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2019/01/02 18:48:21
Subject: Re:The British car industry during the 20th century; was its doom inevitable?
Future War Cultist wrote: The three wheelers were a result of silly licencing laws. However, I think most of them would look ok if they had four wheels.
That would be the Kitten. If you think about it, a small engined car (850cc) with plastic (glass fibre) body shell was ahead of its time. Just look at the Smart Fortwo 600cc plastic body... Technology has moved on in the 25+ years since the kitten, but it's the type of vehicle now being pushed as more eco friendly than gas guzzlers
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kilkrazy wrote: The quality of work is very good, though, which shows there is nothing wrong with the technical skills of the workforce as a whole..
Don't think there was ever a problem with the technical skills of the workforce. With the management though....that was a different matter. There was a big issue with a "them and us" attitude, with very few of management having experience on the production line, or how it operated. Despite this, they lorded it over those actually doing the work, ordering them to do it their way or get the sack. Issues with class and sex were still mainstream, remember Dagenham...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/01/02 19:02:38
2019/01/02 21:19:09
Subject: The British car industry during the 20th century; was its doom inevitable?
Among the management issues brought up earlier in this thread, another issue is obviously engineering. . . And this could be aimed at the US makers as well (although they didn't exactly collapse in the 70s).
For those who haven't seen his "Cars of the People" program, here's the argument that he puts forth: Because of the way that treaties were outlined in post-WW2 world, and because of the sheer decimation that today's automotive giants dealt with, their hand was forced in a number of ways.
Firstly, engineers in Germany and Japan were not allowed to pursue "defense" type projects: no rockets, missiles, fighter aircraft, bombers, tanks, etc. etc. and as a result, the top engineering minds went into sectors they could, especially the automotive industry.
Secondly, Both Germany and Japan were basically leveled, and as a result, resources were scarce. This meant those top engineering minds had to make something out of very little. The VW Beetle, the Japanese K Car, and little Honda motorcycles all use relatively little materials. Especially when you compare them to the literal cruise liners and tuna boats being sold by Ford, Lincoln, Cadillac, Chevy, and Chrysler, etc. in America. Not only did these new vehicles, being designed by the brightest and greatest engineering minds in their respective countries need to be built with relatively small amounts of material, they also needed to be reliable as "spares" were truly needed in the initial manufacture in the first place.
While the best and brightest of Germany and Japan were giving us new VWs, Hondas, Toyotas and the like. . . "our" best and brightest were giving us newer and faster jet engines, rockets that put men on the moon, satellite communications, etc. And thus, when certain stimulus hit the market, the US/UK auto industries were unable to cope. . . In the US, it was the arrogance of their stranglehold on the domestic market, and gas guzzling monstrosities that were ultimately doomed with the oil embargo. . . in the UK, it was that the production of cars was not such that they could sustain their own market as the US could, so with the referendum that allowed the UK to sell abroad (and conversely, the others to sell in the UK) that actively "doomed" the UK's auto industry.
Since then, I think there are elements of the UK auto industry that always survived. As mentioned in other posts, companies like Rolls Royce, Range/Land Rovers have done relatively well. . . But the companies that lasted much longer were even more niche than RR, such as Cosworth, who have long provided amazing performance upgrades/vehicles. . (For the Americans who are unaware, Cosworth is a bit like Shelby is in the US. . .it's a performance badge/performance house that means the given vehicle has more performance capabilities than its base version)
2019/01/02 21:24:17
Subject: The British car industry during the 20th century; was its doom inevitable?
Future War Cultist wrote: 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.
Contary to popular myth the british made some great cars.
My 1976 series 3 landrover still going strong.
My fathers 1966 jaguar E type yup still purrs like a kitten, his v8 range rover still motors along.
A work mate morris 1000 traveller, still going strong, with minor (scuse the pun) remedial work.
A mates 3fiestas, 4 peugeots 2 toyotas, 1 mazda, ford granada. all dead. Some british designs were stagnant,, but marketing was the big let down.
P.S. the maxi was considered by many to be a great car. A rear door for easy loading, spacious, and built in double bed (the seats folded flat) for moonlight romance.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/01/02 22:06:01
Its hard to be awesome, when your playing with little plastic men. Welcome to Fantasy 40k
If you think your important, in the great scheme of things. Do the water test.
Put your hands in a bucket of warm water,
then pull them out fast. The size of the hole shows how important you are.
