Alec Issigonis at BMC and BL

[Cartman]

I've been reading about the Mini designers career at BMC recently and it's an interesting story. He was a very good and innovative engineer but he had zero interest in, or understanding of, styling or marketing. He left BMC for a time in the 50s but was brought back by the chairman, Leonard Lord, who saw him as the man to modernise their car range and to design a new small car, which emerged as the Mini.

Lord understood the market and he was able to manage Issigonis effectively, he insisted that Pininfarina styled the 1100, which was the follow up to the Mini, and this ensured that it was a success. After this promising start, however, things went wrong. Lord retired in 1961,and he was replaced by George Harriman, who seemed to be a bit of a Sergeant Wilson of Dad's Army type character, and just let Issigonis do whatever he wanted, which resulted in the fiasco of the attempt to replace the A60 with the 1800, which was a total failure.

The last BMC car was the Maxi, which was another Issigonis design, and Harriman insisted on using the 1800 doors, which completely ruined the design and it was rushed into production before it was ready, this was at the time of the British Leyland takeover and the new head, Donald Stokes, thought it was so bad that he very nearly axed it.

Issigonis was sidelined and spent the rest of his time working on a possible Mini replacement called the 9X, which didn't go anywhere.

I find the period of the end of BMC and the start of British Leyland very interesting and a tale of missed opportunities

[Del Boy]

All the penny pinching cost them dear. They did the same to the allegro. 

[Cartman]

British Leyland didn't really have a chance, it's biggest constituent, BMC, was a complete mess. The incompetence was staggering. The 1800 was a classic example of their cluelessnes, it missed the intended market, but had to be kept in production, because it was a new model, but because it didn't sell, the previous model which it was intended to replace, had to be kept on as well.

Imagine if when Ford came to replace the Mark 1 Cortina, and instead of coming up with another winner like the Mark 2, they brought out something crap which didn't sell, so they kept the Mark 1 in production alongside it. A few years down the line, another go, which is just as bad, so, once again the Mark 1 is still
 being made..

[Villain]

I find it strangely ironic that a couple of Issigonis's abandoned early four door Mini prototypes actually looked similar in shape and proportion to the BMW version produced over forty years later!

The BMC and BL story is filled with many bad decisions, dead ends, u-turns, overlapping model ranges and endless tales of dodgy build quality, but the actual design and engineering of some of the cars was right from the start. One of Jaguar boss Sir William Lyon's biggest regrets was selling out to BMC in 1966 and being almost swallowed up by the BL debacle which followed, but luckily John Egan who took over from him managed to get things back on track, eventually. Imagine if Jaguar had gone down with the BL sinking ship, what a tragedy that would've been.

The infighting and prejudice between the various marques within BL didn't help, look at the Stag for instance, Triumph were determined not to let their overlords insist on it being powered by the trusty Rover V8 and went ahead with their own V8 instead, which was let down by poor castings and shoddy quality control on the production line. In many cases, casting sand had been left in the block during the build process, leaving owners of brand new Stags with radiators silting up and head gaskets blowing. It took several years for them to realise what the problem was, as the service agents simply replaced the gaskets and left the radiators to silt up all over again, resulting in another head gasket failure down the line. However, as testament to what an otherwise great car the Stag was and still is, over 9,000 of the 25,000 built still survive.

The vast model ranges between the marques often overlapped with similar models competing with each other, often within the same dealerships. The necessary pruning that started at the tail end of the '60s sadly took the age old family name of Riley with it, I think the ADO16 1100 / 1300 based Riley kestrel was the last car to wear a Riley badge. Having seen a few of these at shows they are lovely little cars. It's easy to forget that the 1100 range was Britain's best selling car for many years.

Here's the early Mini prototype I mentioned...

ibb.co/vBhj1sh


ibb.co/0B6rzqD

Villain 

[D.C. Burtonshaw]

Some great points by forumites here so far, and I too have often been fascinated by the BMC and later BL story of a car making empire which could have been a world beater but hampered by poor quality and poor decisions but at the same time Issignonis designing some great mechanical innovations.

Regarding the 1800, some early styling ideas included what looked like an ADO16/BMC 1100 on steroids - maybe that would have worked better than the production car, who knows?

A later facelift of the 1800 for the Australian market in the guise of the Austin Tasman and Kimberley actually improved the cars looks (I always thought anyway) with a longer rear end, and squared off styling and rectangular tail lamps like a Hillman Hunter at the back. And with lift up door handles. But they weren't launched down under till 1972, by which time it was a bit late to decide to offer them to the UK market as the Wedge shaped 18-22 series (later the Princess) was very close to production. On top of that the Kimberley and Tasman never took off in Australia either with their motorists preferring the locally built Chryslers, Holdens and Fords.

An interesting 4 part (I think) history documentary produced and narrated by a private Youtuber is on YT, which goes into some interesting detail regarding the great ideas but also mistakes made from the BMC years right the way through to the demise of the MG-Rover years. Look for "Death of the UK car industry - Part 1: BMC"

As for the Mini, I love the car, although the story goes that Ford UK bought 2 Minis, and stripped them to every last nut and bolt and calculated they were losing money on every car built. I think Ford UK's chairman even telephoned George Harriman and asked how he could justify doing this, and I think Harriman just refused to discuss it or didn't believe them.

Digressing just a bit - As a result Ford designers knew just how to efficiently design the MK1 Cortina and be able to sell them for a profit, as well as learning from their past experience with the over engineered Consul Classic.

There were other cars kept in production too long too, when very promising prototypes for replacement never came to fruition like the proposal for the MGB replacement - it looked a bit like the Alfa Spyder............ Instead the MGB soldiered on for 18 years.

