In the mid to late 70s when i was little everyone on our street had austins, fords, morris, triumph etc, apart from one neighbour who bought a Datsun 120y. That winter while most cars refused to start and run the little Datsun never failed. Greed, indifference, and stupidly killed the British car industry.
i grew up also in the 70s and i saw barley and UK cars, beside my math teachers Spitfire... but i saw plenty of Fords, Opel, BMW, Fiat, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Volvo, DAF, Porsche and VW´s... my family owned 1 Opel and 2 VW Passat, my first car also been a Santana(Passat).. i got taught to drive a car in a Golf 2... i also owned Mercedes, BMW, Renault, Peugeot and driving now a Hyundai! i never thought about to get a car made in the UK..... my bicycle is made in the UK, by a German based firm....before BrexShit... and since BrexShit, i avoid any UK products anyway...inclusive traveling to silly island!
I grew up in Australia and returned to Britain in 1979 at 17. Already been driving in Australia where the Japanese had taken a huge share of the market there. And Leyland Australia was on its way out. So I was pleasantly surprised to see the amount of Leyland cars including the Marina still being made here. Don't recall seeing too many Datsuns although I did from the 80s on. I had a 71 Mini 850 then a 71 Vauxhall Viva. They were reliable started fine in winter with the choke. Japanese cars at that time were well equipped and ultra reliable but had a built in obsolscense. In the 70s and 80s they were worse even than Fords and Vauxhall's for rusting. In Japan at the time they were not built to last more than about five years as they wanted people to keep buying new. Though many did. They changed the longevity to compete with the European market. It was really from the 90s onwards they matched the euro brands for lasting quality. It was really then the end was in sight for Rover despite the partnership..The Honda Civic engine was better than the Rover.
I was going to say the same - I remember well the sound of British cars churning over, trying to start on a cold day. The fact that Japanese cars just worked, and kept working turned many away from BL, Rootes/Chrysler and Vauxhall for good. The Japanese cars still rusted away though, as did everything else back then. Better customer care, build quality and extended warranties also turned British motorists to Japanese, and eventually Korean cars.
I knew a chap who’s father was a British Leyland dealer that transitioned to Nissan/Datsun in the 1970’s. Previously he would drive a new car home to discover all the remaining problems, but this was unnecessary with the new Japanese vehicles. That was the difference.
It reminds me of the training film circa 1975 used at British Leyland that was an attempt to instill in corporate employees the importance of their jobs, and how quality mattered. It showed owner frustration in faults, service department issues, etc. It simply was a shocking mess that the company knew it was so bad, yet this was the response.
The real answer is that the British companies were run by accountants, not engineers, and the old saying that accountants know the cost of everything and the value of nothing is very true.
@@Brommear If you study the workers at Boeing you find that they hired knee grows by required quotas. All required by the always usual suspects; the men with small hats!
Not only BL, I ordered the new Ford Fiesta in 1977, Ford went on strike, delivery 6-8 weeks, Went to my local Datsun garage, yes sir we have the new Datsun Cherry in stock, what colour would you like? Job done, well equipped car for less money!
@@john1v6My mum had a Mk2 Fiesta 1.1 Ghia in Gold / Grey… 4 speed box….. absolutely brilliant capable little car, still missed ! Replaced with a low mileage Rover Metro GTa, then a new Rover 200 ‘bubble’ 1.4 8v 5 door….
Tom, the Japanese cars sold well because they were reliable. My mum had a 78 Datsun 120Y estate. It had a radio, and a light easy gearshift. Even as it rusted away, it started every time. No small thing for people used to older British cars.
@@gpo746 Poor analysis. You should use a 10-year comparable of, say, 1978 to 1988 on how many were registered and remained. Neither model would have prominent numbers today.
Beside the Japanese competition, I think BL were also damaged by the rise of Ford with their more concentrated range of Fiesta, Escort, Cortina & Granada.
One cause of the fall of the British car industry was the Prince of Darkness, Lucas electrics. In contrast Japanese suppliers embraced quality and reliability.
Lucas was the only part which left us stranded in my dad's Volvo. The 145 had an electronic ignition conversion. It reverted to Bosch breaker points and never broke down/failed to start before or since in its 10+ year, 100000+ mile life. Later on, when my mum needed her own car for work, she found BL products still fell short in that respect and trailing the French and Italian cars she had. It is a shame most of the British cars were horrid rubbish as there were a few celebrated gems also.
Good point- Here in Ireland Lucas had the market completely to itself and was decimated almost overnight when Bosch arrived.Quality and reliability trump everything else.Lucas regulators in particular were the spawn of the devil if memory serves!
@@FairladyS130 same in OZ, people changed the Lucas distributor for Bosh for reliability in the Holdens (GM Australian car). PS Datsun Fairlady great car.
The Japanese still build the most reliable cars in the world. Lexus, Toyota, Suzuki and Honda regularly top the charts in reliability surveys. Nissan/ Datsun used to be as good but have dropped the ball since joining forces with Renault. Mazda are pretty good too and have quality interiors. Good video Tom!
In 1975, my dad was working at Land Rover in Solihull. My mom had a little win on a competition, and we had some money for a new car, so my dad ordered a brand new Marina. It never came. After 6 months waiting, he managed to get an ex-demonstrator model from a dealer- and that was a YEAR old, and already starting to rust. My brother, meanwhile, had juat bought a Datsun 120Y, for less money. The difference in quality, reliability, practicality and equipment was like comparing a Rolls Royce to a Wartburg. BL was killed by poor, weak management, Bolshy (literally) unions, and a disinterested workforce that couldn't see 3 months into the future, let alone the 10 years that the Japanese were looking.
For a working man i invested in a Marina van, bloody hopeless!! After much money disappointment and lost days i bought an Escort van, never looked back can’t believe i’m still angry but there you go
We had a Marina when my age was in single digits. Most of my memories of it involve it being up on ramps while my dad was messing with the steering or replacing front suspension components.
We had two Mini vans and a marina van . Bloody rust buckets and the Marina was scrap after 5 years. I then bought a Datsun 720 pickup in 1984 and had that for 14 years with no problems so I bought another one Nissan D21 then they were called.
My dad bought one of the very early Honda Civics in the UK in the mid 70’s. A decade and 110k trouble free miles later all our neighbours who initially laughed at it had all traded their BL, Fords and Vauxhalls and were driving Japanese cars as well. The Hondas, Toyotas and Datsuns of the 70’s were so much better than the local product it was embarrassing.
It was a similar situation in the US. I remember my cousin buying a brand new yellow 1978 Mazda 323 (called "GLC" or "Great Little Car" in marketing, ugh), and it was my first introduction to Japanese cars. He is an engineer for Dupont, and always had Japanese cars including a Miata now. But I give credit to the people who bought those cars because I finally was a believer by the 1990s when I bought a Honda. Still the best car I ever owned in terms of quality / reliability / durability. It lasted much longer than I needed it, unlike other cars that I have owned. The solid (rather than tinny rattle) closing of the door and tight seals when it was about 15 years old was like new and simply incredible. But that level of quality and durability put manufacturers in the US and Britain on notice. Regardless of where a car is built, people are not going to tolerate shoddy workmanship, failure of accessories, cheap hardware that breaks, etc. Most of us work hard for our money and use a car for daily living needs. To spend money on repairs on a depreciating asset is madness that would test the patience of almost any car buyer.
I've worked for a British firm (Granada) and a Japanese firm (Panasonic). Very different corporate cultures, treatment of staff, education level of staff, ethics behind product quality and continuous improvement etc. It's no surprise to me that BL, Granada etc. fell over.
The main thing I remember about British made cars was how the motor would cut out when you went through a puddle. Which, living in Australia,I used to think was very weird coming from a country that was so wet.
The transverse engine always put the alternator right on the front. All it needed was a plastic splash guard but apparently too complicated to develop.
Japanese do Kaizen. It is a philosophy of gradual improvement starting with the workforce. They spend 2 hours per week asking the workers if they see any possible improvements. Also staff do this. It results in many good ideas and an efficient and involved workforce. They often worked there for life. Even lived in the companies housing estates. Japanese workers talk, think, breathe and dream their company. Result: more efficiency, better committment to quality on all levels. They also test their prototypes rigurously. Really really extensive and hard before signing them off for production. I remember that SAAB used the Triumph engine and tested it extensively in extreme (winter) conditions on very bad roads at high speeds. Triumph engineers were baffled. These Swedes tried to break the engine and the car! I also recollect the amazement of American car engineers that Mercedes Benz had the audacity to test their cars extensively at top speed. At top speed? That is not realistic, they said. In that way the car will be too expensive. It is indeed short term thinking, obeying the bean counters, neglecting that a good product needs good engineers, good factory workers, working in a good corporate culture for good long term results.
Self inflicted, the same as the motorcycle industry, shipbuilding, aircraft production, consumer electronics, the list goes on., but dont forget, we are still the best in the world.
What I remember In the early to mid 70s, the Japanese cars were at a better price point. AND came with many features as standard that were optional costs on british brands. Ordinary stuff by today's standards. Like heated rear windows, radios, tinted glass headrests, etc.These early Japanese imports were neither attractively styled or mechanically advanced. But they were available and better equipped and had a better warranty.
The British car industry of the time were destroyed by two main factions, in my opinion, namely atrocious management and a continually unhappy workforce. Add to that the superior quality of Asian and European manufacturers our industry was screwed, sadly.
There is an internal training film "British Leyland Quality Control" on RUclips about BL trying to introduce "Quality Circles" into the manufacturing in the early 1980's (or late 1970's). It all seems a bit "day late and dollar short" though! The BL approach doesn't fully seem to embrace the Japanese approach of "anyone can stop the line if there is a quality issue", and it also seems to highlight BL's use of outdated and worn out equipment, as opposed to Japanese manufacturers who replaced tooling regularly well *before* it wears out to ensure parts remain tightly to spec.
When the Japanese cars were introduced into the UK market, people simply could not believe that cars could actually run consistently without needing to constantly fettle with it. I personally loved the styling of the marina coupe, but try comparing its reliability with that of a Datsun 120Y.....
as an apprentice mechanic in the early 80s I got to learn (amongst many other things) both the BLMC and Datsun A & B series engines in the same period. I always suspected the Datsuns were based on the BLMC units because they were just too similar yet an excellent evolution nevertheless. the E10 Cherry and B211 Sunny were fine looking cars, the Cherry especially cute. in an era when everything British broke down regularly, the Datsuns stole the show. however, they disolved only slightly slower than Italian stock.
If BL hadn’t “given” it all way to the Japanese, the Japanese would have just gone to one of the many other car producing nations. Datsun didn’t destroy BL. Neither did Toyota or anyone else. They just produced products that worked!
You're not wrong. I had numerous British cars 'back in the day' and I can recall they broke down regularly. My first totally reliable car was a Honda Accord. Fast-forward to 2024 and I currently drive a Subaru Forester that I have owned for 6 years and covered 90,000 miles in. I have only had to change glow plugs.
I also had numerous Brit junkers back in the 90s and 2000s. Life changed for the better when I bought a 9 year old Mazda...it was infinitely more reliable than my other junk cars! In 8 years of ownership it never let me down once, and I clocked up nearly 190k miles. Replaced it with a Ford (bad move), but quickly replaced that with a Corolla for another 5 years of problem free motoring. Now got a civic and clocking up 180k so far...
With the exception of rust issues that took the Japanese a while to get on top of, the primary lessons the Japanese learnt from British cars is how NOT to build cars. They built a better mouse trap while the British continued to build outdated shyte that fell apart.
Ivan Hirst kept the Wolfsberg plant alive, but most of the sucess of VW was down to the fact that Germans didn't buy foreign cars, no matter how outdated the Beetle was by 1960.
In New Zealand in the 1980s, Morris Minors with tired a series engines would have Datsun 1200 engines bolted in easily. They had an alloy head, better carburisation more power and would rev.
My 1200 was rated at 76 bhp. A stunning number at the time. My brother spent a lot of money trying to get that from his hot rod beetles which usually blew up pretty quickly.
