLR, together with Mini produces more cars (up to the Covid/Brexit/chip supply issues) than the BL/Rover group ever did in its heyday.
No one seems to have a dig at Ford who no longer makes cars at Halewood, Dagenham, or engines at Bridgend, or trucks at Slough, or Transits at Southampton, or tractors at Basildon, all long gone, or Vauxhall at Luton/Ellesmere, or Chrysler/PSA at Ryton & Linwood, all long gone. Not to forget Honda, also gone.
The barbs are always against the BL/Rover empire, the successors of which today, form the largest car producer in the UK, whereas the American and European multinationals have long deserted the UK with the exception of a skeleton site of Ellesmere Port (PSA).
Brexit has hardly worked
I can remember an old advert for some Malaysian car manufacturer. I think it said, “Built by intelligent robots that never go on strike.” The British workers were greatly offended!
Sounds like the Proton saga. Assembled in Malaysia, basically a rebadged Mitsubishi. The Japs even designed the factory for Proton.
They'd probably get shot if they did go on strike.
It's simple bad management! I worked in Ford Dagenham, Nissan Sunderland and have been working in Japan for 19 years, and I always thank BL management for giving me a good career! I am 63 now and nearly retired, and have been in management since 1989, I learned how not to do things at Ford, and good management at Nissan.
So you have had a career subsidised by taxpayers! Shame nissan is subsidised by tax payers!
Yet Ford created the Escort and the Capri, BL the Allegro and the Princess.
a relative of mine was working at BL - triumph... it wasn't management.... well it was.... but unions were so powerful that middle management in a way gave up. no decision that was made was agreed to by the shop stewards. yes certainly streamlining their product lines and business model was a daft mistake.... but the workforce at that time was woefully oblivious. thatcher was needed certainly.... but she came too late.
Nissan in USA gave me my start too. At the time they were outselling Toyota but alas Nissan lost its vision through bad US management and it is just a shell of its former glory.
@@JohnSmith-ei2pz I'm going to let you in on a little secret; virtually all large corporations are subsidized by the tax payers. That's what happens in a plutocracy.
In the 1970s there was talk of car industry market share when it was competing against efficiently produced imports. Instead of quality they went for quantity. No investment was used to improve quality of the cars. Come along Japan, Germany etc. they made cars with few issues.
I remember how bad it got. Dealers couldn’t supply the cars they had sold. If you wanted a Morris Marina you went on a waiting list. My most vivid memory. My grandfather, who had worked for Austin, telling us ‘the local car dealer had switched to Datsun. The rationalisation which took place in the 1980s should have happened in the 1960s. There was so much political interference which stopped it happening. This didn’t stop here. The supply chain had to be British etc.
Great video.
I'm all for free markets however free and fair markets are not the same. The Japanese were and are still doing it to a large extent which is inhibiting imports into their country therefore protecting their domestic car manufacturers. How else can a country with a population of 126 million have Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Subaru, Mazda, Isuzu, who are large world scale manufacturers. They have more than the combined US and German car companies. They have built their companies on unfair trading.
The British car industry was basically destroyed through sloth, by those wanting to avoid activity and exertion. Lackadaisical, sloppy, teeth gnashing undisiplined poorly managed malcontents won the day...the entire industry collapsed under its own rotten system of a union gone awry and management who clearly didn't give a rat's petunia. Their answer? Why to sell the entire industry up the Suwanee River. Not good for a nation whose entire financial system is threatened by short term collapse.
The design and construction of my Renault 10 and Peugeot 404 & 504 were much better than my 1962 MG Midget. However, the Midget did teach me how to be a mechanic.
One magazine summed them up perfectly, might have been Autocar. "They built cars that nobody wanted, and built them badly."
My parents had a test drive of a BL car and even the demonstrator had faults, as the sale guy tried to assure them not to worry about them. Another time mum went in to look at a BL car and was told to come back with her husband as the salesman wasn't interested in discussing it with a woman. She went round to the Ford garage instead, they were more than happy to show a car to a woman, she liked a car they had and decided to buy it. The only worry was if my dad, when he came home, didn't like it! Thankfully he did.
My dad also had a Vauxhall Viva van. The happiest day of his ownership was when it went on fire. It was awful.
Your talking about the Beford HA van. Based on a mark1 viva, but built really up until the early mk2 Cavaliers were coming out. I remember seeing them as a kid, used by British Telecom a lot by then (Early 80s), they were the saddest looking things ever. Still suppose they were good workhorses, simple to maintain.
Many moons ago, before mobile phones, BL asked the Company I worked for to help them. My boss and I turned up with a car load of experimental kit at their factory gate. It was a Ford car. They wouldn't let us in. My boss told the gatehouse guy to call our BL contact and tell him we'd be at the cafe down the road for the next 15 minutes. Nobody showed. Next day we were contacted again and assured that we'd be let in next time. My boss politely declined and we never did anymore work for them.
Petty
I'm in Canada and our family bought a 1972 Ford Cortina. It was the model that looked vaguely like a Mustang, rather than the boxy earlier version. In and case it was a disgrace in every way imaginable. How did it fail? Let me count the ways. The wall to wall carpet did not fit. There were huge gaps. Within a day of taking delivery it developed a gas lock and the car could not be started. The little plastic Cortina emblem on the front fell off. We went through three mufflers - all while driving less than 22,000 miles, because that was what was on it when we got rid of it four years later. So from the front to the back of the car it failed! But let me continue: I went through at least four sets of sparkplug wires until I replaced them with special racing wires. Why? Because the engine header surrounded the sparkplug position and the wires got extremely hot, and very quickly they died. But we had to figure that out ourselves. During the car's life I think that it broke down on the road three more times with a variety of problems. I blame all of this on the crappy workmanship that came out of England. This car was going to Canada (left hand drive) and the workers just didn't give a shit.
And if you saw a nice one now. And had enough money, you'd buy it straightaway.
How many cars they make in Canada?
You summed up in the very last sentence!. I used to travel the UK in the70's and 80's and the British workman was as lazy as they could get away with. To be honest, they are not much better today!
@@donald8354 Tens of thousands. Windsor Ontario, inches from Detroit has a number of car manufacturing plants.
@@chrisst8922 No.
I owned a 1969 MGB GT totally restored and made the mistake to sell it. I wish I had it back
Having all your eggs in one basket [aka nearly your entire industry under ONE brand/company] prob not the best idea. If it fails, it ALL goes down. Which it did. Also too many 'old establishment' types running the companies; over confidence in past accomplishments, NO future vision, no ability to 'predict' or see changes in market or competitors at all or fast enough, refusal to change until its too late, inability to accept mistakes/failures + then plan to rebound with necessary changes. So sad.
