What happened to the British car makers?
Mar 28, 2018 12:23:23 GMT
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Post by Cartman on Mar 28, 2018 12:23:23 GMT
I suppose the thread about old motors got me thinking about the car industry during the years we cover on here and of the volume car makers, I would say that only really Ford, which was American owned, was consistently successful during the 1950s to 80s era, although they did seem to lose their way a bit in the 80s. They had always concentrated on simple engineering with rear wheel drive, but always seemed to make their cars appear smart and stylish at the same time, and had an orderly range where one car slightly overlapped the next one up, such as the top of the range Escort would then be followed on by the base model Cortina, with no obvious gaps.
Of the other makers, Vauxhall tried the same approach as Ford but were much less successful at it, their best car of the 60s and early 70s was the Viva, further up the range, they made the mistake with the Victor of making each successive version bigger than the last one so a big gap opened up and it was only really the tie in with Opel in the late 70s which resulted in the Opel derived Chevette and Cavalier to put them on the road to success.
The remaining two British mass market manufacturers, Rootes Group/Chrysler and BMC/British Leyland became a sorry tale. Rootes undoing was the Hillman Imp. In the early 60s they decided on a Mini competitor as they had no small car in their range but didn’t have the capacity to produce it at their existing factory at Ryton, so built a new factory at Linwood, near Glasgow, encouraged by the Macmillan government which wanted to create new employment in areas where old established industries, like shipbuilding were going into decline. However, the engines were still built at Ryton, so part finished Imps had to be moved by rail 300 miles to have the engines fitted, then back again for final assembly. The car was also put into production before it was fully developed and got a bad reputation for reliability, the costs of all of this pushed the group into financial trouble and it was bought out by Chrysler in the late 60s.
They then hen attempted to unsuccessfully merge the British and French sides of the range as Chrysler has also bought the French Simca operation, but this, in turn, got into trouble in the 70s and had to be bailed out by the Callaghan government in 1977, which resulted in the Sunbeam being brought out. However, it continued to lose money and was sold to Peugeot, bringing an end to one of the British manufacturers.
BMC was even worse. They had started promisingly in the 60s with innovative designs like the Mini, but this success story masked incompetence on a massive scale. They wanted it to be the cheapest car on sale in the UK, so simply priced it below the previous cheapest, which was the Ford 100E, without doing any costings at all. Ford were suspicious, bought a Mini, and dismantled it, costing each component. They worked out that a Mini cost £30.00 more to produce than it was being sold for, so BMC we’re losing £30.00 on every one sold, and they started selling a lot!
The next new car, the Austin 1100, also was only very marginally covering its costs, but again, it was a strong seller, so the next idea was to design a front wheel drive car to replace the Austin Cambridge/Morris Oxford cars and revitalise the mid range. This went horribly wrong.
The aim aim was to use a transverse version of the 1622cc B series engine and to enlarge the 1100, but the B series had just been enlarged to 1800cc for the MGB, so surely it made sense to use this in the new saloon, but it was more than the mid range car needed, so it gave scope to make a bigger car than was needed, and resulted in the Austin 1800, which sold so poorly that they had to keep the A60 in production alongside it.
The next idea was to cut the 1800 down to something smaller, which resulted in the Maxi, the accountants insisted on saving money by using the 1800s doors, and this was even more of a sales disaster so, once again, the A60 had to be kept going alongside the second attempted replacement!
Also, there had been a series of mergers in the motor industry in the 60s, encouraged by the Wilson government as it was felt that a large group could fight foreign competition more effectively, Leyland started it off by taking over Triumph in 1960, a group which later, in 1967, bought out Rover, and BMC took over Pressed Steel in 1965. Pressed Steel also made Railway rolling stock and had been kept afloat by a big contract with British Railways for 16 ton mineral wagons, but the closures of the 60s meant a fall off in demand, and their only other large contract was with a Jaguar for their body pressings.
Jaguar became concerned over their ongoing body supplies and merged with BMC in 1966, two years later the BMC/Jaguar combine and the Leyland/Triumph/Rover Group then merged to form British Leyland.