@@hackney7106 Not so, British cars were not "rubbish" . I have owned many British cars and have racked up many trouble free miles . I have had Morris Minors , Austin Metro's all the way Up to the Vanden Plas range and Rover P6 . Never had serious breakdowns , infact the only breakdown I can recall was on my last morris minor where the fuel pump had stopped working . I tapped it and it started working again . People called them rubbish and it was mainly bad maintainence or total lack of it that gave them the bad rep. That Last Morris I had was from a dealer, a conman. It was overheating , bad fuel pump , bad suspension , blown head gasket and a blocked radiator .....All down to lack of maintainence . I set to and got the work done in a weekend. That car lasted me for 10 years before I sold it as I needed a big van and it was still going very well as I maintained it . I didn't drive it like a grandad either , It was used hard as my daily as was my Rover P6 that I had before that. The Rover was luxurious and an absolute joy to drive . Again, never had a breakdown . My friend bought a TC version 2 weeks after I got mine as he was so impressed with mine. He failed to maintain his despite repeated warnings and ...he broke down and things started to go wrong. He started to maintain it and it was no bother after that. Someone else I know has an "INFINITY" which I believe is a Nissan product. He has just recently had to pay £750 for a control module for a front eyebrow LED sidelight . £500 for the unit and £250 for its software to be programmed to match the car . THAT is rubbish ...
As a Canadian I'm not familiar with the British car industry, but I do recall during one of my university statistics courses learning about Dr. Deming failing to find interest from American companies in his statistical quality control processes, and in turn spending years in Japan helpng their industries.
A few decades later, when American automakers found that the Japanese were eating their lunch, some of them began working with Dr. Deming. In particular, Dr. Deming was hired as an adviser for the plant that built the Pontiac Fiero.
Interesting but overly British orientated. British car makers (and other industries too) were already complacent and falling behind European models in design and innovation but the biggest reason the Japanese expanded was not because of British manufacturing prowess (Dagenham dustbins, Allagro Allegros) but American management and quality processes and protocols. Immediately after the war, America as an occupying force, set out to rebuild the Japanese economy primarily by introducing advance management and production techniques, which were absorbed by the Japanese and improved upon. Ironically, American cars were not a great eaxample but the Japanese refined and progressed these new techniques with an empahasis on quality and reliability and don't forget Isuzu (1916) and Kawasaki (1878) among others, were well respected and established in their respective engineering fields. When you add a willingness to learn and eventually improvise then any country or company who claims to be the best whilst standing still (or in Britain's case arguably going backwards) is doomed for failure. Its pretty pointless to blame ones sector, be it management, unions or politicians - they all were complacement and had not appreciated the the world was changing. British cars like most of Britains industry became complacent after the war and gave way to post war countries hungry to rebuild anew - Germany, France, Italy to some extent, and by far the most impressive being Japan. So if we want to live in a bubble which blames the nasty foreigner for all our ills then fine but that just makes matters worse.
British workers could never match the "pride in work" attitude of the Japanese. They feel part of the company they work for. And that's not just the workers' fault. It's a cultural difference that British industry could never aspire to. The fact they took British designs and made them much, much better speaks for itself.
The British genuinely thought they’d be around forever. That was the problem. Arrogance and bad management. They had power and didn’t know what to do with it.
Traded in my Marina for a Triumph Acclaim when it came out. So keen to push the partnership with Honda that I got almost as much as I paid for the Marina after two years of ownership. Loved that little Acclaim. Brilliant car.
Hondas of the 1980s were PERFECT vehicles, and the Triumph BL input added a touch of "home". I still would prefer a 1980s Honda over a modern car....the added safety adds weight and electronics are irritatingly distracting taking away driver skill.
Yes, the acclaim was a nice motor . Just sold mine last year . Reliable , started in extreme cold weather albeit having to sit there with it on choke for 10 mins . Sad that BL only production run was 2 years then they replaced the Triumph with that god awful Maestro /Montego range . Apparently BL KNEW what they were going to do and were just using the Acclaim as a "stop gap" car until the Maestro / Montego range was finalised ... Such a pity !
Several factors combined to kill off BL. 1. Bad management decisions leading to some marques not being given enough money to develop new models, which meant that cars like the MG Midget and MGB had to make do with makeovers rather than the replacements they sorely needed (not a new problem, MG had to keep on updating the T-series far longer than it should before being given enough money to come up with a fresh design, the MGA. Couple this with inter marque rivalries where different companies within BL (and BMH/BMC prior to the Leyland takeover) were competing for the same market with different cars and you have a failure in the making. The Triumph 2000 was in competition with the Rover 2000, the Triumph Spitfire with the MG Midget, Triumph GT with the MGB GT... the list goes on and on. 3. Industrial relations within BL (thank you Red Robbo) hitting the production lines, leaving customers waiting far longer than necessary to receive their new cars, hardly conducive to marque loyalty. Also, companies that supplied parts to BL were also hit by their own industrial actions so that even when the workers at BL were actually building cars, they couldn't complete them due to a lack of parts. 4. Lack of quality control. Even when new cars did trickle out of the factory gates, they were woefully unreliable. On damp mornings you spent ages trying to get the cars to start unlike cars from (for eg) Japan, which started first time every time. Those damp mornings also brought on the tin worm. Some cars were so badly rustproofed that they were showing signs of the dreaded rust before they even reached their first owner! This wasn't something that only plagued BL by the way, in the 60's, 70's and into the 80's, all cars would suffer from a lack of proper rustproofing. 5. Badge engineering. Austin, Morris, Riley, Wolseley, Van den Plas (hard 's', not Plah), MG? Which version did you want to buy? Some cars were even leaving the factory with an Austin badge on the front and a Morris badge on the back! Was that a protest by the factory worker or a sign that he just didn't care? 6. Bad designs. We've all heard about the Morris Marina, a car that was meant to take on the Ford Cortina especially on the fleet market. However, look under the bodywork and you soon realised it was almost pure Morris Minor. Only problem was, the Marina had bigger and more powerful engines which the antiquated suspension and running gear could not cope with. So, it soon gained a reputation for shedding wheels. And when an even more powerful version came out, obviously you would also upgrade things like brakes etc, which BL duly didn't do, exacerbating an already bad problem. When these cars were eventually sold as scrap after too many MOT failures, people were buying them for spare parts to keep their Morris Minors on the road. And what about the Allegro? A good design on paper that was destroyed by the time it reached production. Triumph TR7? Hardly a replacement for the TR6 that preceeded it. The soft-top TR8 was the car the TR7 should have been. 7. Lack of investment by the Government. In an ideal world BL would not have need propping up by the government of the day, but it did, and that money wasn't forthcoming. In the end, the best bits of BL were sold off or became independent companies once more (Jaguar/Daimler). Other marques were dropped until only Austin, Rover and MG remained. Even then, Austin was quickly dropped and the company renamed MG Rover. Now of course, only MG remains.
Well, early Japanese cars didn't sell in the UK because they were good - they were pretty crappy. But they were well built, well equipped, ultra reliable (none of which could be said about any BL product!), pretty cheap and...available. And of course, through the 70s and 80s, the Japanese car industry went through a revolution going from copyists to world leaders in innovation and technology. Yes, they got their start from buying old Austin designs, but they had to build on that to leap frog most European makers. The same sort of thing happened with Korean cars in the 90s and seems to be happening with Chinese makers now.
We had some good design, when we left it to Italy! They were just made very poorly, i lived through hearing British cars needing jump starts on every slightly cold or damp morning. "car wouldn't start" was a valid excuse for being late for work if you bought British.
My Cars ALWAYS started even in thick ice and sub zero temps . Why? because I maintained them. Always had a good battery and well maintained ignition system . Never had a problem ... Probably find its lazy ass owners who wont part with money for servicing and driving the cars into the ground was a good portion of the problem .
@@gpo746 well done you, give yourself a big pat on your back. Most normal people just want to drive their car, and did back then. Learning about plugs and points is for very very boring people unless you are a mechanic
Loved the 70's Datsuns. Stylish, light steering, smooth transmission, well built and equipped. Only problem was rust, but all cars suffered the same back then. I'd have had a Datsun over anything else at the affordable end of the market at the time.
Great video Tom, BL = Bad Unions, Bad management, Bad Government interference. Japanese cars in the 70's had so much more for the price, Radio as standard, Heated rear window as standard, Rear view mirrors as standard, Top models had electric windows, leather interiors as standard. BL were relying on the past but never looked forward until it was too late. Allegro, Marina, Awful cars, Toyota, Nissan etc cars were just so much better at that time. It was like a slow, lingering death.
During the Honda collab the Unipart exhaust factory QC went like this - Meets spec and lines up perfectly went into Honda stock. Badly aligned with poor welds chucked on the Rover pile. Honda had their own QC in the Unipart plant.
Having worked as a Quality Engineer in the seventies on, I agree that quality was variable, but the real problem was historical government incompetence within finance. The 1929 finance crash led to no investment money within engineering industries. When industry began in, 1937, to start to prepare for war, the government opposed most innovation. America, on the other hand, was making money financing war supplies to Germany, and lending money to Japan, and Germany then sold Britain war materials, to be repaid for the next sixty years. The American machine tool industry also sold modern machines to all future enemies. Britain refused to import tooling from abroad. The war left British factories full of obsolete clapped out machine tools. I know, as I had to use them for many years. I refurbished some tooling for Land Rover in 1996, used for fifty years to machine engines, and they were never accurate when originally built. Japan and Germany , to stop communist influence on workers and management, received new machine tooling and money to restart building new cars for export only. America, the world's largest import market, gave preferential terms for these imports. The Japanese used cheap money to lend to buyers of their cars, often lending to people who were unable to get finance anywhere else. No British car dealer would take a Japanese car as a part exchange, mainly because older British men, fresh from memories of Japanese war atrocities, would not touch a Japanese made car. Only the import of the first wave of Indian migrants, desperate to succeed, flocked to buy these cars for Taxies, and runabouts. As they were low mileage, and nobody bought a car with over 80k miles on the clock, British Leyland lost a market, due to greedy, profit driven dealers in shiny showrooms. The end of Hire- Purchase and introduction of Credit Scoring, in a debt ridden international world, cut Leyland sales, as Communist infiltration stopped people working, and nobody had money to buy new cars. In the mid seventies a three year old car could be had for £100, I used to buy and sell them. So it is a multi faceted reason, not always visible, why an industry disappears. The other reason was protectionism caused by the rise of the European Union and its trade policies.
What if Austin had bought the majority shares in Nissan all those years ago... Come the 60s they could have built the Mini (the perfect K car) and ADO 16 in Yokohama and export cheap to build A60s The problem BMC had was they over complicated their cars Transverse engines,,, with exposed sump gearboxes ,,,, cooling fans on the side and not in the airstream ,,,, Hydrolastic suspension ect.. in Asian Pacific countries vehicles needed to be simple... The Austin A60 was hugely popular in the Philippines as a taxi... because it was durable and simple to fix... The Austin Gipsy could have been the go to off the peg Jeepney in Manila BUT... Len Lord insisted on having the complicated Flexitor damping.. Its well worth mentioning here that George Turnbull after leaving British Leyland in 1974 took the next flight to Seoul (and a Marina with him) and told Hyundai just make this ... But better... and they did and the rest is history !
My friend had a twin carb Marina in 1976. It was terrifying in the wet around corners. We used to pile a lot of our club's rugby kit into the boot, in the hope the rear wouldnt lose grip
In 1974, I bought a used 1973 Datsun 510. The car was great. I drove it for about 6 years and used it throughout my college years. It met all of my needs and there were minimal repairs, while the gas mileage was great. If I had a chance, I'd buy the same car over again. In 1981, I put the Datsun in my garage and left it. In 1993, I pulled it out of the garage and rebuilt the engine, suspension and most of the other systems. I did this so my friend and I could race the car at the New Smyrna (Florida) 3/4 mile race track in the 4 cylinder Enduro stock car division. The car did well against the Pintos and other vehicles in that division. We raced it for fun and we certainly had a lot of that. After about a year, the car crashed to the point it could not be repaired. It was a great car throughout its entire life.
dad was a purchasing director at BL .He had a rover sd1 company car with a "terrapin" car park pass , when he left as the company folded he got his redundancy payoff , he bought that rover dirt cheap and sold it to a local dealer
BL doomed itself. Bad management, union / strikes, total outdated designs and mechanicals for most of time and above all very poor workmanship. Yeap, Japan had the help of British car makers in the 50’s and 60’s but from restarting of its car industry after WWII aimed to establish solid reputation of their products in export markets in order to sustain their car industry. UK on the other hand, counted much that the UK market was always be theirs and markets of commonwealth would take their models produced there and will be good enough of export products. While BL was languishing its long death process, I was few days visiting one of Isuzu factories near Tokyo in the late 1980’s. Even though it wasn’t one of its big factories, it was very impressive to see that much of assembly line work was already done by robots. The physical size of the factory was small, but then, it relied on “just in time” concept to receive parts. Factory workers were encouraged to give input to improve processes in the assembly line. Factory workers have representatives in the company board. Everybody ate in the same cafeteria. Did BL factories had these things?