The entire industry was not under one brand. BL was an amalgamation of many companies but it never amounted to half of UK car production.
Don't forget that Ford had two car assembly plants (plus engine, truck, Transit, tractor plants, now all gone) Vuaxhall had two factories, barely one struggles on, Peugot/Chrysler had two factories, both gone. Out of BL the Cowley Mini planr survives, as do the JaguarLand Rover plants in Halewood, Solihull and Castle Bromwich.
I honestly think that being on the winning side in the war did something to the mentality of the English that we are still struggling to shake off. This arrogance that we're great at what we do because we used to be great, despite what is right in front of us often saying the complete opposite. We were too arrogant to properly compete and only learned that when it was too late.
You can always tell an Englishman,….. but you can’t tell him much.
@@tertur2957 Haha, yes, there is some truth in that, especially in the past. Although there are many still like that. We`re not all like that though, honestly! 😊
USA too.
So well said!
I'm an old Canadian Navy Vet and an old RN Navy (submarine) Vet told me that "After the war, the British stopped to smell the flowers."
I think there's another reason - the UK car industry wasn't destroyed in WWII but the UK was skint afterwards...it had decades-old infrastructure and no money to update itself (probably also rested on its laurels a tad, as the Brits are wont to do). On the other hand, the "other countries" - Germany, France, Japan...had to make new factories and therefore could incorporate new tech into the planning/building phases and - from the off - produce better cars. So the industry was screwed because the war was won.
clearly shows how war won by the current generation is lost for the next
@@rajeebbarma Prettyymuch. The japanese made actually studies after WWII to see if it's more feasable to rebuild the old steel factories or build new ones. The data showed it's better to build new ones. At that's true to this day, with a few exceptions it's better to build new factories than repair/upgrade new ones.
@@MichaelAMVM even funnier, the japanese started by copying western design at first.
like nissan started out as rebadging austin but somehow managed to make them better lol.
Also the British banks have a quick buck vulture and would rather invest overseas. The same is not true for Germany.
@@532bluepeter1 That goes back to the late 19th/ early 20th century.
credit where credit is due, when princess diana died in the tunnel, mercedes called british leyland for advice.........................." how do you remove a gearbox from a princess? "
💀
Ouch
Jesus 🤦♂️
Not the place for gallows humor!!
🤣🤣🤣
The problem did not "start" with Leyland though. The core problem of the British Motor Industry being a set of uninnovative small businesses that was not interested in making better vehicles existed before it.
I owned a 1979 Triumph Spitfire. I liken that car to any romantic relationship. It's a lot of fun when everything is running smoothly. But that "running smoothly" never lasts for very long.
Good summary of the history - even though it hurts a bit.
A guy I worked bought a brand-new Triumph TR7 in the late 70's. I thought it looked ugly with its wedge shaped that made it look like a door stop but he loved it. After several months it started to have a lot of problems and he got rid of it within a year of its purchase. He vowed to never buy a British car again.
I lived in the UK as the British auto industry was collapsing. Problems were endemic not just at BL, but also at Ford. There was a newspaper story about the inefficiency of the British assembly lines and it had two pictures of the fitting of the hood/bonnet on a Ford Escort. One picture was from Ford's Dagenham East plant showing three workers putting the part in place. The second picture was of a Ford Escort at a Belgian plant where one worker was fitting the part onto the car. I recall the equipment being the same in both pictures, so the two extra British workers were not doing much, but being paid nonetheless.
BL was an agglomeration of struggling brands that were never rationalized. Chrysler tried a similar approach when it expanded into Europe, buying struggling brands like Roots, Talbot and Simca. It then tried to import these into the US instead of developing a good small car for the US market. Chrysler of course ended up filing for government bailouts in the early 1980's and closed down Chrysler Europe completely.
As many work stoppages as the days in the year 157 work stoppage in 1 year. This had to have far more influence then this story makes us think. No business can survive with that many work stoppages
I see such parallels with Indian car industry.. until the markets opened up in the 90s we had bad cars like the Hindustan ambassador (Moris Oxford series) and fiat Premier Padmini (Fiat 1100) sold without changes for 4 decades.. and the cocoon we lived in made us think that so called updates which were cosmetic were amazing.. thank God things have changed for the good..
VW kept making beetles until 2004 and t2’s early 2010’s, Landrover Defender a 1980’s update of the series land rovers from 1947 to 1985 2015. Original mini 1959 to 2000. Caterham seven originally Lotus 7 late 1950’s to present day
Had a used classic MG in the 1980s. Looked wonderful! Definitely a classic. Spent more time in the repair shop, however, than on the road…
Love the cyclist getting onto the motorway at 2:13…
That's the West Way near White City - an 'A' road. It becomes the A48(M) in the opposite direction.
Brave man for sure! (mebbe just a bit too brave!)
I'm glad someone mentioned him.
I noticed the same. That man must have swag or was desperate.
I didnt know that was even legal.
The Datsun 120Y elegant? It was actually a weird, fussy looking car. But it was cheap and reliable.
Here in the USA, I and many others thought Datsuns were relatively ugly but good cars.
i have a british leyland car, a 1974 triumph 2500 TC, ive had it 18 years and i love it to bits. i keep the BL badges nice and shiny
My grandfather had one in brown. Lovely car.
MK2 Vitesse convertible here.
I have to admit that I love British cars, but here in Canada, if you drove one in the winter, you froze in it, and then it rusted away in about 3 years. They just weren't built for real cold or road salt.
In the mid 80's I worked in a parts department of a major BL/Rover distributor - there were always horror stories. Take the metro for example, 3 different distributor types - lucas (to use up old stock) ducellier (because lucas were on strike) and lucas again (an apparent improvement over the last one they made). An owner needed to know which distributor type was fitted because they didn't keep records of which engine numbers the fitment changed at.
We used to sell quite a few gearboxes to a customer in South Africa for use in adapted vehicles until the gearbox plant went on strike because the union wanted the 30 seconds of hand cleaning time to be work time and not lunch time - that went on for two weeks. The customer in South Africa sourced a better unit in the time we couldn't get supply and never came back.
I had a Chrysler Horizon, I had a problem with the starter motor. It was the same issue, there were 3 different ones to chose from. I got a replacement which was old new stock, and it was wired in reverse order. So I managed to get the old one reconditioned borrowing my brothers Ford Escort for that week. That car was on it's 3rd engine in 5 years.
