Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

This is a subject that’s often fascinated me, combining my love of history with my love of cars. I ask myself, where did it go wrong? Who was to blame for its short comings and demise? And was there anything that could have been done to save it?

Good sources of information on this subject are James May’s Cars Of The People (Season 2 episode 1, original air date 2016), Dominic Sandbrook’s Das Auto: The Germans, Their Cars and Us (original air date 2013) and Jeromy Clarkson’s Car Years (episode 4, original air date 2000).

You guys know of British Leyland don’t you? The massive, lumbering behemoth who just couldn’t do anything right and made some of the crappest cars to have ever existed briefly before falling apart? For you Americans, imagine it’s the 1960s and General Motors merged with Ford, but they both kept all of their individual marques, and remained actively hostile to each other. So for example you would have Chevrolet and Ford under one banner actively competing with each other, refusing to share parts etc. Profits from one brand being undermined by the losses from the other. Then to make matters worse, it’s all brought under the control of the government, so that the attitude then becomes ‘since we’ll never go out of business, why bother putting any effort into our work?’ It was an unmitigated disaster.

But you want to know where I think it all started to go wrong? It wasn’t the creation of British Leyland (that was more the end result), or even the merger of Austin and Morris to form British Motor Holdings (then the British Motor Corporation) before it, but instead it was when the BMC was allowed to acquire The Pressed Steel Company, who also manufactured the bodies for Jaguar, Rover, Leyland Motors and the Rootes Group. BMCs acquisition of Pressed Steel meant that the others kind of had no choice but to join up with them, and thus the horrible monstrosity that was British Leyland was formed.

I think this is ironic, because out of control trade unionism is often blamed for the downfall of the British car industry, when in fact it was actually run away capitalism that started it all off. In my opinion, BMC should never have been allowed to acquire Pressed Steel in the first place. That created a monopoly which ultimately sank the industry. It forced the otherwise profitable Jaguar and Leyland Motors to join up with them, and while the government had actually hoped that Leyland Motors would help steer BMC right, in actual fact the opposite happened, and BMC effectively ‘poisoned’ all of the others with their nonsense.

I’ll be blunt, Pressed Steel should have either remained ‘neutral’ or have been nationalised, and BMC told to ‘sink or swim’. To answer the title question, I truly believe that had BMC kept their hands off Pressed Steel, the British owned car industry would have thrived and soldered onwards into the 21st century. Jaguar, Truimph and Rover were almost always profitable, and their designs and build quality held up well by the standards of the day before they got assimilated by British Leyland. The Rover P6 for example was one of the most high tec cars of its day; all round disk brakes, advanced suspension system and great looks helped it to bag the first ever winner of the European Car Of The Year award. And Jaguar...they made the E-Type...enough said. Within BMC, I think MG was also profitable, and in their inevitable collapse, could have came out the other side under new ownership.

I sometimes go through British Leylands history with a fine toothed comb to see if it could have ever been made to work, but honestly I think the answer is no. It would have required so much reworking, the end result would be something completely different.

To be honest, based on what I've seen in movies and tv shows from the 70's, 80's and such, most british cars were just ugly, boring, little boxes. I'm not bragging about Americans doing things better, and most of my American chauvanism has withered in recent years due to a bad case of me knowing more about the rest of the world than most Americans , but in general I would say that except for the exceptional cars like rolls Royce, the average british peoples cars look totally bleah. The pastel paint jobs didn't help.

But then again I hear your cars average 40 MPG which I wish my family cars got ...

While I know little of the british car industry it sounds to me like your government screwed the pooch and let a monopoly get created, and, say it with me, MONOPOLIES ARE TERRIBLE!!!

So yeah, sounds like your car industry was monopolied to death. My condolenscenses. Since my county began scrapping anti monopoly laws and other regulations on businesses over 30 years ago the richest have gotten richer and everyone else has been tossed into economic hell.

What killed most of the British motor industry (car and bike) was a failure to change. A combination of management, designers and unions all not wanting to change ideas and policies in place for decades. the prestige side of the market did not have the same issues to the same degree, waiting lists even increased. There is still a long wait for a Morgan I believe.