I think we should roll some dice, to see if we should roll some dice, To decide if all this dice rolling is good for the game.
2019/01/02 22:30:46
Subject: The British car industry during the 20th century; was its doom inevitable?
Secondly, Both Germany and Japan were basically leveled, and as a result, resources were scarce.
I can't speak for the car industry, as I know nothing about it. One general business/industrial advantage of the above however, is that it permits businesses to start off from scratch in a fashion that industries which have evolved in a more organic way cannot. It means that they can select prime land with room for expansion, lay out the works in the most time efficient fashion, and finally, have entirely spanking new plant instead of holdovers from the last thirty years. By cutting production time and maximising resource efficiency, you can make far more for less cost, allowing you to match quality whilst simultaneously undercutting competition and flooding the market.
2019/01/02 23:29:56
Subject: The British car industry during the 20th century; was its doom inevitable?
Asherian Command wrote: Not to be rude. But most manufacturing and hard labor jobs will go the way of the do-do eventually in first world countries it is a future inevitable.
And once jobs for the masses go extinct in these countries, so does mass employment, and therefore mass consumption, and with it mass production as no one will pay to build a product no one can afford to buy.
CHAOS! PANIC! DISORDER!
My job here is done.
2019/01/03 10:12:38
Subject: Re:The British car industry during the 20th century; was its doom inevitable?
I don’t know about you, but I think that by the standards of their days the 4 wheeled varieties of Reliants are actually quite decent looking little things. Cute and surprisingly modern looking, and as you said, made with futuristic materials with the modern city in mind. Just like the Smart Cars of today. The downsides were that they were a bit expensive for what they were, and were unrefined too. But I reckon that what really did them in was the stigma of the three wheel models. They’re deeply, deeply uncool, and no matter what, when you said that you drove a Reliant, that’s what people immediately thought of.
We should have did what the Japanese did; had the industry and government come together and work out a way for people to cheaply drive and insure proper small cars, to spare us all of the three wheeled nonsense. But, coulda woulda shoulda...
The British industry never did enough to promote itself and build brands either. Look at what Volkswagen did, with the Beetle, the Camper, the Karmann Ghia and the Golf. Absolutely no reason why we couldn’t have did the same (especially the mini), except for pure hubris. Their attitude was always ‘you’ll buy it because you’re British and it’s british, and you don’t want any of that foreign muck. And you foreigners aren’t good enough for our cars either so there’.
Look at this advertisement for the supppsed saviour of the industry, the metro:
Not only is it embarrassingly jingoistic, but it also shows a really flawed (I.e, fethed up) way of thinking. It’s essentially backwards. Never mind ‘repelling invaders’, you should have been aiming towards exporting too. And that means building a decent car with global appeal. Your gak rot boxes were why the foreign models were beating you, pure and simple.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/01/03 10:14:51
2019/01/03 11:19:24
Subject: Re:The British car industry during the 20th century; was its doom inevitable?
An important piece of pedantry that needs to be mentioned - it's a Reliant Robin, not a Robin Reliant - unless of course you also talk about Focus Fords, MX5 Mazdas and so on... Reliant is the manufacturer, Robin is the model.
2019/01/03 11:38:34
Subject: The British car industry during the 20th century; was its doom inevitable?
Among the management issues brought up earlier in this thread, another issue is obviously engineering. . . And this could be aimed at the US makers as well (although they didn't exactly collapse in the 70s).
...
...
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Chrysler damn near collapsed in 1979 and survived thanks to a 1.5 billion dollar government loan.
The UK car industry suffered from poor industrial relations (one new chief executive turned up on a tour of his company's factories to find everyone had gone home, except for one guy who was asleep, with everyone else's timecards to click them out, and at one point, Ford arranged a big press event to show off their new factory; all the journalists turned up, to find the workforce on strike) and poor central planning (British Leyland was the UK government's attempt to combine every car manufacturer in the country into one concern, which lead to poor efficiency. If you look at a big conglomerate like VAG, all their similar models, from VW, SEAT, Skoda and Audi are basically the same under the body, with relatively minor tuning and cosmetic differences to appeal to different markets; BL did the opposite, having different brands all doing their own thing engineering-wise and all competing with each other). Mercedes and BMW producing cheaper models in the late 70s and 80s didn't help - the market previously catered to by big Fords and Vauxhalls were now buying more easily-afforded beemers.
2019/01/04 09:52:55
Subject: Re:The British car industry during the 20th century; was its doom inevitable?
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