My next car was a VW Polo. No problems ever.
I agree wiht the idea of unions
But most of the Union bosses don’t care about the workers, but lining their own pockets
@@TheThejpmshow You have any current examples of that?
@@stephenconway2468 nope
But, a highly ironic headline about a month ago, the Union boss of ASLEF was late a picket line (one he probably called himself) because of the train strike
Something very ironic about that!
@@TheThejpmshow You seem happy to attack the Union leaders by spreading comments which are unverified. The Union leader took the train like a normal person. Did you consider that?
The British Car Industry: what went wrong?
UNIONS!
"You can't treat the working man this way! One day we'll form a union, and get the fair and equitable treatment we deserve! Then we'll go too far, and get corrupt and shiftless! And the Japanese will eat us alive!" -The Simpsons.
@@Duraganthelion Never seen that, but absolutely spot-on!
I bought a new 1975 Triumph TR6 here in Canada: lovely little car, on the odd occasions when it worked. The fuel line was connected to the carbs with what looked like a simple metal clothes pin: I had a small engine fire one day when one of the pins vanished. It leaked oil constantly because the oil pan bolt was too small, apparently having been scavenged from the BL parts bin. And the electrics were Lord Lucas at his devilish worst. I kept it for a year and traded it on a Porsche 914, and have been driving German makes ever since.
That last comment certainly applies to the U.S. The only thing we build is warehouses to store all the garbage made somewhere else. Fat and happy...for now.
And yet, if I think of the English cars I had, both privately owned (Anglia 105E, Sunbeam Stilleto, Austin 1100, Cortina GT Mk II, Mini 1000 Clubman, Escort Mexico) and company cars (Cortina Mk IV 1.6, Austin 1500 Allegro, Cortina Mk IV 2.0 sedan and wagon, Rover SD1 3500) all of which I flogged mercilessly I can't recall EVER having one let me down. And boy did I use them hard typically doing 30-40000 miles per year in all weathers for the company cars and this was through the 1970s and early 1980s before speed cameras so it was 90mph everywhere as soon as I got on the motorway between every major city across the whole of mainland UK. Tyres, clutches, brakes and batteries was about it. Then I emigrated to Australia and was introduced to Holdens and an assortment of Japanese cars. Curiously the car that was worked the hardest is the one most maligned by the automotive press - the 1500 Allegro. On the road everyday of the week then dragging a trailer loaded with dirtbikes on the weekend to every corner of the country to ride enduros and moto-x. I had no complaints at all.
Great video.
In deed BL was a mess, lack of innovation, union-management conflicts, the iron ladies claw. Just a mess.
Thank you for the video 😊
I had an Austin and it was the last British car I owned( excluding a British made Nissan that was a good car, but needed to go for something smaller). The Austin Montego I had was a complete pile of rubbish: oil leaks, water leaks, overheating, bits falling off, rust, and to top it all, the alternator died and rendered the car immobile. I bought a Mitsubishi next that was completely faultless.
It was only when British Leyland was broken up, the unions were tamed and the subsidies stopped that anything really good came out of their factories. The partnership with Honda and the slimmed down Rover Group made a big difference in the late eigthies and early nineties as cars like the 200 and 400 series were vastly better made and more reliable than the Austin Rover junk from before. Had I hung on and been able to afford a Rover 200 or a Montego made after 1988, I could have had a decent car.
I wanted an MGB so bad. I had a Triumph TR3 and it SEEMED so cool. They were actually little cheap jeeps but they looked and felt awfully good to drive in Florida weather.
TR3’s are sports cars
We need to correct the perpetual lie repeated at the 4:20 mark. The reason for the work stoppages was not exclusively because of unions. A more honest assessment would be that the stratified world of English management verses labor did not offer anyway to resolve minor work related problems without a full blown work stoppage. Issues that should have been resolved between local workers and their immediate supervisor or manager didn't happen because of the stilted command structure imposed on the factories. Only the guy at the top was empowered to make a decision, and the only way to escalate a problem that high was to shut the place down.
There were two key reasons. Taxation and unions. This did not just effect cars, but all manufacturing; ships, machinery, chemicals, nuclear, white goods, furniture, everything. The rest of the world was devastated and the US hardly exported. The UK had it all to themselves with a captive market in the Empire. What could possible go wrong? A socialist government, that's what.
The postwar Labour government raised income tax to a top rate of 83% and investment income to 97% so no-one would invest here and anyone ambitious would leave, beginning the 'brain drain' to the US mostly. If anyone did invest it was US firms with special deals who paid their taxes in the US.
Marxist unions were given freedom to strike on a show of hands so only 10 or so zealots in a car park could call strikes on behalf of 1000s who would be sacked if they did not comply due to the 'closed shop', ie, they could not work unless they belonged to THE union. Unions could send 'flying pickets' to any up or downstream producer who did not comply. Anyone who passed a picket line was branded a 'scab' and barred from work.
There was precious little consolidation, takeovers, mergers, acquistions, modernisation drives, etc because entrepreneurs could get very little past unions who could call it all off once on the hook anyway. Take the risk, if it fails, lose it all. If you win, lose it all also. What would you do? Anyone sensible would offshore any capital to the US, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. Probably Illegal, but there is always a way.
That Labour government was ousted ASAP but the Tories, cowards always, did nothing to reverse the damage until Thatcher but by then it was too late.
Meanwhile, Ludwig Erhard, the post war German finance minster, introduced a free market, low tax regime - the rest is history. Japan went the corporatist way which was OK for a devastated economy starting from nothing.
Even the Beatles sang about the taxman but there is rotten rump in every society that thinks stealing from others is a religious sacrament if it's barely legalized in the form of taxes.
How also has the meme Karen been so successful in the U.S. is amazing when no one does anything about the biggest Karen of them all - the Federal bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, just next door, France and Germany still have a proper car industry.
France should have lost one of its domestic car companies but the French state keeps bailing them out. They were found out in the 1990's and fined by the EU (Jaques Dellors - remember him, got the fine massively reduced), they bailed both out again in 2008 and then a near bankrupt PSA Groupe should have failed in 2013 but the French government bailed them out again. A few years later they purchased GM Europe and then merged with FIAT-Chrysler to form Stellantis. The French Government have form (read up about the Air France-KLM merger) and I have no doubt that the French will asset their control over the newly merged business in due course.
Remember when Tony Blair said they could do nothing to save Rover due to EU rules on state aid, these rules don't seem to apply in France and Germany.