My father bought a new Marina in 1972 (I was 16) No one liked it , it was replaced by a new P reg (1976) Maxi. My parents loved that car. After 4 years a new Datsun Bluebird. He was impressed with it's gadgets stereo and footrest for his clutch foot Seemed wholly unimpressed with either my DS19 or the power top on my !964 mustang convertible though He always regretted selling the Maxi and passed away whilst still owning the Datsun I own a modern Citroen C3 these days great show
I had an early Datsun. Very light, very reliable, 38mpg, disc brakes and reasonbly quick with 76 bhp out of 1.2l. The quality of critical parts like electrical harness was far beyond what British vehicles offered at the time.
STRIKES - that's what killed the British car industry. The lazy, 'work to rule' ethic was mocked by the Japanese and rightly so. We weren't destroyed by the Japanese - we committed suicide, and the Japanese filled the void quickly and efficiently.
My dad wanted to replace his Cambridge with an Austin 1300 estate. Could not get one so he bought a VW Variant. My mums MG Midget was replaced by a Beetle. Another friend of ours switched to a Corolla. That was like a Xmas tree compared to BLs cars
BL was forced into being by the Government of the day, Anthony Wedgwood Benn to be precise. All those factories to keep going, all those different brands to manufacture and sell, Ford UK having better designs, a recipe for disaster,as it turned out. I remember the first Japanese car I saw here in North Staffordshire, 1967 as a car mad kid, BRF xxxE, a blue Toyota, shiny chrome grille and whitewall tyres. A few years ago I saw it at the Tatton Park classic car show.
My parents bought a Datsun in 1973 - I can still remember the registration number, which is odd, because by 1980 or thereabouts, it had rusted away to nothing.
Great watch as always Tom . How about a history video on some smaller manufactures that are still around ? Like maybe Aston Martin , the re-bodied XJS that became a Aston , or the Aston that Jaguar thought was so good they used it .
Before I watch this with an open mind, I will say that the answer would be complex of the forces involved in BL's demise. The title sounds rather protectionist, and had the Japanese been kept out of countries, the consumer would have been the loser. Quality of vehicles in both the USA and UK had dropped, and customers were not pleased. Global economic considerations worldwide impacted this (the US went off the gold standard in 1971, oil shortages, pollution / emission standards, and etc.) Because the US was THE market that volume car manufacturers wanted, it meant meeting new regulations that put extra cost in doing business on the companies. "Do we eat the costs or raise the MSRP?" With inflation / stagflation, plus currency exchange, all these issues played into profitability for BL selling cars Stateside. The Japanese certainly needed a step up to meet the levels of performance and quality of UK, European and US car manufacturers just as any country would with a start up....cars are complex and costly to develop, and all the established companies had been in the business for 50+ years. Some did build cars like Nissan's Austins and Isuzu's Hillmans, but it was a learning process for the Japanese motor industry, and rather quickly they developed their own cars. It seems to me that Toyota didn't go the route of building cars under license. And if Nissan comfortably leapfroged Austin / BL within 15 to 20 years, it was based on hard work and determination. Remember that there were quotas on cars from Japan in the 1970s both in the USA and UK, yet the cars still sold well becoming a "threat" to the industry. Protectionism may be necessary when trying to build an industry, but once it is matured, it is at risk of being overconfident and complacent. Before I watch this, I make this statement that BL tried too hard to become a British equivalent of General Motors, and even General Motors at the beginning of the 1970s was coming off its peak of sales. The badge engineering to maintain several products and car lines was apparent at both trying to keep business going for long time brand names / marques that people had nostalgia for. But nothing last forever, and even less if one gets complacent.
@@tomdrivesMy perception that Britain (as was the USA) was vulnerable at the time to strong competition, and Japan was in the right place at the right time as it gradually perfected its motor industry during the 1960s, particularly with fuel-efficient cars. There was also a willingness to learn / they weren't bound by strong traditions in these companies with little to no experience in building cars. Old habits are difficult to break, and companies like Toyota had an eagerness to learn and aspire to high standards. As someone who grew up primarily on American cars and some British cars I certainly admired, my first car turned out to be a Honda. The quality was exceptional. Though it was about the last car I ever imagined would be my first, I loved it. The build quality was stunning, and it led me to reevaluate products from other companies. Certainly, I felt cars from other countries looked more beautiful, as someone who likes to keep things rather than trade in for the newest, it was the only car I've had that I sold long before anything went wrong; cars from other manufacturers have died before I felt it was their time. Investment in product simply wasn't available at BL. A lack of funds and too many car lines just spread resources too thin. Having to meet US safety and emissions regulations placed additional challenges on the company. I think Ford UK is a good comparison even if the parent company is American. Ford was very successful in the UK and best I know, was turning a profit. But part of that success involved centralizing engineering of new cars at Cologne headquarters. Ford was not Japanese, but I believe had acceptable if not excellent quality. Without an acceptable level of quality, cars like Escort and Cortina were perennial sales leaders. By that time, Ford of Europe was pretty much German with engineering in the UK and Belgium, plus factories in all three, as well as Spain. Once Jaguar was turned around by Sir John Egan, and then spun off into Jaguar Cars Ltd., he knew that the company could not survive on its own without the capital of another company to invest in product development. His original choice to buy Jaguar was Toyota(!), but they were not interested....Toyota is generally an organic company developing products itself and seldom joining in ventures with other companies except when necessary. Besides, whether Sir John knew this at the time or not (I'd think he would), Toyota was about to unleash Lexus on the world. There was a bidding war between Ford and General Motors for purchase of Jaguar. At the time, GM was acquiring other companies, which turned out to be an awkward hodgepodge Frankenstein not unlike the mergers / acquisitions that led to BL. Ford put in the highest bid, and probably soon regretted it. The Jaguar plant at Browns Lane was shockingly ancient, though why the Ford executives didn't investigate this first is beyond me. Though the XJ40 was generally more reliable than the predecessor XJ6, Ford streamlining made the XJ40 cars built under its ownership more reliable by reducing exterior and interior color options, changing parts suppliers, etc. Unfortunately Ford in the USA had visions of Cricket and The Avengers in mind when they directed car design, and the models relied on past design rather than looking towards the future. Ford never made money on Jaguar, and ironically, the design improved immensely under Ian Callum with cars like the XF that were released just as the company was sold to TATA!!! Tata seems to take a hands off approach, and bankrolls Jaguar / Land Rover and not interfere unnecessarily in the design process. Overall, when BL was formed, it was in a weak position after all the mergers, made worse by a very changing world at the start of the 1970s. The talent was unquestionably there, but the class warfare of managers and workers, economics, higher costs of doing business due to regulations and currency fluctuations while also trying to evolve the juggernaut corporation into a "lean, mean, fighting machine" was too much a task to ask of leadership. Bigger is NOT better. I see some parallels with General Motors of the 1980s. The Chairman Roger Smith was all into acquisitions of other companies rather than focusing on their core mission of building cars sold under five divisions. Companies unrelated to cars like Hughes Aerospace and EDS, a computer company, as well as other car manufacturers like SAAB and Lotus (and almost Jaguar) just made it a great big mess. Indeed, Roger Smith is viewed as one of the worst CEOs in American history. Decisions made under his leadership cut market share greatly, and gradually led to GM declaring bankruptcy in 2009. This had been the largest car manufacturer in the world, and such a force that there was talk of the Justice Department breaking it up as a monopoly when its market share was nearly 50% in the US. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Japan and the Germans in reasonable competition were able to take advantage of the competitors' mistakes, and become dominant players here. Indeed, Chevrolet will no longer build cars except Corvette as of 2025. GM has generally ceded the passenger car market to Asian and German car manufacturers to focus almost exclusively on very profitable SUVs and pickups. Furthermore, Toyota captured the title of largest volume car maker in the world a few years ago. It was a hard won achievement, and I attribute it to an obsessive perseverance. Forty years ago, I would have a hard time accepting this due to national pride, but the reality is that they "won" fairly, and the customers are better for it with better product.
What killed the British car industry was underinvestment, poor management and poor industrial relations. This lead to long waiting lists for poorly designed, poorly built, unreliable cars. Japan made reliable cars, initially rust buckets, but they learned, unlike complacent British industry. I liived through this.
British Leyland killed itself with unbelievably inept management, a workforce who spent more time being in strike than building cars. The cars that were actually built had a varying build quality- from acceptable to abysmal. No wonder that many buyers spent their hard earned money elsewhere after owning a BL product.
Irish here had a hunter for a few yrs everything that could go wrong did even petrol tank leaked bought a datsun 120y twice the mpg and not one issue with it only problem was u could hear it rusting
The British gave the Japanese a start in building cars, but the Japanese would have learned to do it sooner or later. The Morris Marina was sold as the Austin Marina in the United States from 1973 to 1975. About 23,000 Marinas were sold during that period. It got mediocre reviews and compiled a poor reliability record. When the New York Times tested, the Marina a door handle on the test car came off in the tester’s hand.
If the UK car manufacturers had licencensd their designs to the Japanese, others (i.e. the former Axis powers) would have. I mean cars are not like the Transistor, where the US had a Monopoly.
One thing to do point out in regards of strikes, is that the workers in Japan faces heavy, and I do mean heavy repercussion if they went against the company or the state and went on strike. Sure u heard about the yakuza...
The lower end Japanese cars in the early 1970s weren't exactly known for refinement, styling or supple ride and they were rusting like there's no tomorrow. However, if you took delivery of a Japanese car you could be certain you would see the dealership again only when the next service was due. With a British car it was always a gamble whether the car was built during industrial action or on a Monday morning, or just broke because of poor design. The British car industry didn't need the Japanese for their downfall, it was entirely their own doing.
Interestingly, the Japanese heavy truck market got a boost from the US, when they acquired tooling and parts from Graham-Paige. The bulk of Nissan's wartime production came from Graham designs.
Leyland had a a reputation in the early 70's, And you would notice, on the way to work in Sydney, you'd see the threat of rain and all the Leylands broken down on the side of the road.
Sort of a moot point about giving away the technical info because the Japanese could have easily bought any British car at the time taken it back to Japan and reverse engineered it as they did. Like the British motorcycle industry, the car industry went a similar route of mismanagement and doom. BMC, then BLs Arrogance, greed, stupidity, and unwillingness to update the vehicles as required meant you were buying the same old crap year and year and model after model. The local dealers for British vehicles saw their market share disappear every year from around the mid 70s as customers went to the Japanese brands that offered features the Brits were unwilling or refusing to put in their cars. It became a joke really, as BMC was known as "Bring More Cash" since the cars always needed some money being spent on them for all manner of things.
It was all down to Keynesian economics, complacency of the management, and a bloody minded workforce. Britain was stuck in a rut with 19th century working practices which left little room for manueve. I heard a story regarding a new automated production facility ie. a primitive robot line of sorts, in 1957,however the unions would not allow it to be used because it put people out of a job. A similar think happened at the Meccano factory at Liverpool with an automated sprat plant that was installed in the mid 60s and stood there unused until 1979 when factory was closed. Remember Maggie Thatcher saying that the 1960s was "The Devil's Decade"? Donald Stokes said it would have been far more sensible to let BMC go bust in 1968 and pick up the pieces.
