Having worked in the uk automotive industry (bikes and cars) in the 90s, having come from New Zealand I was astounded by the poor management of staff in the uk. Workers were often treated like shit, very much a reflection of the English class structure. Two examples; a boss telling me off for walking too slowly across the car park to work, even though I wasn't late to work. Another boss yelling at me for receiving a private email to my work address, saying staff had all been told not to, then admitting to other managers that he hadn't done that, and of course me never getting an apology. Just trivial muscle flexing. It put me off working in the UK.
I worked on an IT project in the UK in the early 90s and had the same observation. Coming from a basically classless society (Canada), it was an eye-opener to see how poorly the lowest people on the totem pole were treated.
@@shadeburst Indeed, but the justifications can be found in the hands which held the reins - the management, not the workers. "Give a dog a bad name..." Shit treatment of a workforce results in shit product and the distain with which many major employers regard their employees is despicable.
I think this applies to the whole country. Great Britain is stuck in the past. I am Polish and when I came to this country 24 years ago. The development of this country used to impress me, but over time it impressed me less and less. Today I am coming to Poland to visit my family and I have the impression that my country is developing extremely fast compared to the UK. New highways, new shopping centers, new housing estates. Everything to measure the current times, modern - meeting current standards. Meanwhile, I haven't noticed any big changes in the UK. The old supermarkets as they were 20 years ago are still the same. The same gas stations outdated and not renovated for years. Stantarts of residential houses straight from the Victorian era. I have the impression that the UK, instead of developing, is slowly collapsing. This country is turning into a Victorian open-air museum.
There has been a massive change in the British people over the past few decades. Now well past my 80th birthday, those many changes seen have saddened me There was a time when just about everybody pulled their weight fully and both they and the Nation benefitted. My Polish and Afro-Carribean friends of thirty years mentioned ages ago that they had seen the changes and decline. They believe that uncontrolled immigration has in fact worsened the overall situation. They are right of course. The nation should have been far more selective in who they allow in. Nothing to do with race as many "activists" want the rest of us to believe, but those who would clearly benefit this Nation with their skills and attitudes would be welcome. Not now. The wide-open door policy clearly allows the good, the bad and the downright harmful to the Nation free access at huge cost to the taxpayers under so called freedom of movement. Nothing to do with the EU IN-OUT referendum as many would have us believe. This was ongoing long before June 2016. That British "Right Stuff" quality which enabled this nation to overcome adversity, survive and thrive has been much depleted in recent decades. Many see our ongoing decline as both assured and deserved. Only in the land of the increasingly self-inflicted. There are now FOUR Chinese built MGs down my street. EVs or hybrids. Neighbours speak favourably of them. Others have reasons to never buy Chinese product. They are usually the ones who have a VW, BMW or other German stuff in their garages. My response. Those German cars were almost certainly built by the grand and great grand children of the German folks who tried to eliminate me and my family in London's East End back in the 1940s. Funny old game folks and cars. I recently drove my friend's good-looking BMW 4-Series coupe. It was OK but I was not impressed. In fact it was nowhere near as a nice a place to be and drive as my now old MG ZEDS. I was pleased to be reminded of this when I got back into my ZT. His previous Stuttgart product cost more to repair than I paid for my MG ZS 120 new back in 2003. There was a time when he reminded me at every opportunity. "You cannot beat German engineering and reliability John" He never does that now. For good reasons. Thirteen thousand of them.
That's because Poland began from such a low level of development it can easily modernise. Countries like Britain have the issue of replacing old infastructure with new.
in the 80's, I remember taking my 10 yr old mud brown Morris 1100 to the mechanics with an electrical problem. He had a look over the circuits, trying to find the fault. "What about the fuse box in the boot", I asked. "Could that be the problem?" "What fuse box? There's no fuse box in the boot!" So I took him around and pointed to the brown-painted box at the back of the boot. "That one", I said. He grabbed a screwdriver and started to prise the box away from the surface and then I spotted it on the underside; "Players Please" Not a fusebox but a ten-pack of cigs (there were still two inside it). Someone left them in the boot and the next guy just spray-painted over them!
That's the kind of problem Boeing now has with their unionized workers. They just leave tools and other crap in the wings and other parts where they then fly around and then break important lines.