Living in US, can't remember the last time I saw a French manufactured car. Probably LeCar in the '80s. Not so, however with German built cars as BMW has a plant in Southern US
@@nigelmarshallkenyonabbott8684 Well I assure you they are absolutely everywhere here in Europe.
You are probably seeing a whole bunch of rebagged French cars in the USA. Even Mercedes is rebagging Renaults right now, the Mercedes Citan is 100% Renault tech for example
French cars are not very good, but the industry survives.
@@nigelmarshallkenyonabbott8684 Who owns Chrysler? Stellantis .... Underneath your Chrysler might be a Fiat or a Peugeot.
I had a 1982 Mini Metro which I purchased in 1986 after passing my driving test.
Just 8 months later the driver's side door was disintegrating with rust which needed loads of filler.
However, it did handle very well and I had great fun driving through the Alps from Italy down to Menton in the South of France.
I now own a Skoda Kamiq.
Safe and comfortable but not as much fun in the Alps when I drove down to Switzerland last year
Yeah, to be fair those things rusted badly. There's actually an old Top Gear report on it somewhere on You Tube.
@@cambs0181 Yes I think Quentin Wilson reported on it.
Who to blame? Everybody. From the various governments (Labour and Tory) right down to the consumer who put up with the crap foisted on them.
I remember the British cars from the early 70's . They looked like they were painted with spray cans. (no joke, worst paint jobs I have ever seen)
Strange that, the same paints were supplied by Inmont, Carrs Paints, Berger and International Paints to Ford/Vauxhall and Chrysler as well.
Plenty of modern car journalists will tell you the Princess was a good car.
Britain's industrial capacity never got over WW2. What parts hadn't been bombed into rubble were worn out by years of wartime maximum production & the country was so broke that there were times when food imports were a mere 2 weeks away from being stopped as they weren't going to be paid for. Increasingly bad management relied on the markets that the British Empire gave them access to & yet post war agreements (Breton Woods) meant that those markets were rapidly disappearing while other, previously unexplored markets for British goods, were already being supplied by other countries. It is a situation that has only become worse over time.
The car industry killed the car industry. The seventies were the end of style and design in British manufacturing ,bring back the original Mini design with all the innovation of today's tech and I would buy one.
The original Mini with a modern 1 litre 3 cylinder turbo would be fantastic, the Hillman Imp was a much more modern design throughout but had build issues which also was built in a new purpose built factory in Scotland.
An example of what was wrong in the 60’s and 70’s. A friend of mine bought a brand new Austin Maxi. He noticed a thump coming from the rear when he went over bumps. He asked me to take a quick look in case it was something simple before taking it back to the dealer. The front cross member of the rear subframe is attached to the body by one central large bolt. This was missing. On checking I found the remains of a sheared off tap in the bolt hole. Obviously they had cross threaded the bolt, tried to re-tap the hole, snapped the tap then just pushed the car through. No wonder they had the reputation they did.
In 1970, my parents bought an Austin 1800 brand new. In Australia. It was the most expensive car in the ‘non-luxury car’ market, and they bought it because it was luxurious to sit in.
What a shocking piece of garbage! Starter motor went within a few weeks and Leyland Australia refused to replace it for free. One of the managers of LA was a customer of dad’s shop so he got onto the dealer to replace it, which he did - with a faulty one. So it took minimum of 10 minutes to start the thing.
To make in cabin huge, BL designed it with an “east/west” engine; the entire engine was rotated 90 degrees, without any reshuffling of components. So the distributor was right behind the front grill, meaning the car would never start when it rained, and would stop dead when driven in wet weather. When it was going to be driven in the rain, mum or dad would have to run out to it and cover the front grill with a bin bag to stop the distributor getting wet. The ridiculously tiny radiator sat in a side corner of the engine bay, where no air could flow through it. The stupid car would overheat constantly, especially in an Australian summer. When the temperature reached more than 36 degrees, we’d have to pull over and have the bonnet up for 20 minutes to cool it down once an hour or so. Driving it from Sydney to Surfers Paradise (1,000 kms) in summer took a week, due to having to stop overnight every 200 kms.
The indicator stopped blinking, so the driver had to turn it off and on the make it manually flash. Nobody knew how to fix this.
It was designed in such a way that water collected inside the bottom of doors and wheel arches, with no way of getting rid of it. The whole bottom of the car was rusted by the end; in fact the rust created holes to allow the water to drain away.
My parents persisted with this pile of junk for 6 years, finally replacing it with a Datsun 180B, which started every time and only broke down a couple of times in 15 years of trouble free motoring.
Leyland deserved to die. True automotive horrors.
In summary:
Government interference lack of investment and management incompetence.
Same thing happened to the UK aircraft industry and the railways.
BR developed the tilting Advanced Passenger Train in the 1970s on a shoestring and then had the plug pulled on the project after it was rushed into service. The tilting technology was sold off and we now buy Pendolinos.
If you want to undermine British industry you cam rely on the UK government.
The saga continues with Ineos and the Grenadeer , Britvolt etc.
You name it the UK will screw it up 😡
Add BREXIT to that as well
Yep they destroyed BREL in the 1990's by not ordering any rolling stock for years. Then when we desperately needed some it was purchased from abroad.
@@saturnv7163 The government, the opposition, CBI, City of London, media, most of the trade unions wanted the UK to stay in the EU. It was the ordinary voter who made the decision. What was the government supposed to do ? say thanks for the vote but nah ?, can you begin the imagine the consequences for democracy had that occurred.
Besides if you look at the activities of French and German corporates across Europe in the past 25 years you will soon realise they are not our friends nor to any other nation in Europe. If you look at the stats for OEJU, the stats for the ECJ for these two nations the EU to them is a tool for blatant self interest particularly the French.
@@saturnv7163 Except the hidden purpose of Brexit was to avoid impending EU legislation to prevent offshore tax avoidance:
Rees-Mogg, the ERG and their mates in the London Laundromat were aware in 2016 of the offshore tax avoidance laws that the EU was about to bring into effect. It explains “Taking Back Control” and the panic to “ Get Brexit Done” so that they could avoid the EU legislation that came into effect in 2019 and continue to avoid paying UK tax because UK did not have to comply.
Despite being legal under UK law they are morally corrupt and are defrauding honest UK Citizens and taxpayers.
The UK government bet on the wrong programs. The Concorde development was costlier than expected and a commercial failure. The APT development was on the same trajectory when, after years of missed targets, the government pulled the plug in 1986.