Many here praise the 120Y, I also had one called Dirk for the big D on the steering wheel, bought it as tempory transport it just would not die, it always ran and started even with a Ft of snow on the bonnet, the gearbox was like butter and then, years later I found out that the engine was based on the Austin engine
The simple but sad truth is that compared to their European and Japanese equivalents, Allegros, Maxis, Princesses, Dolomites, TR7s, Marinas and even XJ6s just weren’t as good. They weren’t as well made, they weren’t as efficient, they weren’t as reliable and they weren’t as cool. The 1970s were a very exciting time to be a young boy who liked cars, without the amount of media we have now we would get a slow drip exposure to the new and exotic cars from around the world as family members, friends fathers and our neighbours would look overseas for their new motor. Not so great for British Leyland who with the benefit of hindsight we can see had fallen fatally far behind their global competitors.
The two, rarely mentioned, major reasons, IMO, that resulted in the domination of Japanese car companies around the world were; firstly - the occupation of Japan by the US after WWII (1945 - 52) - the main US objectives was to dismantle Japan's industrial capacity, so that it would never be in a position to wage war again. This eventually translated down to the production of vehicles and even appliances. There was even a strict prohibition on the production of cars and trucks in the terms of surrender. The owners of the major companies supplying the Japanese war machinery were removed and workers was encouraged to unionise (something unheard of in Japan). This meant that by 1950, Toyota was about to file for bankruptcy. But then the Korean War broke out (1950 - 53) and the US required replacement vehicles for those destroyed in the war, and Japan being so close, it was decided to use their industries to produce the needed trucks & jeeps etc. Toyota was contracted to supply the majority of them. And Japan was supplied with the latest methods of vehicle production and quality control to ensure the vehicles supplied were of the highest standards. The owners of the previously outlawed war production companies were reinstated and the unions were virtually dismantled, with fears of their 'communist' influences. The second reason (like in China at the moment) - car companies in Japan in the late 50's and 60's were under the control of the government and there was a push to increase the GDP by selling cars to overseas markets (the Japanese market still being quite small). This resulted in car companies having two production lines - one for the domestic market and one for export (naturally the LHD models etc). The level of quality control on the export production line covered everything - paint quality, fit, quality trim, engineering and inspection. And to top it off; these far more expensive to produce vehicles (than the domestic ones) were exported with a lower price than the domestic ones - meaning that the Japanese public were bearing the artificial low prices of the export models with the extra Yen they were paying for their cars. This was amply demonstrated when in Australia, where I am, some enterprising individuals set up used domestic Japanese car import companies (from Japan) in the early 70's and what was found was the domestic Japanese cars were absolute rubbish, in all terms of their construction, though outwardly looking identical to the imported export models.
Blimey even the badges 'Austin of England ' on the Devon! - I presume the Rootes group vehicles included the Humber Pullman and the erstwhile Commer TS2 two stroke diesel commercial vehicles- there must be some preserved models, what with the volcanic Ash 'salting' of Japanese roads not using salt ( if this is not an urban myth)... many thanks, educate, entertain and inform - you sir are the personification of all of Lord Rieths' remit !
The British have been far too benevolent towards other countries over the years. You can’t blame them for taking full advantage. That together our own industry making it easy for them to get market share. The rest is history.
It was often said that the Japanese copied British and some of our German motorcycles. For instance the Horex Imperator, the two-stroke Adler or the BSA Twins. The first of them built in Japan - even if they had been copies - were much, much better and much more reliable motorbikes. I have the Honda CB450, the Yamaha YD or the Kawasaki W1 in mind. I really can't assess if it goes for the British cars as well. Nevertheless I fancy a P5B or an XJ S1.
With all due respect, your Vision of the car Market is not totally correct. In 1969 My parents visited Mozambique and South Africa. New Car Market sales were dominated in both countries by 4 doors Izuzo (looking like an Alfa-Romeo Gulia Super), by different types of Nissan, Toyotas, Honda, Daihatsu and little Suzukis). Honda even featured a Nice Convertible, sporty car which made quite a splash. Dominant there were also fantastic, modern looking motor-cycles, made by Honda, Suzuki and a couple of other Corporations. The motor-cycles were years ahead of anything offered by British Competition. Becoming part of the European Common Market afforded british car makers to take by storm the Continental Market. And yet, after an initial rush, due to Problems plaguing the Hillman IMP, the Marina, the Allegro etc, European Sales sunk like a brick dropped in the ocean. Even the big 4 door Jaguar XJ was plagued with problems, Namely due to its neferious Lucas system. Not only in the Continent, but also in the US, BRITISH vehicles were being avoided. Even the good looking, expensive 4 door Range Rover purchased by rich people trying to convey an image of wealtlh and sophistication were a constant source of problems Or the large sedan 4 door Rover -- she became a total flop. Unfortunately, even the Sterling based on a large Honda was another flop. In 1988 there were still available, brand new 86 and 87 unsold Sterlings -- heavely discounted, littering Dealers' Parking lots. There was not a World Conspiracy to kill the British Car Industry. Unfortunately, for different home reasons, all the British brands commited Hara-Kiri. Regretably, the only thing they ended up learning in Japan.
Gosh.... This is a big subject to fit into one video. But this is an excellent effort. Oddly.... One of the things that drew people to Japanese cars in '73 and '74 was the level of equipment. Things were standard.... People didn't have to travel through base model, L, XL and so on.... A Satsun 120Y had a passenger door mirror, a heated rear window and radio.... along with head rests and other little gizzmos. British cars in that category did not.... But.... That is just one aspect.
The british car quality was deteriorating with the number of labor strikes, while the japanese simply caught up in quality during that time. Remember there was a time where 'made in japan' used to be sneered at ?
those early japanese cars are lovely classics now and very rare, as a child in the 70s and loving cars both real and toy ones i recall seeing plenty of early japanese vehicles around our housing estate, the collapse of the british motor industry is one of the great tragedies, a combination of mismanagement, a confused model range and intransigent unions within a very turbulent world economy(oil shock of 73 etc) all combined to bring on the demise
I remember when my Grandfather retired in the early 1970s he bought a bmc Morris Marina! He passed on in 1982 none of the family wanted it?? Should have bought the no 1 small car going around @ the time ! It was the Datsun120y
The Brits always were and still are (where chances exist) great car designers and engineers. Just a pity that the management and more extreme unions couldn't face the reality of what customers wanted.
Hmm, production engineering is also engineering though. It's still an engineer's job to make sure the production line is well setup in such a way that it's not possible to make mistakes. (Be it preset wrenches that automatically torque things to spec, paint marks for bolts that are torqued, checks and balances etc.) Not just to draw up a nice car or engine and then wash their hands of it!
My dad had a Datsun 120Y estate WMS 101 R it was a good car he had his fair share of Austin and morris cars also Nuffield tractors on the farm greetings from Scotland 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
I think it was inept management and militant unions which killed the British Car industry. Not helped by the media. Britain produced some excellent vehicles.
Before Britain entered the EEC with no tariff barriers, European cars were artificially expensive. No sane person would have bought an Austin A60. Concrete steering and drum front brakes, it was a vintage car by the early1960s. Compare it with the Fiat 124 for the same price and you can see that for BL the EEC was a nightmare. Who would buy an Allegro when a Fiat127 or Alfasud could be had for comparable money? Maxi or Renault 16 anyone?
I lived through this terrible period of British car design. I hated their designs, the Mini, the Morris Minor, the Allegro. Goodness, what went against my visual grain in their design was the rear end profiles. The British could not finish off a car properly at the back, they were so low. A prime example is comparing the Morris Marina coupe with the Datsun Sunny 120Y coupe. Why is the Marina coupe so low at the back? It looks so WRONG, and it also affords less interior boot space, so what was the point? Same with Morris Minor, Allegro and the Mini. I could have given them much more boot space without adding extra length and made them look much better. Look at the superior design of the Datsun 120Y at 2:07, look how beautifully it is finished off at the back. They did the 'coke bottle' shape much better than the British. At the time I remember it being frowned upon to buy these foreign imports but because I was so thoroughly pissed off with British car design I didn't care one bit. I thought it served them right. My first car was a Fiat 126, lovely little car, second was the gorgeous Datsun Cherry FII coupe (although I thought the Cherry saloon looked as bad as British design). But that coupe was a wonderfull car, I was fascinated by the hatchback design which was fairly new then. The feeling of sitting in that coupe was of cosiness, whereas the feeling you got in a British car was of sitting in a mobile goldfish bowel. On the other hand the British were good at sports car design, I'll give 'em that, and they did come out with some good designs in the sixties, like the Vauxhall Victor 101, Cresta PA, Ford Consuls. Thank God for the Americans.
Another comparison in design is the Mitsubishi Colt 800 compared to what we got, the Austin Maxi. I mean, is it any wonder? And we didn't even get reliability.
One single decade is what killed the British car industry. At the dawn of the 1970's BL literally had the world at it's feet with production capacity of nearly 1 million cars. It's model lineup was broad and brilliant. But .... One crap car at a time, Maxi, Allegro, Marina and the brilliant, but terrible Stag and Dolomite, Leyland single handedly imploded. Those failures meant that Triumph, Rover and Jag would never see the investment they needed. Quite simply, Leyland committed suicide by cheaping out and rushing into production half baked cars and then leaving them in their sad, pathetic state to rot on the vine.
My dad unfortunately bought a 1973 Austin Marina. Had a terrible carbureted mg motor and overall very poor fit and finish. The peak of dated mediocrity produced during the high point of labor strife in the British automotive industry .
I always thought Rover should of been merged with Honda as it worked so well designs over the years than BMW who only seemed to want the mini brand and tech .
A friend of mine worked for Rover from the early 90s and he reckoned that the tie up with Honda was not sustainable because they screwed Rover on intellectual property. Having said that you are correct about BMW - they wanted the 4WD technology from Land Rover so they could introduce their own range of SUVs. Once they had that they were always going to ditch Rover.
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In the mid to late 70s when i was little everyone on our street had austins, fords, morris, triumph etc, apart from one neighbour who bought a Datsun 120y. That winter while most cars refused to start and run the little Datsun never failed. Greed, indifference, and stupidly killed the British car industry.
That among other things
Correct. I remember those days too.
i grew up also in the 70s and i saw barley and UK cars, beside my math teachers Spitfire...
but i saw plenty of Fords, Opel, BMW, Fiat, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Volvo, DAF, Porsche and VW´s...
my family owned 1 Opel and 2 VW Passat, my first car also been a Santana(Passat)..
i got taught to drive a car in a Golf 2...
i also owned Mercedes, BMW, Renault, Peugeot and driving now a Hyundai!
i never thought about to get a car made in the UK.....
my bicycle is made in the UK, by a German based firm....before BrexShit...
and since BrexShit, i avoid any UK products anyway...inclusive traveling to silly island!
I grew up in Australia and returned to Britain in 1979 at 17. Already been driving in Australia where the Japanese had taken a huge share of the market there. And Leyland Australia was on its way out. So I was pleasantly surprised to see the amount of Leyland cars including the Marina still being made here. Don't recall seeing too many Datsuns although I did from the 80s on. I had a 71 Mini 850 then a 71 Vauxhall Viva. They were reliable started fine in winter with the choke. Japanese cars at that time were well equipped and ultra reliable but had a built in obsolscense. In the 70s and 80s they were worse even than Fords and Vauxhall's for rusting. In Japan at the time they were not built to last more than about five years as they wanted people to keep buying new. Though many did. They changed the longevity to compete with the European market. It was really from the 90s onwards they matched the euro brands for lasting quality. It was really then the end was in sight for Rover despite the partnership..The Honda Civic engine was better than the Rover.
I was going to say the same - I remember well the sound of British cars churning over, trying to start on a cold day. The fact that Japanese cars just worked, and kept working turned many away from BL, Rootes/Chrysler and Vauxhall for good. The Japanese cars still rusted away though, as did everything else back then. Better customer care, build quality and extended warranties also turned British motorists to Japanese, and eventually Korean cars.
I knew a chap who’s father was a British Leyland dealer that transitioned to Nissan/Datsun in the 1970’s. Previously he would drive a new car home to discover all the remaining problems, but this was unnecessary with the new Japanese vehicles. That was the difference.