The Allegro entered production looking awkward due to the existing A series and E series engines having to be used as BL couldn't afford to develop the intended new engines for the car which would have meant Harris Mann's styling would have looked better as per the drawings.

The Princess looked like it should have been a hatchback but didn't get a tailgate till the updated Ambassador replaced it in 1982 - which only lasted 2 years......

I could go on, but it was all a bit like the British car industry's soap opera when every time a new model was launched, things looked like they were looking up only to crash again within a short space of time.

Austin Kimberley

[Villain]

Sept 7, 2023 19:54:33 GMT D.C. Burtonshaw said:

Some great points by forumites here so far, and I too have often been fascinated by the BMC and later BL story of a car making empire which could have been a world beater but hampered by poor quality and poor decisions but at the same time Issignonis designing some great mechanical innovations.

Regarding the 1800, some early styling ideas included what looked like an ADO16/BMC 1100 on steroids - maybe that would have worked better than the production car, who knows?

A later facelift of the 1800 for the Australian market in the guise of the Austin Tasman and Kimberley actually improved the cars looks (I always thought anyway) with a longer rear end, and squared off styling and rectangular tail lamps like a Hillman Hunter at the back. And with lift up door handles. But they weren't launched down under till 1972, by which time it was a bit late to decide to offer them to the UK market as the Wedge shaped 18-22 series (later the Princess) was very close to production. On top of that the Kimberley and Tasman never took off in Australia either with their motorists preferring the locally built Chryslers, Holdens and Fords.

An interesting 4 part (I think) history documentary produced and narrated by a private Youtuber is on YT, which goes into some interesting detail regarding the great ideas but also mistakes made from the BMC years right the way through to the demise of the MG-Rover years. Look for "Death of the UK car industry - Part 1: BMC"

As for the Mini, I love the car, although the story goes that Ford UK bought 2 Minis, and stripped them to every last nut and bolt and calculated they were losing money on every car built. I think Ford UK's chairman even telephoned George Harriman and asked how he could justify doing this, and I think Harriman just refused to discuss it or didn't believe them.

Digressing just a bit - As a result Ford designers knew just how to efficiently design the MK1 Cortina and be able to sell them for a profit, as well as learning from their past experience with the over engineered Consul Classic.

There were other cars kept in production too long too, when very promising prototypes for replacement never came to fruition like the proposal for the MGB replacement - it looked a bit like the Alfa Spyder............ Instead the MGB soldiered on for 18 years.

The Allegro entered production looking awkward due to the existing A series and E series engines having to be used as BL couldn't afford to develop the intended new engines for the car which would have meant Harris Mann's styling would have looked better as per the drawings.

The Princess looked like it should have been a hatchback but didn't get a tailgate till the updated Ambassador replaced it in 1982 - which only lasted 2 years......

I could go on, but it was all a bit like the British car industry's soap opera when every time a new model was launched, things looked like they were looking up only to crash again within a short space of time.

It's telling that BL nabbed Roy Haynes away from Ford in time to revamp the Mini range with the Clubman square fronted models - the influence of the Mk2 Cortina is clear to see. Haynes also designed all the new badges for the Mk3 Mini and Clubman range which were introduced in October 1969, his instrument pod and steering wheel designs for the Clubman and 1275GT are very Ford like too.

Villain 

[Cartman]

The MGB replacement was coded EX 234, and it did look like a nice design, but it was dropped, probably on cost grounds. A later attempt was the more advanced ADO 21, this was a mid engine design which looked a bit like a Ferrari, but would have used the Maxi engine and gearbox, which didn't sound promising. The exercise was a waste of effort really, as it was being aimed at the American market, the Porsche 914 seemed to suggest that the future of the sports car was in the mid engined layout,but the Datsun 240Z was selling well there so it was really clear that a simple mechanical layout was what the American market eanted.

Another abortive design, by Issigonis, was the Austin Ant, which was a small 4x4 based on the 1100 mechanicals, this was cancelled at the time of the Leyland merger as it would have competing with the Land Rover, but a small batch was produced. 

MGB replacement Code Name EX 234

[Villain]

Another project which almost made production was the Rover P8 which supposed to be a replacement for the P5B and P6, it got to the point where new tooling for the production line was in hand in 1971 but it was cancelled at the last minute because Sir William Lyons feared it would interfere with sales of the new XJ6. Despite being engulfed by BL and being very close to retirement, he was on the board at the time and still had enough clout to make a difference. One of the P8 prototypes is tucked away at Gaydon museum, along with loads of others which have yet to see the light of day.

For anyone who has never been to the museum, it's well worth a look, they change the exhibits around regularly as there's not enough space to display all of the vehicles at the same time.

Villain 

Rover P8

[Cartman]

Yes the P8 was an interesting design and it would have been an in house rival for the then new XJ6, although demand for the XJ6 was very strong when it came out and there were waiting lists, which could well have resulted in potential customers maybe buying a Merc instead, so there could have been room in the range for both cars.

Apparently, the P8 did badly in a crash test, and that contributed to it being canned

[Cartman]

Another massive waste of time, effort and resources at the same period was the Austin 3 Litre. It was yet another development of the less than successful 1800 and was conceived as a replacement for the Austin A110 Westminster and it's badge engineered Wolseley 6/110 and Vanden Plas offshoots. It used the centre section of the 1800, and added lengthened front and rear, and was rear driven with the 2912cc engine from the MGC (yet another unsuccessful design) 

Expanding such an unattractive and unprestigious car as the 1800 to try and compete in the luxury car sector was never going to work, and it was obviously 1800 based. At least the Westminster/Wolseley looked the part.

The car didn't even go on sale immediately after its launch, instead a small test batch was loaned out to potential customers, and after only two years and less than 10000 were sold it was axed