The Pendolinos were running before the APT, and developed by FIAT Ferroviaria, a small company in the field, without government subsidies. They were supposed to run at 140 mph on the West Coast Main Line without eating too much capacity thanks to a new moving block signaling. Established signaling companies thought this was not doable but their warnings were ignored by Railtrack incompetent private managers. After Railtrack's bankruptcy, the government agreed. The WCML modernization program was scaled down to fixed blocks and 125 mph, for an overall cost of 9 billion Pounds by 2008, i.e. more than the cost of the 775 km of new Lignes a Grande Vitesse between Paris and the Med. In summary, lack of investment was not the problem.
In the 1970's I had a brand new Austin 1300...
It must have been made on a Friday and Monday by a group of people who took no pride in their work.
No, heater or air con, no radio, no electric windows.
But the oil usage was high and when the engine was taken apart at just over 9,000 miles, they found the cylinder rings had been put in in the wrong sequence.
And then just short of 20,000 miles, the manual gear box packed a sad and fell to pieces.
Yes, it was all class and all British.
Ok but I think the Mini making a loss referred to the basic car not higher spec ones.
Also I appreciate that Datsuns came with radios and started every morning but to describe any 1970s Datsun saloon as elegant and especially the dreadful 120y really did make me spit my coffee out and appreciat the "beauty is in the eye of the beholder " phrase. OVERALL though the point of the video is valid and apart from the (in my opinion) fab mini I would have never considered most BL cars when they were new, although I do tend to exclude stuff like Triumph Dolomites , Jags and Rovers (if they had been more carefully built) from that very General view.
Early Japanese cars had weird styling, I agree. It took them a while to understand what Europeans wanted from a family car and adopt more conventional (i.e. European) styling. The point about Datsuns, Toyotas, Hondas etc. was of course that they were very reliable in comparison with most affordable European cars. This was a massive selling point at a time when just keeping your car running day to day and not being bankrupted by repair bills was the main goal of most owners. I guess people could live with the odd looks and lack of driver appeal as they did the job without going wrong all the time. Who can blame them?
Japanes cars were rust buckets! The slanties learned the lesson though!
Recall my sister had a 120y and being amazed at the dash board and sports seats with head rests as standard, okay it rusted before our very eyes but compared to the garbage interiors and basic dash boards of the Brit car it was an eye opener.
Issigonis had been trying to get BMC + then BL to 'update' the mini since the early 60s [car came out in 59 + design was from 50s] BUT all the mgmnt for both divisions ALWAYS rejected ANY updates because it was a good seller, despite its losses, and wanted to put money into their other 'pet' projects thinking they would make another great selling car. It took about 20yrs for BMC/BL to get the exposed hinges on the mini, to be moved to the inside of the car the way EVERY other car had since the 40s. The MM was NOT the way Issigonis wanted either, mgmnt resisted a new engine and put a 10yr old design Austin engine... THEN this same engine was in the mini all thru the end + also in the entire range of mini metro till the 90s! Fantastic management!! What vision + planning for the future of one's brand - LoL
@@paulc9588 Yep and I'll say there was only one advantage that the japanese companies had over us which decided everything. It was that they weren't complacent. The management of all british industry was complacent, they thought that they were on top forever, and they thought that their personal luxury was more important than the business. So they were being served on hand and foot rather than using the money to upgrade their 1940s manufacturing equipment, or even bother to look at more efficient ways of working.
In the 80s we had british electronics companies deciding that it wasn't feasible to make stuff in the UK anymore, deciding to switch to importing Taiwanese stuff with their own logos put on. But at the same time, Toshiba and Sony opened up factories in wales and did great business!
Sony was a company that started out after the war selling dodgy electric blankets sewn in a hut, and about ten years later they were making their own transistors. Meanwhile UK companies went from selling valve radios to selling valve radios in same space of time.
Nice video but it does need to go back further than BL. Some great comments below. The British class system didn't help. Too much 'them and us' both ways. I worked for Toyota and Ford in the 90's their factories were so different - The Dagenham one was ancient, the Toyota City one was even designed for worker comfort. And Britain's complacency, hubris, maybe the first industrial power couldnt see the need to change. On a parallel topic a friend said to me in a small German town she lived in the apprentices would have a uniformed parade in celebration of their trades. A tradition that goes back centuries that indicates some social standing for a blue collar worker. In Britain our attitudes were/are stuck in resentment. And the Japaense seem to have a collective pride too. Its fascinating when you think of the differences and the causes. Maybe because the workforce is Saxon and the Board and senior management are Normans, lol.
Agreed the UK was and is obsessed by class
I remember driving the then new Metro. Few cars could possibly illustrate contempt for the consumer more than this. It’s rawness had none of the charm of the Mini. It’s rear struts we’re too weak to hold up the hatch, and I was guillotined almost every time I went shopping. I could have thrown together the heater control from my father’s old Zico tin full of screws, and it was boat like in it’s progress. The Fiesta was bad enough, but this bright yellow brick took some beating. Is it any wonder that imports offering luxuries such as two wing mirrors, a radio and a rear wiper did better on the forecourt. Too many years later my aunt turned up in one of the last versions, but by then sticking a large number 2 on each of the two door panels was hardly going to fix it. After that , the more you spent in a car , the worse it got. Shifting fake grills and bits of trim a bit to the front, then a little further aft was bound to wear thin and it did. Not as if the opposition had to try too hard. My first Polo was no great shakes either. I know there are sentimental and devoted fans of the Metro but driving one is akin to that scene in Dr Strangelove where the pilot sits across his atomic bomb , waving his Stetson - suicidal.
An excellent lesson the American auto industry is either ignoring, or deliberately copying. It's why I can buy a Ford made in China (Mustang Mach-E), a Dodge made in Canada (Challenger), or a GM made anywhere in the world. Or maybe a car that is proudly "assembled" in the USA, like it's an Ikea dresser.
Who opened China to western investment in the 1970's? Who do you think owns those Chinese factories? Everything clever the Japanese, Europeans and North Americans ever designed and manufactured is being poorly copied by who you think are the Chinese, free of any sort of regulations, labor laws or environmental.
Leonard Lord brought the car industry together, Tony Benn nationalised the car industry, Derek Robinson made the workers go on strike and Michael Edwardes helped Maggie Thatcher sell the car industry off.