It reminds me of the training film circa 1975 used at British Leyland that was an attempt to instill in corporate employees the importance of their jobs, and how quality mattered. It showed owner frustration in faults, service department issues, etc. It simply was a shocking mess that the company knew it was so bad, yet this was the response.
The real answer is that the British companies were run by accountants, not engineers, and the old saying that accountants know the cost of everything and the value of nothing is very true.
Just like Boeing today!
@@Brommear If you study the workers at Boeing you find that they hired knee grows by required quotas. All required by the always usual suspects; the men with small hats!
@@Brommear f you study the workers at Boeing you find that they hired people by required quotas.
@@trondsimonsen4025 And run by accountants, not engineers.
@@BrommearI can't answer you without being shadowbanned. But that is an answer too, of you understand me .....
Not only BL, I ordered the new Ford Fiesta in 1977, Ford went on strike, delivery 6-8 weeks, Went to my local Datsun garage, yes sir we have the new Datsun Cherry in stock, what colour would you like? Job done, well equipped car for less money!
Interesting, Ford I believe moved Fiesta production or at least had some running in Europe
@@tomdrives The Fiesta parts were made in the UK at Dagenham and shipped to Spain, so I believe
My mum had a MK1 Ford Fiesta 1100 Ghia back in the day. It was built in Germany (as a lot of Ghia models were I believe)
@@john1v6My mum had a Mk2 Fiesta 1.1 Ghia in Gold / Grey… 4 speed box….. absolutely brilliant capable little car, still missed !
Replaced with a low mileage Rover Metro GTa, then a new Rover 200 ‘bubble’ 1.4 8v 5 door….
Tom, the Japanese cars sold well because they were reliable. My mum had a 78 Datsun 120Y estate. It had a radio, and a light easy gearshift. Even as it rusted away, it started every time. No small thing for people used to older British cars.
And how many 120y's are still around today compared with say ...a Morris Marina ?
@@gpo746 Poor analysis. You should use a 10-year comparable of, say, 1978 to 1988 on how many were registered and remained. Neither model would have prominent numbers today.
I wish I could buy a new one.
Beside the Japanese competition, I think BL were also damaged by the rise of Ford with their more concentrated range of Fiesta, Escort, Cortina & Granada.
One cause of the fall of the British car industry was the Prince of Darkness, Lucas electrics. In contrast Japanese suppliers embraced quality and reliability.
Lucas was the only part which left us stranded in my dad's Volvo. The 145 had an electronic ignition conversion. It reverted to Bosch breaker points and never broke down/failed to start before or since in its 10+ year, 100000+ mile life.
Later on, when my mum needed her own car for work, she found BL products still fell short in that respect and trailing the French and Italian cars she had.
It is a shame most of the British cars were horrid rubbish as there were a few celebrated gems also.
Good point- Here in Ireland Lucas had the market completely to itself and was decimated almost overnight when Bosch arrived.Quality and reliability trump everything else.Lucas regulators in particular were the spawn of the devil if memory serves!
@@FairladyS130 same in OZ, people changed the Lucas distributor for Bosh for reliability in the Holdens (GM Australian car). PS Datsun Fairlady great car.
The Japanese still build the most reliable cars in the world. Lexus, Toyota, Suzuki and Honda regularly top the charts in reliability surveys. Nissan/ Datsun used to be as good but have dropped the ball since joining forces with Renault. Mazda are pretty good too and have quality interiors. Good video Tom!
Nissan got into bed with Renault and now Mitsubishi as well. Its now a threesome that's only going to get worse.
In 1975, my dad was working at Land Rover in Solihull.
My mom had a little win on a competition, and we had some money for a new car, so my dad ordered a brand new Marina.
It never came.
After 6 months waiting, he managed to get an ex-demonstrator model from a dealer- and that was a YEAR old, and already starting to rust.
My brother, meanwhile, had juat bought a Datsun 120Y, for less money.
The difference in quality, reliability, practicality and equipment was like comparing a Rolls Royce to a Wartburg.
BL was killed by poor, weak management, Bolshy (literally) unions, and a disinterested workforce that couldn't see 3 months into the future, let alone the 10 years that the Japanese were looking.
Mom?
@@QuoPaperPlane "Mother"!!
@@DM-it2ch Not Mum, then?
For a working man i invested in a Marina van, bloody hopeless!! After much money disappointment and lost days i bought an Escort van, never looked back can’t believe i’m still angry but there you go
Cars do that to people, currently angry with my Cortina!
@@tomdrives it will pay dividends dont lose hope Tom
We had a Marina when my age was in single digits. Most of my memories of it involve it being up on ramps while my dad was messing with the steering or replacing front suspension components.
My sister bought a used marina van back in the 80s. The day after she bought it, the gear stick came off in her hand!
We had two Mini vans and a marina van . Bloody rust buckets and the Marina was scrap after 5 years. I then bought a Datsun 720 pickup in 1984 and had that for 14 years with no problems so I bought another one Nissan D21 then they were called.
My dad bought one of the very early Honda Civics in the UK in the mid 70’s. A decade and 110k trouble free miles later all our neighbours who initially laughed at it had all traded their BL, Fords and Vauxhalls and were driving Japanese cars as well. The Hondas, Toyotas and Datsuns of the 70’s were so much better than the local product it was embarrassing.
It was a similar situation in the US. I remember my cousin buying a brand new yellow 1978 Mazda 323 (called "GLC" or "Great Little Car" in marketing, ugh), and it was my first introduction to Japanese cars. He is an engineer for Dupont, and always had Japanese cars including a Miata now. But I give credit to the people who bought those cars because I finally was a believer by the 1990s when I bought a Honda. Still the best car I ever owned in terms of quality / reliability / durability. It lasted much longer than I needed it, unlike other cars that I have owned. The solid (rather than tinny rattle) closing of the door and tight seals when it was about 15 years old was like new and simply incredible. But that level of quality and durability put manufacturers in the US and Britain on notice. Regardless of where a car is built, people are not going to tolerate shoddy workmanship, failure of accessories, cheap hardware that breaks, etc. Most of us work hard for our money and use a car for daily living needs. To spend money on repairs on a depreciating asset is madness that would test the patience of almost any car buyer.
I've worked for a British firm (Granada) and a Japanese firm (Panasonic). Very different corporate cultures, treatment of staff, education level of staff, ethics behind product quality and continuous improvement etc. It's no surprise to me that BL, Granada etc. fell over.
The main thing I remember about British made cars was how the motor would cut out when you went through a puddle. Which, living in Australia,I used to think was very weird coming from a country that was so wet.
The transverse engine always put the alternator right on the front. All it needed was a plastic splash guard but apparently too complicated to develop.
@@Yandex-y1pa rubber floor mat and two zip ties (well would of been fencing wire) worked fine
Rubber glove over the distributor cap. Distributor was splashed with water as it was behind the grill with no protection from the weather.
Japanese do Kaizen. It is a philosophy of gradual improvement starting with the workforce. They spend 2 hours per week asking the workers if they see any possible improvements. Also staff do this. It results in many good ideas and an efficient and involved workforce. They often worked there for life. Even lived in the companies housing estates. Japanese workers talk, think, breathe and dream their company. Result: more efficiency, better committment to quality on all levels. They also test their prototypes rigurously. Really really extensive and hard before signing them off for production. I remember that SAAB used the Triumph engine and tested it extensively in extreme (winter) conditions on very bad roads at high speeds. Triumph engineers were baffled. These Swedes tried to break the engine and the car! I also recollect the amazement of American car engineers that Mercedes Benz had the audacity to test their cars extensively at top speed. At top speed? That is not realistic, they said. In that way the car will be too expensive. It is indeed short term thinking, obeying the bean counters, neglecting that a good product needs good engineers, good factory workers, working in a good corporate culture for good long term results.
Self inflicted, the same as the motorcycle industry, shipbuilding, aircraft production, consumer electronics, the list goes on., but dont forget, we are still the best in the world.
What I remember In the early to mid 70s, the Japanese cars were at a better price point. AND came with many features as standard that were optional costs on british brands. Ordinary stuff by today's standards. Like heated rear windows, radios, tinted glass headrests, etc.These early Japanese imports were neither attractively styled or mechanically advanced. But they were available and better equipped and had a better warranty.
And better made!
I think Leyland had a 3 or 6 month new car warranty back then. The Japanese 9 or 12 months 🤔. It wasn't very generous back then!
and much more reliable
The British car industry of the time were destroyed by two main factions, in my opinion, namely atrocious management and a continually unhappy workforce. Add to that the superior quality of Asian and European manufacturers our industry was screwed, sadly.
It was poor management choices from above and horrible ideas from below, that of sabotage and bad workmanship.
A workforce can only and SHOULD only work under fair expectation of rights . If you're looking for a candidate blame the greedy management .
There is an internal training film "British Leyland Quality Control" on RUclips about BL trying to introduce "Quality Circles" into the manufacturing in the early 1980's (or late 1970's). It all seems a bit "day late and dollar short" though! The BL approach doesn't fully seem to embrace the Japanese approach of "anyone can stop the line if there is a quality issue", and it also seems to highlight BL's use of outdated and worn out equipment, as opposed to Japanese manufacturers who replaced tooling regularly well *before* it wears out to ensure parts remain tightly to spec.
They could provide a car .that started first time every single time.
When the Japanese cars were introduced into the UK market, people simply could not believe that cars could actually run consistently without needing to constantly fettle with it.
I personally loved the styling of the marina coupe, but try comparing its reliability with that of a Datsun 120Y.....
as an apprentice mechanic in the early 80s I got to learn (amongst many other things) both the BLMC and Datsun A & B series engines in the same period. I always suspected the Datsuns were based on the BLMC units because they were just too similar yet an excellent evolution nevertheless.
the E10 Cherry and B211 Sunny were fine looking cars, the Cherry especially cute. in an era when everything British broke down regularly, the Datsuns stole the show. however, they disolved only slightly slower than Italian stock.
Datsun learned very quickly how to keep the oil INSIDE the engine.
If BL hadn’t “given” it all way to the Japanese, the Japanese would have just gone to one of the many other car producing nations. Datsun didn’t destroy BL. Neither did Toyota or anyone else. They just produced products that worked!
You're not wrong. I had numerous British cars 'back in the day' and I can recall they broke down regularly. My first totally reliable car was a Honda Accord. Fast-forward to 2024 and I currently drive a Subaru Forester that I have owned for 6 years and covered 90,000 miles in. I have only had to change glow plugs.
I also had numerous Brit junkers back in the 90s and 2000s. Life changed for the better when I bought a 9 year old Mazda...it was infinitely more reliable than my other junk cars! In 8 years of ownership it never let me down once, and I clocked up nearly 190k miles. Replaced it with a Ford (bad move), but quickly replaced that with a Corolla for another 5 years of problem free motoring. Now got a civic and clocking up 180k so far...
If only we hadn't lost George Turnbull to South Korea and instead lost Red Robbo to North Korea.
Ok boomer.
George Turnbull was very good at his job. Unfortunately he was surrounded by people who were not that bright in the Leyland management team.
With the exception of rust issues that took the Japanese a while to get on top of, the primary lessons the Japanese learnt from British cars is how NOT to build cars. They built a better mouse trap while the British continued to build outdated shyte that fell apart.
The British had good designs and the Japanese could take those designs and make them reliable/durable and cost effective.
You mean like the German derived ohc Toyota motors?
Well the British helped the Volkswagen factory to start production after WWII, that really paid off, too.
Correct.
Another winner for Britain.
The British were offered Volkswagen as war reparation, they didn't see any future in the Beetle, they were Blinkered Philistine pig ignorant.
So perhaps Britain would be better off, if it had lost in WW2?
I think it did, certainly financially.
Ivan Hirst kept the Wolfsberg plant alive, but most of the sucess of VW was down to the fact that Germans didn't buy foreign cars, no matter how outdated the Beetle was by 1960.
the later honda collab should have gone on who knows what we missed there .super vid Tom as always
Thanks
Same with motorbikes. The Honda 750/4 made pretty much every motorcycle on the market obsolete.
In New Zealand in the 1980s, Morris Minors with tired a series engines would have Datsun 1200 engines bolted in easily. They had an alloy head, better carburisation more power and would rev.