The problem with Leyland was too many similar, competing cars being made by the one company. Like the Marina and Triumph Dolomite and Rover P6 and Triumph 2000 were in direct competition, also too many scattered factories and poor product planning.
Now we we have no British owned car makers left.
Of the other makers, Vauxhall tried the same approach as Ford but were much less successful at it, their best car of the 60s and early 70s was the Viva, further up the range, they made the mistake with the Victor of making each successive version bigger than the last one so a big gap opened up and it was only really the tie in with Opel in the late 70s which resulted in the Opel derived Chevette and Cavalier to put them on the road to success.
The remaining two British mass market manufacturers, Rootes Group/Chrysler and BMC/British Leyland became a sorry tale. Rootes undoing was the Hillman Imp. In the early 60s they decided on a Mini competitor as they had no small car in their range but didn’t have the capacity to produce it at their existing factory at Ryton, so built a new factory at Linwood, near Glasgow, encouraged by the Macmillan government which wanted to create new employment in areas where old established industries, like shipbuilding were going into decline. However, the engines were still built at Ryton, so part finished Imps had to be moved by rail 300 miles to have the engines fitted, then back again for final assembly. The car was also put into production before it was fully developed and got a bad reputation for reliability, the costs of all of this pushed the group into financial trouble and it was bought out by Chrysler in the late 60s.
They then hen attempted to unsuccessfully merge the British and French sides of the range as Chrysler has also bought the French Simca operation, but this, in turn, got into trouble in the 70s and had to be bailed out by the Callaghan government in 1977, which resulted in the Sunbeam being brought out. However, it continued to lose money and was sold to Peugeot, bringing an end to one of the British manufacturers.
BMC was even worse. They had started promisingly in the 60s with innovative designs like the Mini, but this success story masked incompetence on a massive scale. They wanted it to be the cheapest car on sale in the UK, so simply priced it below the previous cheapest, which was the Ford 100E, without doing any costings at all. Ford were suspicious, bought a Mini, and dismantled it, costing each component. They worked out that a Mini cost £30.00 more to produce than it was being sold for, so BMC we’re losing £30.00 on every one sold, and they started selling a lot!
The next new car, the Austin 1100, also was only very marginally covering its costs, but again, it was a strong seller, so the next idea was to design a front wheel drive car to replace the Austin Cambridge/Morris Oxford cars and revitalise the mid range. This went horribly wrong.
The aim aim was to use a transverse version of the 1622cc B series engine and to enlarge the 1100, but the B series had just been enlarged to 1800cc for the MGB, so surely it made sense to use this in the new saloon, but it was more than the mid range car needed, so it gave scope to make a bigger car than was needed, and resulted in the Austin 1800, which sold so poorly that they had to keep the A60 in production alongside it.
The next idea was to cut the 1800 down to something smaller, which resulted in the Maxi, the accountants insisted on saving money by using the 1800s doors, and this was even more of a sales disaster so, once again, the A60 had to be kept going alongside the second attempted replacement!
Also, there had been a series of mergers in the motor industry in the 60s, encouraged by the Wilson government as it was felt that a large group could fight foreign competition more effectively, Leyland started it off by taking over Triumph in 1960, a group which later, in 1967, bought out Rover, and BMC took over Pressed Steel in 1965. Pressed Steel also made Railway rolling stock and had been kept afloat by a big contract with British Railways for 16 ton mineral wagons, but the closures of the 60s meant a fall off in demand, and their only other large contract was with a Jaguar for their body pressings.
Jaguar became concerned over their ongoing body supplies and merged with BMC in 1966, two years later the BMC/Jaguar combine and the Leyland/Triumph/Rover Group then merged to form British Leyland.
The problem with Leyland was too many similar, competing cars being made by the one company. Like the Marina and Triumph Dolomite and Rover P6 and Triumph 2000 were in direct competition, also too many scattered factories and poor product planning.
Now we we have no British owned car makers left.