Ultimately it was being the butt of Jeremy Clarkson's sarcastic wit, that doomed the British car industry to extinction. he thoroughly and persistently undermined all their efforts to get their head above water. It seems more than likely that he was getting backhanders from the Germans ; as not even the Luftwaffe destroyed more UK engineering plants ; indeed the site of the Rover Longbridge plant that built all the Lancaster bombers in WW2, is now occupied by a sprawling middle class housing estate, and millions ; yes MILLIONS of automotive supply chain jobs have gone, humiliatingly consigning a proud generation of workers to stacking shelves in ALDI/LIDL.
Besides the major blunder that having all of Britain's auto manufacturers under one roof was, the real big issue was their complete lack on innovation. The spitfire was made for almost 20 years, and yet had the same motor for its entire lifespan, simply throwing Band-Aids on top sacrificing what originally made the motor great to meet environmental demands. By the time the 1500 came around it couldn't rev the same, it was less reliable, and only made less than ten more horsepower than the original spitfire Mk1, and in the US market it was even worse, being given a single Stromberg carburetor that completely neutered the engine.
They had the occasional intelligent decision, but they were either made too late, or never implemented on a large enough scale. Other countries were making nicer, more reliable, and more powerful cars with more modern technology and BL never really even tried to catch up. The Tr6 was never sold in PI form in it's primary market being the US (which was a difference of 50hp and could've helped it compete with foreign rivals), The TR7 was originally only released with a ghastly hard top with the convertible coming much too late (The TR8, which is what the car should have always been, came years too late as well), and the slant 4 was developed too late and its 16 valve counterpart was implemented far too sparingly, and that's only for Triumph. It's a similar story with every BL brand.
It’s sad because Britain used to be a staple of the automotive industry, and especially the sports car market.
Sad, but not only for UK 🇬🇧 it's sad for the whole world
This American learned to drive in a '65 Midget. To this day, that cars remains the most fun, least comfortable, highly inefficient, least practical car that I would ever want to own. Thanks, Britain, for trying!
British people did not buy the rubbish! The Americans suffered!
We may have failed to efficiently manufacture good quality value cars towards the end, but in our prime I'd say the small sports cars are what the British did best, maybe not comfortable, but for some good fun on country roads they put a smile on your face.
If you want a roomy practical and comfortable car, you do not buy a tiny two seat cramped car, you buy a station wagon.
90% of them sucked that’s what went wrong,piss poor quality control and reliability, what could possibly go wrong…
When I was a kid, my brother had a MG Midget. He took me for a drive and I was looking at his owners manual. In the maintenance section, it stated that the connecting rod bearings should be replaced every 25,000 miles. I didn't know what a connecting rod was back then, but it seemed unusual to me anyways.
I think the consolidation into big companies is inevitable. Although it shouldn't just be one company.
140 brands and 100,000 exports means approximately 715 cars per company. That's nowhere near the amount required to go up against the biggest American or Japanese brands at the time.
They were forced to consolidate but then came the issue of the lack of investment.
Lack of updates, refinement, innovation with a healthy dose of unfortunate designs created a very prehistoric and unreliable image for the entire country. It got to a point where it felt like all of their cars came on life support from the factory.
It's not like the British couldn't make cars. Look at what their engineers did with the Qashqai or the Ford small car lineup. They just never got the proper investment.
I feel like that's what the new owners are doing now. They're more than just buying the name, they're buying engineers.
Case in point: MG. When Chinese company SAIC bought MG in the mid-90s, they brought in much-needed investments in human capital as well as in manufacturing. That and an reinvention from sports cars to more practical sedans and SUVs plus new markets saw MG being recognized as an upcoming brand in markets like Southeast Asia. Here in the Philippines, for example, MG vehicles are becoming more popular alternatives for more pricier brands like Toyota or Ford.
@@kristoffermangila I'm definitely starting to see a lot more MGs around, a bunch of EV's too and the styling looks fairly good.
Aston Martin also seem to be doing well, they've invested and their South Wales factory is increasing jobs in the area.
Having strikes every day about the littlest things didn't help either!
How true Jeremy.
My dad's factory used to make pressure vessels(tankers) in Wordsley West mids. He would only buy Jaquars xk 120 . E-types etc
I remember back in 1967, I was into club rallying with a SAAB 96. My friend whose parents owned the local garage had just bought and prepared a Mini Cooper S. On his first rally, the three spot welds on the bracket that secured the front suspension stabiliser arm let go leading to the collapse of the n/s front suspension and c/v drive shaft. A nut and bolt through the jigging hole would have resolved the problem, but a 2p bolt was just too much for British Leyland.
Without quality control, all you do is is produce junk. So hardly shedding tears that the British motor industry went the way of the dodo.
Not that SAAB was exactly defect free, but at least they went broke. OK, so rally driving a standard production car was hardly conductive to reliability, but I never bought another new car.
Jack, the Japan Alps Brit
Wow what an amazing time to have been rallying, especially in something as cool as a SAAB 96. That’s a real shame for your friend though, seeing as classic Mini’s are rebound for their rallying success, the most significant victory of course being Monte Carlo 1964.
Great video. It's very concise and informative. Cheers!
I rescued a 1970 MG Midget in 1973. 1200cc of pure fun. I miss that car, almost as much as my mid-60s VW camper. With a fold out bed. Exactly what a college boy needed.
I'm hoping to either get a Midget or a Sprite soon, they're just such fun small sports cars.
I rescued a73 mgb for 450 and loved it
As a former owner of a - bought as new 1966 BMC Mini, it was an absurdly bad/lousy produced car! The window frames didn't even reached the body, but I had to put a - knee in between and bend them in!! And from the front screen, it leaked in water in the corners, as also from the sliding windows in the doors (Never leave anything in the practical boxes in the doors! It will be wet at arrival, as the rest of the car in the bottom!). Though a Dane it still had the rather useless "heater" in the "left side", so I moved it over to the right side (it had two heater positions - on and off!). 1st gear wasn't synchronized, and the long gearstick would have been better, if below the steering wheel, as in a SAAB! It became my first, my only and my last English car, when I bought a new BMW 2002 in 1970!
And the paint peeled off round the outside hinges, from the faulty production method!🙄The body was cleaned all over before painting, so acid from the cleaning bath stayed in the gaskets and still functioned by making the paint leave the plate around them.
The seats adjustment system, a "swingarm", only gave them the "three mounting holes" in the bottom, as a possible adjustment, because when moving the seat back (I'm a tall guy), its "angle" would make the front of the seat go down, still with no leg support, but only a seat-angle change!
Ahh yes, the suffering that comes with owning those older British cars! Miserable machines
Reading this automotive horror story and enjoying my fairly reliable and gorgeous 2013 XF ...