My 1200 was rated at 76 bhp. A stunning number at the time. My brother spent a lot of money trying to get that from his hot rod beetles which usually blew up pretty quickly.
Destroyed By The Japanese? rubbish, it was killed of by boring out of date cars and the unions.
The British cars were absolutely rubbish!(fact).
It was also the 19th century management practices and a mindset based on the captive markets of imperial days which bedevilled all UK manufacturing
The Rover SD1 was hardly out of date
@@tomdrives they were hardly a great car either.
@@hackney7106 Not so, British cars were not "rubbish" .
I have owned many British cars and have racked up many trouble free miles . I have had Morris Minors , Austin Metro's all the way Up to the Vanden Plas range and Rover P6 . Never had serious breakdowns , infact the only breakdown I can recall was on my last morris minor where the fuel pump had stopped working . I tapped it and it started working again .
People called them rubbish and it was mainly bad maintainence or total lack of it that gave them the bad rep.
That Last Morris I had was from a dealer, a conman.
It was overheating , bad fuel pump , bad suspension , blown head gasket and a blocked radiator .....All down to lack of maintainence . I set to and got the work done in a weekend.
That car lasted me for 10 years before I sold it as I needed a big van and it was still going very well as I maintained it . I didn't drive it like a grandad either , It was used hard as my daily as was my Rover P6 that I had before that.
The Rover was luxurious and an absolute joy to drive . Again, never had a breakdown . My friend bought a TC version 2 weeks after I got mine as he was so impressed with mine. He failed to maintain his despite repeated warnings and ...he broke down and things started to go wrong.
He started to maintain it and it was no bother after that.
Someone else I know has an "INFINITY" which I believe is a Nissan product. He has just recently had to pay £750 for a control module for a front eyebrow LED sidelight . £500 for the unit and £250 for its software to be programmed to match the car .
THAT is rubbish ...
As a Canadian I'm not familiar with the British car industry, but I do recall during one of my university statistics courses learning about Dr. Deming failing to find interest from American companies in his statistical quality control processes, and in turn spending years in Japan helpng their industries.
A few decades later, when American automakers found that the Japanese were eating their lunch, some of them began working with Dr. Deming. In particular, Dr. Deming was hired as an adviser for the plant that built the Pontiac Fiero.
Interesting but overly British orientated. British car makers (and other industries too) were already complacent and falling behind European models in design and innovation but the biggest reason the Japanese expanded was not because of British manufacturing prowess (Dagenham dustbins, Allagro Allegros) but American management and quality processes and protocols. Immediately after the war, America as an occupying force, set out to rebuild the Japanese economy primarily by introducing advance management and production techniques, which were absorbed by the Japanese and improved upon. Ironically, American cars were not a great eaxample but the Japanese refined and progressed these new techniques with an empahasis on quality and reliability and don't forget Isuzu (1916) and Kawasaki (1878) among others, were well respected and established in their respective engineering fields. When you add a willingness to learn and eventually improvise then any country or company who claims to be the best whilst standing still (or in Britain's case arguably going backwards) is doomed for failure. Its pretty pointless to blame ones sector, be it management, unions or politicians - they all were complacement and had not appreciated the the world was changing. British cars like most of Britains industry became complacent after the war and gave way to post war countries hungry to rebuild anew - Germany, France, Italy to some extent, and by far the most impressive being Japan. So if we want to live in a bubble which blames the nasty foreigner for all our ills then fine but that just makes matters worse.
British workers could never match the "pride in work" attitude of the Japanese. They feel part of the company they work for. And that's not just the workers' fault. It's a cultural difference that British industry could never aspire to. The fact they took British designs and made them much, much better speaks for itself.
The British genuinely thought they’d be around forever. That was the problem. Arrogance and bad management. They had power and didn’t know what to do with it.
Traded in my Marina for a Triumph Acclaim when it came out. So keen to push the partnership with Honda that I got almost as much as I paid for the Marina after two years of ownership.
Loved that little Acclaim. Brilliant car.
Hondas of the 1980s were PERFECT vehicles, and the Triumph BL input added a touch of "home". I still would prefer a 1980s Honda over a modern car....the added safety adds weight and electronics are irritatingly distracting taking away driver skill.
Yes, the acclaim was a nice motor . Just sold mine last year . Reliable , started in extreme cold weather albeit having to sit there with it on choke for 10 mins .
Sad that BL only production run was 2 years then they replaced the Triumph with that god awful Maestro /Montego range . Apparently BL KNEW what they were going to do and were just using the Acclaim as a "stop gap" car until the Maestro / Montego range was finalised ... Such a pity !
I couldn't drive an Acclaim, no headroom.
Several factors combined to kill off BL.
1. Bad management decisions leading to some marques not being given enough money to develop new models, which meant that cars like the MG Midget and MGB had to make do with makeovers rather than the replacements they sorely needed (not a new problem, MG had to keep on updating the T-series far longer than it should before being given enough money to come up with a fresh design, the MGA. Couple this with inter marque rivalries where different companies within BL (and BMH/BMC prior to the Leyland takeover) were competing for the same market with different cars and you have a failure in the making. The Triumph 2000 was in competition with the Rover 2000, the Triumph Spitfire with the MG Midget, Triumph GT with the MGB GT... the list goes on and on.
3. Industrial relations within BL (thank you Red Robbo) hitting the production lines, leaving customers waiting far longer than necessary to receive their new cars, hardly conducive to marque loyalty. Also, companies that supplied parts to BL were also hit by their own industrial actions so that even when the workers at BL were actually building cars, they couldn't complete them due to a lack of parts.
4. Lack of quality control. Even when new cars did trickle out of the factory gates, they were woefully unreliable. On damp mornings you spent ages trying to get the cars to start unlike cars from (for eg) Japan, which started first time every time. Those damp mornings also brought on the tin worm. Some cars were so badly rustproofed that they were showing signs of the dreaded rust before they even reached their first owner! This wasn't something that only plagued BL by the way, in the 60's, 70's and into the 80's, all cars would suffer from a lack of proper rustproofing.
5. Badge engineering. Austin, Morris, Riley, Wolseley, Van den Plas (hard 's', not Plah), MG? Which version did you want to buy? Some cars were even leaving the factory with an Austin badge on the front and a Morris badge on the back! Was that a protest by the factory worker or a sign that he just didn't care?
6. Bad designs. We've all heard about the Morris Marina, a car that was meant to take on the Ford Cortina especially on the fleet market. However, look under the bodywork and you soon realised it was almost pure Morris Minor. Only problem was, the Marina had bigger and more powerful engines which the antiquated suspension and running gear could not cope with. So, it soon gained a reputation for shedding wheels. And when an even more powerful version came out, obviously you would also upgrade things like brakes etc, which BL duly didn't do, exacerbating an already bad problem. When these cars were eventually sold as scrap after too many MOT failures, people were buying them for spare parts to keep their Morris Minors on the road. And what about the Allegro? A good design on paper that was destroyed by the time it reached production. Triumph TR7? Hardly a replacement for the TR6 that preceeded it. The soft-top TR8 was the car the TR7 should have been.
7. Lack of investment by the Government. In an ideal world BL would not have need propping up by the government of the day, but it did, and that money wasn't forthcoming. In the end, the best bits of BL were sold off or became independent companies once more (Jaguar/Daimler). Other marques were dropped until only Austin, Rover and MG remained. Even then, Austin was quickly dropped and the company renamed MG Rover. Now of course, only MG remains.
Well, early Japanese cars didn't sell in the UK because they were good - they were pretty crappy. But they were well built, well equipped, ultra reliable (none of which could be said about any BL product!), pretty cheap and...available. And of course, through the 70s and 80s, the Japanese car industry went through a revolution going from copyists to world leaders in innovation and technology. Yes, they got their start from buying old Austin designs, but they had to build on that to leap frog most European makers. The same sort of thing happened with Korean cars in the 90s and seems to be happening with Chinese makers now.
i hope you remember who came up with the slogan Made in Germany!
its the Brits who have the lack of foresight.....
in cars and the EU!
the marina was also plagued with Piano falls.
We had some good design, when we left it to Italy! They were just made very poorly, i lived through hearing British cars needing jump starts on every slightly cold or damp morning. "car wouldn't start" was a valid excuse for being late for work if you bought British.
My Cars ALWAYS started even in thick ice and sub zero temps . Why? because I maintained them. Always had a good battery and well maintained ignition system . Never had a problem ...
Probably find its lazy ass owners who wont part with money for servicing and driving the cars into the ground was a good portion of the problem .
@@gpo746 well done you, give yourself a big pat on your back. Most normal people just want to drive their car, and did back then. Learning about plugs and points is for very very boring people unless you are a mechanic
Ironically, there are probably more Marinas about than 120y's
Loved the 70's Datsuns. Stylish, light steering, smooth transmission, well built and equipped. Only problem was rust, but all cars suffered the same back then. I'd have had a Datsun over anything else at the affordable end of the market at the time.
Great video Tom, BL = Bad Unions, Bad management, Bad Government interference. Japanese cars in the 70's had so much more for the price, Radio as standard, Heated rear window as standard, Rear view mirrors as standard, Top models had electric windows, leather interiors as standard. BL were relying on the past but never looked forward until it was too late. Allegro, Marina, Awful cars, Toyota, Nissan etc cars were just so much better at that time. It was like a slow, lingering death.
During the Honda collab the Unipart exhaust factory QC went like this - Meets spec and lines up perfectly went into Honda stock. Badly aligned with poor welds chucked on the Rover pile. Honda had their own QC in the Unipart plant.
Having worked as a Quality Engineer in the seventies on, I agree that quality was variable, but the real problem was historical government incompetence within finance. The 1929 finance crash led to no investment money within engineering industries. When industry began in, 1937, to start to prepare for war, the government opposed most innovation. America, on the other hand, was making money financing war supplies to Germany, and lending money to Japan, and Germany then sold Britain war materials, to be repaid for the next sixty years. The American machine tool industry also sold modern machines to all future enemies. Britain refused to import tooling from abroad. The war left British factories full of obsolete clapped out machine tools. I know, as I had to use them for many years. I refurbished some tooling for Land Rover in 1996, used for fifty years to machine engines, and they were never accurate when originally built. Japan and Germany , to stop communist influence on workers and management, received new machine tooling and money to restart building new cars for export only. America, the world's largest import market, gave preferential terms for these imports. The Japanese used cheap money to lend to buyers of their cars, often lending to people who were unable to get finance anywhere else. No British car dealer would take a Japanese car as a part exchange, mainly because older British men, fresh from memories of Japanese war atrocities, would not touch a Japanese made car. Only the import of the first wave of Indian migrants, desperate to succeed, flocked to buy these cars for Taxies, and runabouts. As they were low mileage, and nobody bought a car with over 80k miles on the clock, British Leyland lost a market, due to greedy, profit driven dealers in shiny showrooms. The end of Hire- Purchase and introduction of Credit Scoring, in a debt ridden international world, cut Leyland sales, as Communist infiltration stopped people working, and nobody had money to buy new cars. In the mid seventies a three year old car could be had for £100, I used to buy and sell them. So it is a multi faceted reason, not always visible, why an industry disappears. The other reason was protectionism caused by the rise of the European Union and its trade policies.
Really look forward to getting a notification about your videos. Great stuff!
Thanks :)
What if Austin had bought the majority shares in Nissan all those years ago... Come the 60s they could have built the Mini (the perfect K car) and ADO 16 in Yokohama and export cheap to build A60s The problem BMC had was they over complicated their cars Transverse engines,,, with exposed sump gearboxes ,,,, cooling fans on the side and not in the airstream ,,,, Hydrolastic suspension ect.. in Asian Pacific countries vehicles needed to be simple... The Austin A60 was hugely popular in the Philippines as a taxi... because it was durable and simple to fix... The Austin Gipsy could have been the go to off the peg Jeepney in Manila BUT... Len Lord insisted on having the complicated Flexitor damping.. Its well worth mentioning here that George Turnbull after leaving British Leyland in 1974 took the next flight to Seoul (and a Marina with him) and told Hyundai just make this ... But better... and they did and the rest is history !
My friend had a twin carb Marina in 1976.
It was terrifying in the wet around corners.
