Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on May 11, 2021 20:52:37 GMT
Just staying with the motorcycle manufacturers, if you consider that in 1960 (for example), you had BSA, Triumph, Norton, Ariel, Velocette, Royal Enfield, Matchless and AJS as your big bike factories. Then you’d have Villiers engined tiddlers like James, Francis Barnet, Greeves and Norman (to mention just a few). Oddities like Panther from West Yorkshire or DOT in Manchester were still about too. Roll on to say, 1975 and it’s virtually all gone. Triumph are hanging by their fingertips in their co-operative, Norton were reduced to a tiny rump playing around with the rotary engines ‘aquired’ from BSA and that’s really it for the large manufacturers. It all just fell off a cliff in just over a decade, primarily due to Japanese motorcycles but also for other reasons you could fill a book with. I know things change and the market demands new stuff and cheaper products but it is sad when this happens and affects a load of jobs that the people may have loved doing.
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Bojan Scores
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Terry you’re very devious when a bird’s involved...
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Post by Bojan Scores on May 11, 2021 21:13:15 GMT
Just staying with the motorcycle manufacturers, if you consider that in 1960 (for example), you had BSA, Triumph, Norton, Ariel, Velocette, Royal Enfield, Matchless and AJS as your big bike factories. Then you’d have Villiers engined tiddlers like James, Francis Barnet, Greeves and Norman (to mention just a few). Oddities like Panther from West Yorkshire or DOT in Manchester were still about too. Roll on to say, 1975 and it’s virtually all gone. Triumph are hanging by their fingertips in their co-operative, Norton were reduced to a tiny rump playing around with the rotary engines ‘aquired’ from BSA and that’s really it for the large manufacturers. It all just fell off a cliff in just over a decade, primarily due to Japanese motorcycles but also for other reasons you could fill a book with. I know things change and the market demands new stuff and cheaper products but it is sad when this happens and affects a load of jobs that the people may have loved doing. It was like British Leyland in some respects. Old designs getting updated, but there was an abundance of out of the box engineering thinking and forward looking designs that never saw the light of day.
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Post by Peter Picard on May 13, 2021 16:39:45 GMT
Albion was another truck maker who became part of Leyland, they also made a few buses, the Nimbus, which was a small midi bus, Halifax had quite a few of them, and the Lowlander which was a low height version of the Leyland PD3. They had more success with their trucks, Ripponden and district had quite a big fleet of them in their parcels service. Seddons were another bus and truck firm, based in Oldham, who merged with Atkinson. They were also more successful with their trucks, their biggest seller on the bus side was the Pennine RU, which Lancashire United had some of, but they weren't keen on.
Leyland stopped using the Albion name in 1972 but the firm continued to make Leyland lorries until 1980 when production was moved to the BL Bathgate plant. From then the Albion factory made axles for all the BL heavy vehicles and later on Daf vehicles.
In 1993 the company became Albion Automotive and in 1998 was taken over by American Axle and Manufacturing Co and is still making axles today.
The lorry above was loading axles for the Renault truck plant in Lyon.
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on May 13, 2021 17:01:48 GMT
Good pics, Peter. Another interesting truck was the Rowe Hillmaster, which was made in Cornwall. It was made by a dealer, Rowe motors and was narrower than a normal size lorry to cope better with narrow, twisty and hilly Cornish roads. Not many were built and production ended in 1962. Five have been preserved.
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Bojan Scores
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Terry you’re very devious when a bird’s involved...
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Post by Bojan Scores on May 14, 2021 9:50:42 GMT
I wonder how much of BL/Rover ex companies still exist beyond MINI, Jaguar, Range Rover? The Albion lorry axle factory being a good example in PP’s post. I know that BMW walked off with a lot of intellectual property from Rover, and I believe that the Renault Espace actually originated within Hillman/Rootes, I wonder what other ‘borrowed’ British designs are out there?
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Post by Dirty Epic on May 14, 2021 10:16:11 GMT
It's interesting that Unipart once part of the BL empire is now more involved with the rail industry as a parts supplier than anything to do with it's former automotive past.
Been said many times, if BL hadn't swallowed up most of the UK automotive industry in the 1960's-70's I'm sure at least one manufacturer might have existed beyond the collapse of the Rover group. Having said that, they may have ended up in a similar situation to the former Rootes Group companies being a subsidiary of say Ford, GM, PSA, VAG etc. a bit like Skoda, Seat etc. today.
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Post by Dirty Epic on May 14, 2021 10:18:18 GMT
I believe that the Renault Espace actually originated within Hillman/Rootes, I wonder what other ‘borrowed’ British designs are out there? Probably loads mate, IIRC the Peugeot 309 from the mid 80's originated as a Talbot design and again may be wrong had significant UK input in it's design and build.
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Post by Dirty Epic on May 14, 2021 10:38:47 GMT
Seddons were another bus and truck firm, based in Oldham, who merged with Atkinson. They were also more successful with their trucks, their biggest seller on the bus side was the Pennine RU, which Lancashire United had some of, but they weren't keen on. It's interesting that Seddon's were pioneers of fully electric battery buses in the mid-70's almost 35-40 years before the hybrid varieties started to become accepted/acceptable.
Sadly they never went beyond a few unreliable prototypes for Greater Manchester PTE and more mainstream manufacturers like the mighty Leyland gave this technology a wide berth but it's an insight into what might have been if deregulation hadn't moved everything back 50 years a decade later.
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Batgirl
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Post by Batgirl on May 14, 2021 11:42:19 GMT
Saab - the models, well all of them disappeared. My Aunty & Uncle had a Saab 9000 (when they were doing well !) and they loved it. At Christmas my friends came over and took pics in front of it, as it was the poshest car we knew.
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on May 14, 2021 16:07:59 GMT
I didn't know Saab had gone. On the Seddons in DEs picture, I remember the bigger two door one, the Silent Rider. It spent a lot of time out of use at Hyde Road depot. The small one was a variation on the Centreline ones which ran between Victoria and Piccadilly stations.
Stagecoach, who now operate in Manchester, have recently brought out a fleet of electric double deckers, their depot in Sharston, near where I work, have a big allocation of them. Agree about deregulation, it was stupid, totally unnecessary and counter productive
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