While British, and to a certain degree European and American industry did it "the way we always have" Japan was inovating and changing (with help from some great industrialists and management principles experts from America). Management would help on the shop floor if needed, and get their hands dirty.

The view at the time was that 2 stroke was for mopeds, 4 stroke was for proper bikes. No one told japan that, so they made 2 stroke up to 750 and 4 stroke down to 50cc, infact I believe the c50 and c90 are still made in updated models.

The faiure to change which you identify was also one of the main causes behind the decline of the British ship-building industry. Arguments and failures between management and unions allowed other countries like Japan to modernise past the UK and produced ships quicker and cheaper.

However, there is now a significant UK car manufacturing industry again, it's just mostly operating under foreign management and capital.

Morgan is a very different beast to a normal car company, though. They specifically want to remain a "built by hand" car company, producing 16 cars a month or whatever it is. They don't want or need to scale up. They make everything to order, not a single unit goes unsold, and there is even a secondary market in Morgan futures, so they are a complete success in their own terms. They are just never going to be a big company like Renault.

Britain leads the world in engineering Formula One race cars, and Indie cars, and is also a noted producer of luxury yachts. These like Morgan are all "cottage" industries and will never provide large scale employment.

British cars always seemed to be overpriced with too small a market. As speciality toys they were apparently neat (for people who waste money on that sort of thing), as day-to-day pactical vehicles they seem like rubbish.

Seems like a given.

Do you mean now or back in the day?

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
To be honest, based on what I've seen in movies and tv shows from the 70's, 80's and such, most british cars were just ugly, boring, little boxes.

That's exactly the point. There are a plethora of truly iconic British designs from the 1960s (the Mini - might have been released in '59 but it counts, Jag E-type, Aston Martin DB5 to name a quick 3) but lots of these companies either dwindled away in the 1970s or released far inferior replacements. The economic conditions in the 1970s probably didn't help people wanting to own expensive luxury cars either, and it can't be denied that 1960s Britain in general was riding a wave of 'cool' that was never going to last.

Much like the postwar aero industry there were a lot of competing manufacturers in the auto sector with owners intent on releasing what they wanted. Effectively offering something which may only meet demand on the off chance.

This lead to outdated designs.

Cars were also regularly manufactured with components meant for other designs and manufacturers. Missing 500 or so rear axles for your Morris Minor? Talbot have some that are good enough. Need a front headlamp assembly for your Marina? Send the apprentice next door and we'll shoe horn something from Reliant in there.

Even though the Industry was helping Asia set up production lines with standardised machined parts. The practice of coach building along with the tried and tested methods of it'll do and close enough saw a decline in overall quality of mass produced British vehicles.

Datsun/Nissan dealerships, when they first opened in the uk, made the point of having carpeted showrooms. British manufacturers had plain floors with trays underneath the cars to catch the inevitable sump leakage. Its a clever selling point, having unsoiled floors.

Being a victor in the last war is also a key feature of the decline of industry. We weren't forced by loss, invasion or decimation to change practices until far too late.

Yep, British cars from this era included quite a lot of duds. Again, whilst people were quick to blame the unions (and they certainly didn't help matters), they often forget the fact that the cars the workers were putting together badly (or not at all) weren't much cop to begin with. And yes, they were often worse than the cars they were replacing, in technological terms as well as design. You can blame this on management and engineering with their stupid ideas and cost cutting. Case in point, the Rover SD1, the replacement for the fantastic P6, looked the part but had horrendous build quality (it was apparently slightly longer on one side!) and underneath it was actually less technologically advanced too. The P6s De Dion type rear suspension and disk brakes got downgraded to a simple live rear axle and drum brakes instead. Then there's the other two...the Morris Marina and the Austin Allegro...those two are unforgivable.

About the cars being too expensive...the Mini was actually priced too cheaply, meaning that BMC's best seller was selling at a loss of about £30 per car. I think the idea was to try and undercut the American competition (Ford, Vauxhall and Hillman) but it didn't work.....at all.