We used to pile a lot of our club's rugby kit into the boot, in the hope the rear wouldnt lose grip
In 1974, I bought a used 1973 Datsun 510. The car was great. I drove it for about 6 years and used it throughout my college years. It met all of my needs and there were minimal repairs, while the gas mileage was great. If I had a chance, I'd buy the same car over again.
In 1981, I put the Datsun in my garage and left it. In 1993, I pulled it out of the garage and rebuilt the engine, suspension and most of the other systems. I did this so my friend and I could race the car at the New Smyrna (Florida) 3/4 mile race track in the 4 cylinder Enduro stock car division. The car did well against the Pintos and other vehicles in that division. We raced it for fun and we certainly had a lot of that. After about a year, the car crashed to the point it could not be repaired. It was a great car throughout its entire life.
The saddest thing now is the rapid disappearance and decline of the Italian car industry…
i was a kid in Australia in the 70s the datsun 1200 was very popular just went on then the 120 y arrived they came with a clarion radio casett
As I have heard a long time ago: Whether you do not cater to your customer's needs, someone else will.
dad was a purchasing director at BL .He had a rover sd1 company car with a "terrapin" car park pass , when he left as the company folded he got his redundancy payoff , he bought that rover dirt cheap and sold it to a local dealer
BL doomed itself. Bad management, union / strikes, total outdated designs and mechanicals for most of time and above all very poor workmanship.
Yeap, Japan had the help of British car makers in the 50’s and 60’s but from restarting of its car industry after WWII aimed to establish solid reputation of their products in export markets in order to sustain their car industry.
UK on the other hand, counted much that the UK market was always be theirs and markets of commonwealth would take their models produced there and will be good enough of export products.
While BL was languishing its long death process, I was few days visiting one of Isuzu factories near Tokyo in the late 1980’s.
Even though it wasn’t one of its big factories, it was very impressive to see that much of assembly line work was already done by robots. The physical size of the factory was small, but then, it relied on “just in time” concept to receive parts. Factory workers were encouraged to give input to improve processes in the assembly line. Factory workers have representatives in the company board.
Everybody ate in the same cafeteria.
Did BL factories had these things?
My father bought a new Marina in 1972 (I was 16) No one liked it , it was replaced by a new P reg (1976) Maxi. My parents loved that car.
After 4 years a new Datsun Bluebird. He was impressed with it's gadgets stereo and footrest for his clutch foot
Seemed wholly unimpressed with either my DS19 or the power top on my !964 mustang convertible though
He always regretted selling the Maxi and passed away whilst still owning the Datsun
I own a modern Citroen C3 these days
great show
Having a catch up on videos today, Thanks for all the great content 👍
I had an early Datsun. Very light, very reliable, 38mpg, disc brakes and reasonbly quick with 76 bhp out of 1.2l. The quality of critical parts like electrical harness was far beyond what British vehicles offered at the time.
STRIKES - that's what killed the British car industry. The lazy, 'work to rule' ethic was mocked by the Japanese and rightly so. We weren't destroyed by the Japanese - we committed suicide, and the Japanese filled the void quickly and efficiently.
My dad wanted to replace his Cambridge with an Austin 1300 estate. Could not get one so he bought a VW Variant. My mums MG Midget was replaced by a Beetle. Another friend of ours switched to a Corolla. That was like a Xmas tree compared to BLs cars
BL was forced into being by the Government of the day, Anthony Wedgwood Benn to be precise.
All those factories to keep going, all those different brands to manufacture and sell, Ford UK having better designs, a recipe for disaster,as it turned out.
I remember the first Japanese car I saw here in North Staffordshire, 1967 as a car mad kid, BRF xxxE, a blue Toyota, shiny chrome grille and whitewall tyres.
A few years ago I saw it at the Tatton Park classic car show.
Well researched and well written. Well done Tom
Thanks Steven!
My parents bought a Datsun in 1973 - I can still remember the registration number, which is odd, because by 1980 or thereabouts, it had rusted away to nothing.
Great watch as always Tom . How about a history video on some smaller manufactures that are still around ? Like maybe Aston Martin , the re-bodied XJS that became a Aston , or the Aston that Jaguar thought was so good they used it .
Always sooo watchable and full of facts.....thank you Tom
Before I watch this with an open mind, I will say that the answer would be complex of the forces involved in BL's demise. The title sounds rather protectionist, and had the Japanese been kept out of countries, the consumer would have been the loser. Quality of vehicles in both the USA and UK had dropped, and customers were not pleased. Global economic considerations worldwide impacted this (the US went off the gold standard in 1971, oil shortages, pollution / emission standards, and etc.) Because the US was THE market that volume car manufacturers wanted, it meant meeting new regulations that put extra cost in doing business on the companies. "Do we eat the costs or raise the MSRP?" With inflation / stagflation, plus currency exchange, all these issues played into profitability for BL selling cars Stateside. The Japanese certainly needed a step up to meet the levels of performance and quality of UK, European and US car manufacturers just as any country would with a start up....cars are complex and costly to develop, and all the established companies had been in the business for 50+ years. Some did build cars like Nissan's Austins and Isuzu's Hillmans, but it was a learning process for the Japanese motor industry, and rather quickly they developed their own cars. It seems to me that Toyota didn't go the route of building cars under license. And if Nissan comfortably leapfroged Austin / BL within 15 to 20 years, it was based on hard work and determination. Remember that there were quotas on cars from Japan in the 1970s both in the USA and UK, yet the cars still sold well becoming a "threat" to the industry. Protectionism may be necessary when trying to build an industry, but once it is matured, it is at risk of being overconfident and complacent. Before I watch this, I make this statement that BL tried too hard to become a British equivalent of General Motors, and even General Motors at the beginning of the 1970s was coming off its peak of sales. The badge engineering to maintain several products and car lines was apparent at both trying to keep business going for long time brand names / marques that people had nostalgia for. But nothing last forever, and even less if one gets complacent.
Open mind is the best thing, it is only one of the factors and they weren’t stolen.
@@tomdrivesMy perception that Britain (as was the USA) was vulnerable at the time to strong competition, and Japan was in the right place at the right time as it gradually perfected its motor industry during the 1960s, particularly with fuel-efficient cars. There was also a willingness to learn / they weren't bound by strong traditions in these companies with little to no experience in building cars. Old habits are difficult to break, and companies like Toyota had an eagerness to learn and aspire to high standards. As someone who grew up primarily on American cars and some British cars I certainly admired, my first car turned out to be a Honda. The quality was exceptional. Though it was about the last car I ever imagined would be my first, I loved it. The build quality was stunning, and it led me to reevaluate products from other companies. Certainly, I felt cars from other countries looked more beautiful, as someone who likes to keep things rather than trade in for the newest, it was the only car I've had that I sold long before anything went wrong; cars from other manufacturers have died before I felt it was their time. Investment in product simply wasn't available at BL. A lack of funds and too many car lines just spread resources too thin. Having to meet US safety and emissions regulations placed additional challenges on the company. I think Ford UK is a good comparison even if the parent company is American. Ford was very successful in the UK and best I know, was turning a profit. But part of that success involved centralizing engineering of new cars at Cologne headquarters. Ford was not Japanese, but I believe had acceptable if not excellent quality. Without an acceptable level of quality, cars like Escort and Cortina were perennial sales leaders. By that time, Ford of Europe was pretty much German with engineering in the UK and Belgium, plus factories in all three, as well as Spain. Once Jaguar was turned around by Sir John Egan, and then spun off into Jaguar Cars Ltd., he knew that the company could not survive on its own without the capital of another company to invest in product development. His original choice to buy Jaguar was Toyota(!), but they were not interested....Toyota is generally an organic company developing products itself and seldom joining in ventures with other companies except when necessary. Besides, whether Sir John knew this at the time or not (I'd think he would), Toyota was about to unleash Lexus on the world. There was a bidding war between Ford and General Motors for purchase of Jaguar. At the time, GM was acquiring other companies, which turned out to be an awkward hodgepodge Frankenstein not unlike the mergers / acquisitions that led to BL. Ford put in the highest bid, and probably soon regretted it. The Jaguar plant at Browns Lane was shockingly ancient, though why the Ford executives didn't investigate this first is beyond me. Though the XJ40 was generally more reliable than the predecessor XJ6, Ford streamlining made the XJ40 cars built under its ownership more reliable by reducing exterior and interior color options, changing parts suppliers, etc. Unfortunately Ford in the USA had visions of Cricket and The Avengers in mind when they directed car design, and the models relied on past design rather than looking towards the future. Ford never made money on Jaguar, and ironically, the design improved immensely under Ian Callum with cars like the XF that were released just as the company was sold to TATA!!! Tata seems to take a hands off approach, and bankrolls Jaguar / Land Rover and not interfere unnecessarily in the design process. Overall, when BL was formed, it was in a weak position after all the mergers, made worse by a very changing world at the start of the 1970s. The talent was unquestionably there, but the class warfare of managers and workers, economics, higher costs of doing business due to regulations and currency fluctuations while also trying to evolve the juggernaut corporation into a "lean, mean, fighting machine" was too much a task to ask of leadership. Bigger is NOT better. I see some parallels with General Motors of the 1980s. The Chairman Roger Smith was all into acquisitions of other companies rather than focusing on their core mission of building cars sold under five divisions. Companies unrelated to cars like Hughes Aerospace and EDS, a computer company, as well as other car manufacturers like SAAB and Lotus (and almost Jaguar) just made it a great big mess. Indeed, Roger Smith is viewed as one of the worst CEOs in American history. Decisions made under his leadership cut market share greatly, and gradually led to GM declaring bankruptcy in 2009. This had been the largest car manufacturer in the world, and such a force that there was talk of the Justice Department breaking it up as a monopoly when its market share was nearly 50% in the US. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Japan and the Germans in reasonable competition were able to take advantage of the competitors' mistakes, and become dominant players here. Indeed, Chevrolet will no longer build cars except Corvette as of 2025. GM has generally ceded the passenger car market to Asian and German car manufacturers to focus almost exclusively on very profitable SUVs and pickups. Furthermore, Toyota captured the title of largest volume car maker in the world a few years ago. It was a hard won achievement, and I attribute it to an obsessive perseverance. Forty years ago, I would have a hard time accepting this due to national pride, but the reality is that they "won" fairly, and the customers are better for it with better product.
What killed the British car industry was underinvestment, poor management and poor industrial relations. This lead to long waiting lists for poorly designed, poorly built, unreliable cars. Japan made reliable cars, initially rust buckets, but they learned, unlike complacent British industry. I liived through this.
British Leyland killed itself with unbelievably inept management, a workforce who spent more time being in strike than building cars. The cars that were actually built had a varying build quality- from acceptable to abysmal. No wonder that many buyers spent their hard earned money elsewhere after owning a BL product.
Irish here had a hunter for a few yrs everything that could go wrong did even petrol tank leaked bought a datsun 120y twice the mpg and not one issue with it only problem was u could hear it rusting
The British gave the Japanese a start in building cars, but the Japanese would have learned to do it sooner or later.
The Morris Marina was sold as the Austin Marina in the United States from 1973 to 1975. About 23,000 Marinas were sold during that period. It got mediocre reviews and compiled a poor reliability record. When the New York Times tested, the Marina a door handle on the test car came off in the tester’s hand.
If the UK car manufacturers had licencensd their designs to the Japanese, others (i.e. the former Axis powers) would have. I mean cars are not like the Transistor, where the US had a Monopoly.
One thing to do point out in regards of strikes, is that the workers in Japan faces heavy, and I do mean heavy repercussion if they went against the company or the state and went on strike. Sure u heard about the yakuza...
The lower end Japanese cars in the early 1970s weren't exactly known for refinement, styling or supple ride and they were rusting like there's no tomorrow. However, if you took delivery of a Japanese car you could be certain you would see the dealership again only when the next service was due. With a British car it was always a gamble whether the car was built during industrial action or on a Monday morning, or just broke because of poor design. The British car industry didn't need the Japanese for their downfall, it was entirely their own doing.
Interestingly, the Japanese heavy truck market got a boost from the US, when they acquired tooling and parts from Graham-Paige. The bulk of Nissan's wartime production came from Graham designs.