That was my first thought too. I remember when I used to get MCN back in late seventies early eighties, there was something about the soap opera that was Triumph every week it seemed.
When I worked at Ford we were all told the story of the Austin Mini and how Ford could not understand how Austin could market the car at such a cheap price. Ford brought one took it back to their Headquarters were they striped the car completely and priced every part down to nuts and bolts at manufacturers prices to their surprise they worked out Austin were selling every Mini at around a £250.00 loss per car, which might explain the downfall of the Mini
Jon Theodie FORD not Ford Ford was the man who started the FORD MOTOR CORPORATION Another Ford with the given name of Gerald became a President of The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Inc. You have failed to educate yourself and learn that ALL CORPORATE names are in the ALL CAPS iteration. You were successfully programmed to be a ZOMBIE and not pay attention to detail ZOMBIES have eyes but cannot see - ears and cannot hear. Study where the word CORPORATION comes from. Undertake extensive reading program to better educate yourself. You can educate yourself at minimum cost. You can do it when you are not mentally lazy. Start paying attention to detail.
I live in Canada. In the early 80's I ran an import company. I contacted the Range Rover management to discuss importing the Range Rover into N. America. I received a terse reply saying studies had shown there was no market possibilities in N. America and Range Rover had no plans to export to N. America... Good move Range Rover.
Running car companies with accountants (e.g. Lord Stokes) rather than engineers was bound to fail. It would be interesting to look at decline of US car industry too.
The original Mini was an engineering and design marvel. I don't recall that Lord Stokes was an accountant, I thought he was a marketing/sales guy. Famously, Ford are said to have pulled a Mini apart, worked out the Bill Of Materials, and concluded that Austin/Morris/BL lost money on every Mini they sold. So they ( Ford ) continued on selling cars with cart springs on the back, that made a profit.
@@jamesstuart3346 you are absolutely spot-on. Lack of focus on engineering (making money by cutting-down on costly bits) - led to the collapse of once-well-known brands like Cadillac
I worked in the UK for about a year in the late 1990s. The experience I had as a North American working for a British company was fine but this is what I remember all these years later: 1. The office (almost literally) shut-down around 2:00 pm for a tea break. As a non-tea-drinker, I observed this daily ritual with no small amount of amazement. Every day a different employee was designated to make the tea and the rest of the staff would socialize during the 15 minutes the tea was prepared. When the employee returned with a tray of cups of hot tea and milk/sugar, there was always an exclamation of genuine delight from the waiting staff, like they were bringing in a birthday cake. Then the tea-drinking and socializing commenced. This entire process was usually 30-40 minutes and while enjoyable, totally ended whatever momentum had been going on in the office. From 3-5 pm, production slowed noticeably. 2. British workers were punctual at arriving and leaving the office. At 5 pm, the office was completely empty regardless of deadlines. I never saw any midnight oil being burned in that office. 3. A class system was definitely in place, based largely on where you were from, what your accent was, and where you went to school. As a North American I was kind of unaffected by it but it was very clear that if you didn't speak right/have the right background, you would only go so far in the company and society in general. 4. There were several staff members who had very little to do. I am not saying they were lazy -- the work just wasn't there. So they came in ready to work but there was little to do. Nevertheless, the management seemed to want to avoid the awkwardness and bad feeling of firing them so they never did. This company no longer exists. If that company was representative of the typical British company, then I am amazed that anything gets done in the UK at all.