They also let car models go on for way too long. The Mini was made for 41 years for Christ's sake! There was a plan to replace it in the early seventies (the 9X and ADO74 projects) but they never got going. Even when they did finally get a replacement (the Mini Metro) they just kept making it. The Morris Minor also went on for about ten years too long too. You can put all these problems down to them not having the money or labor support to actually change anything.

Even when they came up with a good idea, they botched it. You know the Maxi? It started off as a 3 box Cortina rival before morphing into a five speed hatchback. Nobody was really in the market for such a car, but if designed and sold well it might have caught on. However, they messed up it's gear box, the build quality (again) and it had horribly ugly looks. You can blame the looks on Alec Issigonis, who always pursued a less is more, cars aren't art approach with regards to design. That philosophy worked on the little Mini, but not a big car like the Maxi.

Funnily enough, a guy did design a sort of improved Maxi in a competition, and it looked absolutely fantastic (by the standards of the day). Imagine a clean, sharp looking mid to late 80s design....in 1973. Had BMC bothered to do this in the first place, it might have been a best seller rather than a flop.

European hot hatches did for British brands such as MG sports cars

Performance with seating for 4, a boot and a roof? Sold!

Where are hot hatches now, eh?

Everyone wants to drive a sports SUV.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Where are hot hatches now, eh?

Everyone wants to drive a sports SUV.

The Juke is a joyless drive and anyone owning one is histories greatest monster.

Most SUVs are terribad = The Juke is owned by soulless monsters - but marketing has done a cracking job of getting them the sales.

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Where are hot hatches now, eh?

Everyone wants to drive a sports SUV.

The Juke is a joyless drive and anyone owning one is histories greatest monster.

Most SUVs are terribad = The Juke is owned by soulless monsters - but marketing has done a cracking job of getting them the sales.

I've never driven one but the Juke's looks would stop me considering one.

Currently I drive a roadster and whilst it's a lot of fun it's pretty impractical, I was looking into the SUV market but something with a bit of power, there's not a lot about but I was thinking an AMG GLA would be a decent blend of practicality and performance.

And yes I am nearly 40 thanks.

@US Dakkanauts: please Google "Robin Reliant" and basque in the absolute splendour of British automotive engineering!

Yup the British car industry was doomed given how circumstances played out

the public wants a selection of things

1. cool looks (depends on the time, but in general British mass market cars didn't excel)

2. Cheap (nope, we failed there too except when companies got their sums wrong and sold cars for less than they cost to build, and when the Japanese and later the rest of the far east got there we really struggled)

3. Reliable (The worst aspect of British car far to many of which leaked oil, overheated or broke down in other ways even before you got to the shoddy build quality exacerbated by the unions, pray you didn't get a Friday afternoon special. And stupidly we didn't learn from the death of the British motorbike industry which the Japanese had already killed by being cheaper and more importantly more reliable)

4. Available (The inability of management and unions to get on led to strikes which led to the car you might have bought not being available)


we also suffered by having an established industry that hadn't been nearly as badly wrecked by the war as most of Europe, and so we didn't need to invest in as many new machines, factories etc, and managements rarely want to invest in expensive new stuff when the old stuff kind of works so our infrastructure was older than Europes by probably 20-30 years and even worse than that of the emergent far eastern economies

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Again, whilst people were quick to blame the unions, they often forget the fact that the cars the workers were putting together badly (or not at all) weren't much cop to begin with. Case in point, the Rover_SD1 looked the part but had horrendous build quality (it was apparently slightly longer on one side!) and underneath it was actually less technologically advanced too.

And the British build "quality" wasn't exactly unknown in the rest of Europe. People used to say you should make sure your Ford (or other big brand assembled in several countries including the UK) was from Germany, or at the very least not from the wrong side of the Channel. A british-built vehicle might have the doors (or hood, or almost anything) fitted "close enough, it's Friday" while the German production line made sure every car that left the factory had exactly the same measurements.

No idea what that had to do with though - unmotivated workers, bad equipment, bad controls or a combination of it all?