Leyland had a a reputation in the early 70's, And you would notice, on the way to work in Sydney, you'd see the threat of rain and all the Leylands broken down on the side of the road.
Sort of a moot point about giving away the technical info because the Japanese could have easily bought any British car at the time taken it back to Japan and reverse engineered it as they did. Like the British motorcycle industry, the car industry went a similar route of mismanagement and doom. BMC, then BLs Arrogance, greed, stupidity, and unwillingness to update the vehicles as required meant you were buying the same old crap year and year and model after model. The local dealers for British vehicles saw their market share disappear every year from around the mid 70s as customers went to the Japanese brands that offered features the Brits were unwilling or refusing to put in their cars. It became a joke really, as BMC was known as "Bring More Cash" since the cars always needed some money being spent on them for all manner of things.
Excellent film and analysis Tom 👍🏻
It was all down to Keynesian economics, complacency of the management, and a bloody minded workforce. Britain was stuck in a rut with 19th century working practices which left little room for manueve. I heard a story regarding a new automated production facility ie. a primitive robot line of sorts, in 1957,however the unions would not allow it to be used because it put people out of a job. A similar think happened at the Meccano factory at Liverpool with an automated sprat plant that was installed in the mid 60s and stood there unused until 1979 when factory was closed. Remember Maggie Thatcher saying that the 1960s was "The Devil's Decade"? Donald Stokes said it would have been far more sensible to let BMC go bust in 1968 and pick up the pieces.
Many here praise the 120Y, I also had one called Dirk for the big D on the steering wheel, bought it as tempory transport it just would not die, it always ran and started even with a Ft of snow on the bonnet, the gearbox was like butter and then, years later I found out that the engine was based on the Austin engine
British cars were the the greatest shit in the world. Good that GB left the EU. No more shit from the island.
The simple but sad truth is that compared to their European and Japanese equivalents, Allegros, Maxis, Princesses, Dolomites, TR7s, Marinas and even XJ6s just weren’t as good. They weren’t as well made, they weren’t as efficient, they weren’t as reliable and they weren’t as cool. The 1970s were a very exciting time to be a young boy who liked cars, without the amount of media we have now we would get a slow drip exposure to the new and exotic cars from around the world as family members, friends fathers and our neighbours would look overseas for their new motor. Not so great for British Leyland who with the benefit of hindsight we can see had fallen fatally far behind their global competitors.
The two, rarely mentioned, major reasons, IMO, that resulted in the domination of Japanese car companies around the world were; firstly - the occupation of Japan by the US after WWII (1945 - 52) - the main US objectives was to dismantle Japan's industrial capacity, so that it would never be in a position to wage war again. This eventually translated down to the production of vehicles and even appliances. There was even a strict prohibition on the production of cars and trucks in the terms of surrender. The owners of the major companies supplying the Japanese war machinery were removed and workers was encouraged to unionise (something unheard of in Japan). This meant that by 1950, Toyota was about to file for bankruptcy. But then the Korean War broke out (1950 - 53) and the US required replacement vehicles for those destroyed in the war, and Japan being so close, it was decided to use their industries to produce the needed trucks & jeeps etc. Toyota was contracted to supply the majority of them. And Japan was supplied with the latest methods of vehicle production and quality control to ensure the vehicles supplied were of the highest standards. The owners of the previously outlawed war production companies were reinstated and the unions were virtually dismantled, with fears of their 'communist' influences. The second reason (like in China at the moment) - car companies in Japan in the late 50's and 60's were under the control of the government and there was a push to increase the GDP by selling cars to overseas markets (the Japanese market still being quite small). This resulted in car companies having two production lines - one for the domestic market and one for export (naturally the LHD models etc). The level of quality control on the export production line covered everything - paint quality, fit, quality trim, engineering and inspection. And to top it off; these far more expensive to produce vehicles (than the domestic ones) were exported with a lower price than the domestic ones - meaning that the Japanese public were bearing the artificial low prices of the export models with the extra Yen they were paying for their cars. This was amply demonstrated when in Australia, where I am, some enterprising individuals set up used domestic Japanese car import companies (from Japan) in the early 70's and what was found was the domestic Japanese cars were absolute rubbish, in all terms of their construction, though outwardly looking identical to the imported export models.
Not just Japan, even Korean car industry owes its existence to the Brits. British engineers helped to develop Hyundai Pony.
Blimey even the badges 'Austin of England ' on the Devon! - I presume the Rootes group vehicles included the Humber Pullman and the erstwhile Commer TS2 two stroke diesel commercial vehicles- there must be some preserved models, what with the volcanic Ash 'salting' of Japanese roads not using salt ( if this is not an urban myth)... many thanks, educate, entertain and inform - you sir are the personification of all of Lord Rieths' remit !
The British have been far too benevolent towards other countries over the years. You can’t blame them for taking full advantage. That together our own industry making it easy for them to get market share. The rest is history.
It was often said that the Japanese copied British and some of our German motorcycles. For instance the Horex Imperator, the two-stroke Adler or the BSA Twins. The first of them built in Japan - even if they had been copies - were much, much better and much more reliable motorbikes. I have the Honda CB450, the Yamaha YD or the Kawasaki W1 in mind. I really can't assess if it goes for the British cars as well.
Nevertheless I fancy a P5B or an XJ S1.
With all due respect, your Vision of the car Market is not totally correct.
In 1969 My parents visited Mozambique and South Africa.
New Car Market sales were dominated in both countries by 4 doors Izuzo (looking like an Alfa-Romeo Gulia Super), by different types of Nissan, Toyotas, Honda, Daihatsu and little Suzukis).
Honda even featured a Nice Convertible, sporty car which made quite a splash.
Dominant there were also fantastic, modern looking motor-cycles, made by Honda, Suzuki and a couple of other Corporations.
The motor-cycles were years ahead of anything offered by British Competition.
Becoming part of the European Common Market afforded british car makers to take by storm the Continental Market.
And yet, after an initial rush, due to Problems plaguing the Hillman IMP, the Marina, the Allegro etc, European Sales sunk like a brick dropped in the ocean.
Even the big 4 door Jaguar XJ was plagued with problems,
Namely due to its neferious Lucas system.
Not only in the Continent, but also in the US, BRITISH vehicles were being avoided.
Even the good looking, expensive 4 door Range Rover purchased by rich people trying to convey an image of wealtlh and sophistication were a constant source of problems
Or the large sedan 4 door Rover -- she became a total flop.
Unfortunately, even the Sterling based on a large Honda was another flop.
In 1988 there were still available, brand new 86 and 87 unsold Sterlings -- heavely discounted, littering Dealers' Parking lots.
There was not a World Conspiracy to kill the British Car Industry.
Unfortunately, for different home reasons, all the British brands commited Hara-Kiri.
Regretably, the only thing they ended up learning in Japan.
Just thank God MG Rover learned from history & didn't give away the farm to SAIC/CCP for free.
That would have been disastrous.
Gosh.... This is a big subject to fit into one video.
But this is an excellent effort.
Oddly.... One of the things that drew people to Japanese cars in '73 and '74 was the level of equipment.
Things were standard....
People didn't have to travel through base model, L, XL and so on....
A Satsun 120Y had a passenger door mirror, a heated rear window and radio.... along with head rests and other little gizzmos.
British cars in that category did not....
But.... That is just one aspect.
The british car quality was deteriorating with the number of labor strikes, while the japanese simply caught up in quality during that time. Remember there was a time where 'made in japan' used to be sneered at ?
those early japanese cars are lovely classics now and very rare, as a child in the 70s and loving cars both real and toy ones i recall seeing plenty of early japanese vehicles around our housing estate, the collapse of the british motor industry is one of the great tragedies, a combination of mismanagement, a confused model range and intransigent unions within a very turbulent world economy(oil shock of 73 etc) all combined to bring on the demise
I remember when my Grandfather retired in the early 1970s he bought a bmc Morris Marina! He passed on in 1982 none of the family wanted it?? Should have bought the no 1 small car going around @ the time ! It was the Datsun120y
The Brits always were and still are (where chances exist) great car designers and engineers. Just a pity that the management and more extreme unions couldn't face the reality of what customers wanted.
Hmm, production engineering is also engineering though. It's still an engineer's job to make sure the production line is well setup in such a way that it's not possible to make mistakes. (Be it preset wrenches that automatically torque things to spec, paint marks for bolts that are torqued, checks and balances etc.) Not just to draw up a nice car or engine and then wash their hands of it!
My dad had a Datsun 120Y estate WMS 101 R it was a good car he had his fair share of Austin and morris cars also Nuffield tractors on the farm greetings from Scotland 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
There was no A50 estate car. There was a commercial version of the A55 and an estate version of the A55 mk2 (Farina).
I think it was inept management and militant unions which killed the British Car industry. Not helped by the media. Britain produced some excellent vehicles.
Before Britain entered the EEC with no tariff barriers, European cars were artificially expensive. No sane person would have bought an Austin A60. Concrete steering and drum front brakes, it was a vintage car by the early1960s. Compare it with the Fiat 124 for the same price and you can see that for BL the EEC was a nightmare. Who would buy an Allegro when a Fiat127 or Alfasud could be had for comparable money? Maxi or Renault 16 anyone?
its a wonder this country ,hasint given away the crown jewells as well
no comment
I lived through this terrible period of British car design. I hated their designs, the Mini, the Morris Minor, the Allegro. Goodness, what went against my visual grain in their design was the rear end profiles. The British could not finish off a car properly at the back, they were so low. A prime example is comparing the Morris Marina coupe with the Datsun Sunny 120Y coupe. Why is the Marina coupe so low at the back? It looks so WRONG, and it also affords less interior boot space, so what was the point? Same with Morris Minor, Allegro and the Mini. I could have given them much more boot space without adding extra length and made them look much better. Look at the superior design of the Datsun 120Y at 2:07, look how beautifully it is finished off at the back. They did the 'coke bottle' shape much better than the British.
At the time I remember it being frowned upon to buy these foreign imports but because I was so thoroughly pissed off with British car design I didn't care one bit. I thought it served them right. My first car was a Fiat 126, lovely little car, second was the gorgeous Datsun Cherry FII coupe (although I thought the Cherry saloon looked as bad as British design). But that coupe was a wonderfull car, I was fascinated by the hatchback design which was fairly new then. The feeling of sitting in that coupe was of cosiness, whereas the feeling you got in a British car was of sitting in a mobile goldfish bowel. On the other hand the British were good at sports car design, I'll give 'em that, and they did come out with some good designs in the sixties, like the Vauxhall Victor 101, Cresta PA, Ford Consuls. Thank God for the Americans.
Another comparison in design is the Mitsubishi Colt 800 compared to what we got, the Austin Maxi. I mean, is it any wonder? And we didn't even get reliability.
Interesting video Tom .had BL still been going now where would you have pitched them in comparison to current manufacturers.
Could have been our VW
@tomdrives it's so frustrating watching your videos which I really enjoy of how great our car industry could have been.
One single decade is what killed the British car industry. At the dawn of the 1970's BL literally had the world at it's feet with production capacity of nearly 1 million cars. It's model lineup was broad and brilliant. But .... One crap car at a time, Maxi, Allegro, Marina and the brilliant, but terrible Stag and Dolomite, Leyland single handedly imploded. Those failures meant that Triumph, Rover and Jag would never see the investment they needed. Quite simply, Leyland committed suicide by cheaping out and rushing into production half baked cars and then leaving them in their sad, pathetic state to rot on the vine.
My dad unfortunately bought a 1973 Austin Marina. Had a terrible carbureted mg motor and overall very poor fit and finish. The peak of dated mediocrity produced during the high point of labor strife in the British automotive industry .
I always thought Rover should of been merged with Honda as it worked so well designs over the years than BMW who only seemed to want the mini brand and tech .
sure, the bad Germans did it again....after the Brits run it into the ground for decades!
A friend of mine worked for Rover from the early 90s and he reckoned that the tie up with Honda was not sustainable because they screwed Rover on intellectual property. Having said that you are correct about BMW - they wanted the 4WD technology from Land Rover so they could introduce their own range of SUVs. Once they had that they were always going to ditch Rover.
There was nothing wrong with the cars in the 90s compared to Renault or Fords of that era, the politics of the UK was the problem