What went wrong? Well, let's see. Back in the 1970's I was a bit of an odd duck among my friends. While they were buying Mustangs, Cameros, and various and sundry other muscle cars I was completely enamored with English roadsters. My first Spitfire was used and was a real dog. Remember, that at that time, Triumph's sales slogan for the type was, "You always remember your first Spitfire." I will certainly always remember mine. Especially the way it looked, all torn down to pieces parts on the floor of my garage as I rebuilt the engine, transmission, and of course the electrical system. But, hey, it was used, so, I thought, I must have simply inherited someone else's problem. Right? Well, after a couple of years, I dumped it and picked up an MGB. That car was the epitome of reliability. No matter what you did, that car could be relied upon to leave you stranded on the side of the road. So, after a couple years of spending more time under the "Bonnet" than behind the wheel, I dumped it and bought a brand-new Spitfire. It was sexy, seductive, and promised great performance, and it delivered on all of that. It was, indeed, sexy, seductive, and had great performance, both days of the week it was running. Within two weeks of driving it off the showroom floor it had so many problems that I finally took it to a Virginia vehicle inspection station and paid to have it run through the inspections. It failed miserably. Only with the failed inspection in hand could I get the dealer to finally admit that there was an issue with the vehicle and make the necessary repairs sufficient to license the thing as safe to drive on the road. But once the repairs by the dealer were complete, I must say that I could completely depend on that vehicle. From Virginia, to Florida, to California, to Texas, to Rhode Island and finally to Maryland (I was in the Navy at the time and moved a lot) I could completely depend on that car to break down in the middle of the hottest desert (Death Valley to be specific), the coldest blizzard (Donner Pass, no kidding), the wettest weather (Hurricane Frederick, look it up) or at the most inopportune time, like in the middle of the Oakland Bay bridge at rush hour. Side Note: I spent 23 years in the Fleet, and never heard obscenities, and blasphemies so masterfully hurled about as when the residents of the whole San Francisco Bay area slowly worked their way around my sexy, seductive and lifeless Spitfire that evening. So what went wrong? I'm not sure about tea and biscuits, but perhaps the fact that the vehicles being turned out by the British industry at that time were rubbish had something to do with it. Still, at this moment I have a '78 Spitfire in my garage, in its natural state, i.e., torn down to parts, and scattered all over the floor. I suppose after all these years I can only surmise that owning a British roadster is like being in a destructive relationship. You know that they are no good, but they are so damned sexy and seductive.
A yank here, you have seen a lot and driven thousands of miles. From thousands of feet high at Donner, to dropping down into death valley, wow! For a navy man you do get around.
This reminds me... In the mid 1970s a chap in a neighboring apartment had a Triumph GT6. At least one day each month he had to give it a wrench massage. When he moved, he left the car behind.
Sounds just like my experience. In 1978 I bought a nine-year-old Spitfire Mk III. It was pretty rough (backs of seats ripped out, what looked like a line of bullet holes down the side, etc.) but it was cheap and it was fun to drive when it ran. After a year, I decided I really liked driving the car but needed one that was more reliable, so I bought a brand new 1979 Spitfire 1500. That's when I discovered the problem with my '69 was not that it was an OLD English car, but that it was an old ENGLISH car. The new one was just about as bad, though in different ways. Never mind labor or management, this car suffered from terrible engineering. I will mention two things in particular: first, some genius had put the catalytic converter right under the carburetor, which meant the fuel boiled (and the car sputtered and died) whenever I was stuck in slow-moving traffic. Second, the electronic ignition system developed a seizure disorder shortly after warranty ran out: it couldn't take the heat (the module was located inside the distributor housing), and after an increasingly short distance there would be no spark, the electric tach would drop to zero, and I'd try to coast to a safe place until it cooled. I took it back to the dealer, who offered to sell me a replacement module... but he warned that they ALL failed that way after a year or so. Instead, I traded it in at a Dodge dealer close enough to my home that the car would get through his trade-in test drive without having a seizure. These problems were not the fault of labor, and really not of management either; these were just terrible engineering decisions. And they were things that should have been obvious to the people designing the cars. Sigh. The Spitfires (especially the second one) were seductive and sexy, and I still miss the way the transmission shifted in the second one. I still kinda miss mine.
Production manager for Dunlop told me a few years ago that when a Japanese company were given a tour of their facilities they were appalled to find the machines for making the tyres pre dated WW2 . They were totally worn out and the tyres produced were not true and round ! The Japanese still purchased Dunlop and completely modernised the facilities. I asked the manager where the not quite round tyres went . Guess where ? British Leyland . They took any old rubbish as long as it was super cheap . So there was never any pressure at the time for Dunlop to modernise
I can relate to your comment. I worked in a factory in the 1970s where we had three lathes. The newest one was a 1939 model - it had the year stamped on a plate - and the guys working on them were proud of their age as if it was evidence of British machine tool quality. Their age showed as well, it took a lot of skill to get any precision out of these machines. I later moved to Germany to work there and there wasn't a machine in the workshop older than 5 years. I dared not tell the Germans what we Brits used in our workshops for fear of embarrassing myself.