Not particulary knowledgable on the british car industry, but it seems that industrial production is very dependant on low wages and or high skill.

Neither off those seem to be found in the british car industry so long this thread is accurate.

 Riquende wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Where are hot hatches now, eh?

Everyone wants to drive a sports SUV.

The Juke is a joyless drive and anyone owning one is histories greatest monster.

Most SUVs are terribad = The Juke is owned by soulless monsters - but marketing has done a cracking job of getting them the sales.

I've never driven one but the Juke's looks would stop me considering one.

Currently I drive a roadster and whilst it's a lot of fun it's pretty impractical, I was looking into the SUV market but something with a bit of power, there's not a lot about but I was thinking an AMG GLA would be a decent blend of practicality and performance.

And yes I am nearly 40 thanks.

Ah, the Mercedes Esp the GLA and lower tier marks of merc. German Marque, pre assembled in renault factories with renault dials and buttons on the dash. I'm not at all saying that renault are crap just that the price paid for the 3 pointed badge is ill spent at that level, especially considering standard features from other manufacturers are expensive extras.

BMW going the same way, not as obvious but the rush to fill the fleet market and the HP/finance buyer market is leading to marque badge manufactures to price point their builds to the low end. Look at what BMW badge up as M sport models.

People still want em though.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spetulhu wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Again, whilst people were quick to blame the unions, they often forget the fact that the cars the workers were putting together badly (or not at all) weren't much cop to begin with. Case in point, the Rover_SD1 looked the part but had horrendous build quality (it was apparently slightly longer on one side!) and underneath it was actually less technologically advanced too.

And the British build "quality" wasn't exactly unknown in the rest of Europe. People used to say you should make sure your Ford (or other big brand assembled in several countries including the UK) was from Germany, or at the very least not from the wrong side of the Channel. A british-built vehicle might have the doors (or hood, or almost anything) fitted "close enough, it's Friday" while the German production line made sure every car that left the factory had exactly the same measurements.

No idea what that had to do with though - unmotivated workers, bad equipment, bad controls or a combination of it all?

"Never buy a Rover made on a Friday".

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 Riquende wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Where are hot hatches now, eh?

Everyone wants to drive a sports SUV.

The Juke is a joyless drive and anyone owning one is histories greatest monster.

Most SUVs are terribad = The Juke is owned by soulless monsters - but marketing has done a cracking job of getting them the sales.

I've never driven one but the Juke's looks would stop me considering one.

Currently I drive a roadster and whilst it's a lot of fun it's pretty impractical, I was looking into the SUV market but something with a bit of power, there's not a lot about but I was thinking an AMG GLA would be a decent blend of practicality and performance.

And yes I am nearly 40 thanks.

Ah, the Mercedes Esp the GLA and lower tier marks of merc. German Marque, pre assembled in renault factories with renault dials and buttons on the dash. I'm not at all saying that renault are crap just that the price paid for the 3 pointed badge is ill spent at that level, especially considering standard features from other manufacturers are expensive extras.

BMW going the same way, not as obvious but the rush to fill the fleet market and the HP/finance buyer market is leading to marque badge manufactures to price point their builds to the low end. Look at what BMW badge up as M sport models.

People still want em though.

Not exactly. The small diesels on the A and B-lettered mercedes are indeed Renault-made, but everything else is different. Different platforms, bodies, electronics, etc.

Renault did get a few Merc goodies as part of the deal, though. Notably access to the Mercedes platform for the small Infiniti (Q30 and QX30, assembled in Sunderland, btw) as well as some mercedes engines (1.6 turbo petrol and the veteran 2.2 diesel)

 War Drone wrote:
@US Dakkanauts: please Google "Robin Reliant" and basque in the absolute splendour of British automotive engineering!

Ugly, dangerous and stupid. If this car was a woman i'd wish her on my half brother....

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Ah, the Mercedes Esp the GLA and lower tier marks of merc. German Marque, pre assembled in renault factories with renault dials and buttons on the dash. I'm not at all saying that renault are crap just that the price paid for the 3 pointed badge is ill spent at that level, especially considering standard features from other manufacturers are expensive extras.