My 1964 Mini-Cooper had a severe carbon monoxide leak. I wrote Alec Issigonis a long engineer's report of what I had found that cause the exhaust blow-by, and how it got inside the car. He asked me to bring the car to the factory so that his engineers could examine it. I did, and got to drive Mr. Issigonis' Mini-Cooper for a week on my business trip. On Friday I picked up my car. They said that they had made "non standard modifications to the exhaust system. The "non-standard mods were two more clamps at the exhaust pipe junction. It didn't solve the problem. 1500 miles later I was now driving my non-standard mod Mini-Cooper and smelled and felt the effects of carbon monoxide again. That was the last British car I ever bought. It was a fun to drive car, but any car that has 8 pages of ads for accessories in MOTORSPORT magazine tells you that the engineers did a lousy job in their design.
I also had a "special bracket" changing the steering axle to a lower position, and a small flat Moto-Lita steering wheel, I think 12", which functioned fine, besides it covered the end of the contact for the direction light, so I had to move it (The control lights, right and left, in this case!) to my special "panel", cowering the open shelf in front!! I also had to make a special padded panel for a "radio", below the shelf, as Sir Alex Issigonis didn't like radios in cars. But he was a smoker, so it had an ashtray!!!
Back then very few cars had syncro on first gear. My 1967 Fiat doesn't have it.
Remember watching the news as a kid and men standing round fires most of the time, my dad went from a Triumph Herald to a Saab 96 to a 99 and then VW, great mimi documentary
I had an early 70s B. Loved that car, but it was quirky. Replacement parts got lower and lower quality by 1980. Sold it in 1988, but by then I was only driving it on sunny Saturdays when I didn't have to be anywhere on time.
BL could have made it with all the lines. GM is still very successful and they had Chevy, GMC, Cadillac, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Opel dealers often separate just a mile or three apart in a city.
When I think of the crap British cars I was obliged to drive in the 70's and 80's, then all I can say is there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to shed a single tear over the industries' loss.
Except that then, as well as today, it is the single biggest exporter of manufactured goods from the UK, and even now, is still a £70billion UK industry contributing more in taxes to UK coffers than any other manufacturing sector.
Leyland Princess was a great car. I had one of extremely few sold in Sweden. It was a very well constructed machine that ran smooth.
So many reasons for the failure of BL. Lack of investment, outdated production facilities/methods, unwieldy corporate structure with different divisions competing against one another, failure to plan for the long term, poor management, poor labour relations, poor productivity, too many brands and models, new models late to market and already dated at launch, failure to address quality control issues. The list goes on and on.
The failure of the 3 'M' models (Metro, Maestro and Montego) was a serious blow though. All arrived several years late and although the Metro did reasonably well it wasn't developed/updated as it should have been. The 1990 Rover Metro refresh should have been in 1986/87 and then followed up with an all-new model for 1990 or soon after. The basic car was 10 years old for heaven's sake! This did not happen of course due to lack of funds.
The Maestro and Montego had some good points for sure but already quite dated and underwhelming by 1983/84 when they were launched. Had these arrived ~1980 as intended they would have been far more competitive and enjoyed greater success in the market. Then the hopelessly tired (and most probably unprofitable) Allegro, Ital etc. could have been put out of their misery a few years earlier. BL definitely had design and engineering talent, but the organisation as a whole was such an omnishambles they rarely managed to capitalise on it.
I know there were and are problems with cars but ironically the worst cars I have had were Japanese. We had a Toyota Tercel that just conked out at less than 100k miles. Was ignition module. They fixed it. We had an Altima and the trans blew up at 80k miles, they fixed it. We had a Lexus and the CV joints broke before 100k. I traded it in. They were OK but not perfect by any stretch.
According to a well-established, and recognized, Coventry history buff one of the reasons for the demise of the Coventry car industry was that they were earning(getting) 50 per cent more than the average manufacturing employee in the area at that time. Probably looked down upon the average skilled tradesperson, no doubt!!
Just to look at how many missed opportunities Rover had, one brand alone, yet the others missed them too, when they did build something that looked decent, it was flawed, British Leyland and BMC/ BLMC killed the industry, BMW bought and asset picked Rover and left them for dead.
It's such a shame.
Not because of the crappy Allegros or the Van Den Plaas that looked like something that fell off the production line at Bently and shrunk into this ugly turd.
But because of such fabulous cars like the Jaguar E-type, Jensen, Triumph Spitfire, MG , and, and.
You know, during the 1970s oil crisis (Yes, I'm that old) some Canadians were scrambling about for fuel efficient cars with four cylinder engines. British cars were both of those but they were cheaply, flimsily made and they could not stand up or operate well in the rigors of the Canadian climate (where the temperature range is 80° C). The Japanese also showed up with vehicles in about the same state but they stayed, did their homework and adapted their product to the rigours of this market. The British didn't give a toss, didn't try and the Japanese won hands down. American car manufacturers never (to this day) figured out how to make 4 cylinder engines and they buy the technology from others. The British automotive industry missed an historic opportunity to bite off a really big part of the North American automobile market and where are they now?
I was up in Helsinki many years ago, and talking to a 20 year old mechanic. He smiled and just said "Lucas...prince of darkness". I asked how he knew this as it was well before he was born. He was told by his instructor in college when he studied mechanics.
Oh I am Finnish too, 27yo and I know Lucas jokes very well, well known stuff around car people here 😂👌
LUCAS was also know as the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper; the electric fuel pump that was guaranteed to fail at 2 AM on a deserted road with pouring rain; they were the inventor of the self dimming headlights; and that is why the British drink warm beer - they have LUCAS refrigerators!
@@conbertbenneck49 and the company Moto is GET HOME BEFORE NIGHTFALL
@@MrDOUG575 Or the better solution; don't buy British cars. Buy cars with no Lucas equipment; that work in a greater temperature range reliably; and that don't use Whitworth nuts and bolts.
Moving manufacturing from Coventry for social engineering reasons destroyed a centre of expertise.
The MGs were cute cars. I still like the look of them. And women adored them. But it wasn't until Mazda came out with the Miata that the small sports car got it right. With things like electric windows, power steering and brakes, and the big one, air conditioning. Which on the US east coast is so needed in the muggy summers. That made it a year round car. MG could have engineered these things and with quality control, it could have lasted a lot longer. I did buy a new Lotus Esprit turbo in ' 86, and it was fairly trouble free. Although built in such small numbers that it really didn't represent a mass produced British car.
The Fiat X1/9 pre-dated the Miata by years and was a far better car.