BMW going the same way, not as obvious but the rush to fill the fleet market and the HP/finance buyer market is leading to marque badge manufactures to price point their builds to the low end. Look at what BMW badge up as M sport models.

BMW has been building the 3er for the lease market for the past decade (or two?), specifically to hit a particular monthly payment. It's not a bad lease car starting at $299- per month, but everything about that car is designed around that starting point. But then, the 3er is simply their bread and butter cash flow model. It's not the "real" Bimmer - that's the 5er, and what BMW centers around. Or at least used to, back in the Exx days. With the F10 and G30, the 5er is just a smaller 7: heavy, bloated and not dynamic. I don't fathom the FWD 1s, but the RWD 2s are OK.

But no, I won't get a Merc - the driver ergonomics are subtly infuriating. Though coming out of the DCX days, I'd imagine a Renault-built Benz is better than a Chrysler-infused one.

Getting back to the British, they had the same issue as the Swedes - much too small of a home market base for the number of brands and such to compete globally. What they build is niche, due to the need to cater the home market. Had the Brits somehow managed to build a really good car with mass global appeal, they might have done OK. But it's not like they ever really took quality or efficiency to heart, like the Japanese.

Hence:


Says it all, really....

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

 War Drone wrote:
@US Dakkanauts: please Google "Robin Reliant" and basque in the absolute splendour of British automotive engineering!

Ugly, dangerous and stupid. If this car was a woman i'd wish her on my half brother....

Makes a wonderful basis for a trike though.

Also never intended as a car, but as an enclosed vehicle driven on a motorcycle licence. There was a car variant called a kitten.

My uncle had a Robin Reliant. We used to enjoy buzzing around the West Midlands when we visited on holiday. You had to be a bit careful and lean into the turns.

Another 3-wheel classic is the Bond Bug.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BondBug700ES.jpg?uselang=fr

This summer it was the wife's turn to pick location and we're off to Cornwall for anything between 10 and 15 days, it's still too soon.

For me one of the highlights will be a long weekend along the Cornish roads on a classic open top (we'll try to get the Morgan, an MGB in case they're all booked). Here:
https://www.perranwell.co.uk

If there's one thing British manufacturers did right it was roadsters.

The three wheelers were a result of silly licencing laws. However, I think most of them would look ok if they had four wheels. The Japanese government and car industry had a sensible discussion about small cars and that’s why they have Kei Cars.

What's the current status of the britt car industry? I wish no I'll on Britain despite some small annoyances, I hope they're doing well. Will their brexist thingie help their car makers?

The British car industry is currently pretty healthy, though it has to be said that most of the home-grown manufacturers are now owned by foreign companies (for example, Tata of India owns the Jaguar/Land Rover group) while the really big factories like Honda and NIssan are foreign implementations entirely.

The quality of work is very good, though, which shows there is nothing wrong with the technical skills of the workforce as a whole.

Brexit could be a bit political. Let's just say that the modern European car industry is completely dependent on highly integrated Just In Time delivery of parts and sub-assemblies around the EU. You can draw your own conclusions as to what would happen if this system was disrupted by customs checks at the borders.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
What's the current status of the britt car industry? I wish no I'll on Britain despite some small annoyances, I hope they're doing well. Will their brexist thingie help their car makers?

This video is a good outline of the current British car industry. ignore the weird layout of the video itself, not sure why that is.

I think the industry is in the best shape it’s been in for decades. Possibly ever. For a while there production exceeded the so called heydays of the 70s and everything is of a high class world wide standard. And just like for the Germans and Japanese, it took being decimated (in more peaceful manner) for it to be put back on track. It would be nice if at least one of them was home owned but what matters is that they’re still going, and going strong.

I think you're right, and it's a good example of how foreign management and investment has done what the UK goverment and management could not do to organise the workforce and provide it with the skills and tools to achieve this high level of quality.

Hopefully the foreign intellectual skills will transfer out into the native UK management classes.