@@golden.lights.twinkle2329 I remember that car, I got a ride in one once. And it started smoking and we had to pull in a gas station. It blew a coolant line. I don't remember it having a/c either. Looking back at it, too many pointy corners . But back then that was more the style. Bertone was the badge on it. Although Fiat built it.
I'd say cars like the Miata carry the torch of what small British sports cars were meant to be.
Bad designs, bad management, bad workforce, bad quality. Poor investment.
Frankly it was a great shame how it all went so wrong.The SD1 was a classic example of what could have been such a great car but suffered so badly.It was a trail blazing look in the 70,s that broke away from the pipe and slipper Rovers before it and there was a waiting list to buy one even initially.
Even was a great squad car ah la liver run
British Government killed the aerospace industry too. Forcing them in the 50's to merge or die, to build the TSR-2.
When i was young in the 70s there were many British vehicles in Kenya Leyland, Albion, Bedford, Triumph, Morris even Ford was from UK. 80s ERF was a very good Bus.
What ever General Motors eventually ended up going through, British Leyland had that experience first?
On visits to the UK i have asked friends why are police and ambulance vehicles German made Bmw and Mercs ,i also see this on Uk tv shows ,they said besides Range rovers no other cars are made in England ! .
The EU rules on public procurement via OJEU also didn't help. If you google pictures of French emergency vehicles you will see virtually all of them are either Peugeot, Citroen or Renault. Likewise in Germany and Italy with their respective brands. These countries are supposed to follow the same rules yet they clearly don't favouring in most cases their domestic brands. We didn't and slowly and incrementally we lost our car and commercial vehicle industry.
Lotus and Morgan are made in the UK.
@@golden.lights.twinkle2329 Sums up the alleged car industry in Britain and British self delusion. Morgan makes wooden bodied cars from steamed and hand shaped and fitted wood. They produce the whopping number of a couple hundred cars per month. That’s in a good month when they’re not on strike.
@@golden.lights.twinkle2329 Yes but i hardly think they would be a option for a police car ! .
So no Jaguars, Minis, Rolls, Bentleys, Vauxhalls Mclarens, Toyotas, Nissans, Aston Martins, Lotus are made in the UK?
You forgot the Rootes group which didn't end up as part of BL, but it did have the same issues....
There was also Ford UK now no Fords are built in the UK
Also Ford Genk Belgium home of the Mondeo a top selling car for years the site has been flattened.
"Brown cheese wedges" is classic! Very good summary too. Cheers from the US.
Back in c. 1970, I owned an MG1200 "sedan" two door (box), When I had a chance to drive a Rolls Royce I was suprized that my MG had a larger Cabin. It was (the MG) so small that when I asked for snow tyres, the Goodyear dealer suggested I get Sears Tractor Tyres for it. I was parked once in front of a bar & grail, some drunks from inside came out and raised my rear end and were suprized when I drove off (front wheel drive).
People seem surprised & disappointed with the classic Rolls Royces, but they fail to understand that the buyers were never meant to be the drivers. Old Rolls Royces were meant to carry the owner in the back & the chauffer drove it, which is why the emphasis on comfort wasn't in the driving position, it was all in the back seats!
@@dumptrump3788 Yes, and so the same can be said of the Checker Automobiles.
The management didnt or couldnt manage. They blamed the workforce for everything and that just wasnt true. Then they privatised everything that the public owned. What a mess.
@2:15 HOLY SHEEEEEIT! WTF was that guy doing merging with traffic on the motorway _ON A PUSHBIKE?!_ 😱 🙈
The Triumph Acclaim proved that, managed correctly, a British workforce could assemble a high quality vehicle - previous failure can be laid down to inept management failing to see what overseas competitors were doing and engaging constructively with their employees.
An interesting idea! I am 60 years old. I have driven a great many cars in my life, and the Triumph Acclaim remains my favourite of all time - a snappy gear change, and a perfect balance of power and handling. But let's be realistic - this was a Japanese car, bolted together in England. A few years later, I drove a Honda Accord (while working in California) - not as good as the Acclaim (because it was bigger and heavier) but hey, it was reliable and comfortable. BL was doomed to failure because its nationalised status both prevented investment and stifled jeopardy - it could neither discard its under-performing people (either management or workers), nor build new enterprises. BL was, let's face it, the NHS of car makers.
@@brunobeloff9611 Stifled jeopardy? Don't you mean innovation?
@@golden.lights.twinkle2329 No, I mean jeopardy! Nationalised industries typically lack investment. Sometimes this actually fosters innovation as a means of working around the lack of resources, even though these innovations cannot be properly implemented. The common feature of all nationalised industries is that they are not answerable to the customer - just like the NHS, British Leyland could produce poor products at uncompetitive prices, but this didn't matter, because the state would bail them out. No-one in British Leyland - from board room to plant manager - felt at risk... until the politics changed.
@@brunobeloff9611 At least you HAVE an NHS. In the US, diabetics are having to water down their insulin because they can't afford what the drug corporation is charging for it.
Why don't the British make computers?
They haven't figured out how to make computers leak oil.
We dont make anything. Because the company's first responsibility is to make the shareholder money, so it has to go overseas for cheaper inputs.
BL COULD have been a success, if at the time of the merger they'd rationalised the brands and models. Whoever decided to merge them wanted to try and save every brand in the portfolio, so you had sub-divisions of the same company competing for the same market space. E.g. MG and Triumph both competing in the 2 seater sportscar market
Yes indeed, and you often had illogical self-sabotage, where cars like the Princess which while quality had suffered were relatively decent designs, but killed by the lack of a hatchback so it wouldn't cannibalise sales of the SD1 and Maxi. The Mini also had some work done to produce a hatchback version long before the Rover Metro, but lack of funding killed it and they kept making a loss on cars which were innovative for the late 50's through the 60's, but using inefficient 40's and 50's manufacturing methods.
It's not totally BL's fault, the problems had already sprouted during the BMC era and BL just made the issues worse by not addressing them.
Personally I like British cars, but you can see the direction the company was going gradually, a lack of investment and dysfunctional management and labour relationship.
Finally a growing lack of brand uniqueness. Buick and a few other companies in the Stellantis bubble of companies are having that trouble, they're just selling very bland crossovers that don't excite anyone and don't seem like a good deal compared to competitors.
Despite the shite name
My father always bought British, many 1100's, two minis a Rover, a few Allegro's as well. He had plenty of problems, when he had a Suzuki later, he had no problems. Though I did by a diesel Metro in the mid 1990's never had any problems.
Another problem with British cars has been their questionable reliability.