@@CFITOMAHAWK Oh, I could till you a few stories related to the behaviour management during my time working in British industry that made me understand the value of unions, even militant ones.
Many moons ago, a Japanese friend came to the UK on a visit, Built like a Sumo wrestler, the suspension in my MG nearly maxed out when I picked him up. He had a factory tour of the admirable Soichiro Honda's Complex. He noted some of the machine tools there were manufactured in the UK's Black Country. Back in the day, some of the now well-known Japanese Motor Cycle manufacturers started making nut and bolt copies of British Motor Cycles like my BSA Super Rocket and others. Today, you can still buy a new Royal Enfield Motor Cycle, formerly arms manufacturer based in Redditch UK. Made in the Indian Sub-Continent now. Also modern day versions of the BSA Gold Star which do not look very Gold Star like to my old minces. Saw one parked in my local supermarket car park. If I were younger and fitter, I'd be very tempted to ride again.
In one of the machine shops were I worked in the 1970s were machines with registration plates attached that said "property of the Ministry of Aviation Supply" they were given to the company during WW2 when it was a shadow factory making parts for Spitfires and the like. Also there was one machine which had a plate that had the manufacturers name and address of "Adolf Hitler Strasse, Berlin", so that would have been bought before 1939 and still in use in 1974
John Surtees the champion rider of the 1950s and 1960s told the management at Norton Motorcycles that he felt he could win the world championship on a Norton with company support. The answer after a couple of days was that yes they thought he could do that but the problem would be that he would then earn more than a director of Norton. He then rode for MV Agusta in Italy.
I think most of the trouble with motorbikes was that they were building their own scaffold. The engineers, mechanics, and riders put their best efforts in to make the bike faster. The end result was that their young hero was killed in a crash. Might as well join the hippies.
Honda was at a GP motorcycle race. They needed a different gear ratio. A new gearbox arrived overnight (with the correct ratios). It would have taken a British factory team 6 months to change a gear ratio. It may have been Surtees who told that particular story.
@@jcjko5504 I say this has more to do with how the system is set up. If you have an machine shop for racing and experimental stuff and racing has an priority I imagine you can modify an gearbox fast. For production lines 6 months is reasonable. Now many car companies don't make their own engines, guess the same is true for gearboxes, in that case again 6 months is fast Do you want an cheap engine, an fuel efficient who don't pollute much or an powerful one. Yes thank you, I want all three, it has an cost as in billions in development and this is an recurring cost because you keep improving.
I’ve always put it down to culture. Britain seems to be great at inventing stuff in a shed, but terrible at transforming it into a healthy business model. In a philosophical sense, I can only applaud that. Arts and crafts, yea! In an economical sense, ouch. Very much ouch. And why would it be otherwise? Here is a young chap, some Colin Chapman, engineer and inventor, suddenly CEO of a car making factory, burdened with marketing issues, HR management and factory planning. Yeah. That’s his talent alright. He just wanted to make exciting little runabouts. It’s basically the Syd Barrett story: he just wanted to make music, and there came the industry
I knew a guy who had started his career working for Morgan. The factory was a number of sheds. Mechanics pushed each chassis from one shed to another for the next stage of manufacture. The factory was located on a steep hillside and... the production flow was from the bottom shed to the highest.
@@shadeburst Aston Martin used to be something like that, until the early 90’s. Scariest ride of its lifetime for any Aston was the engine being ferried on a trolly, to meet the chassis in a building across the road. I imagine they had lollypop ladies
Syd Barrett fried his brain with psychedelics. Also, the success of Pink Floyd probably came from his replacement with David Gilmour, who pulled the band away from the space rock direction. Be Careful with that Axe Eugene vs. Shine on You Crazy Diamond.
My first job was as an apprentice mechanic at a BL / Jag dealer, one day a brand new cortina MK 3 came in, it was like looking at something from outer space. the BL products were thrown together items from the previous decades where the Ford was all shiney and new. it was the same with bikes, i had several BSA,s but when all my friends got Japanese bikes, i had to admit defeat and get something that was relaible and didnt leak all over the floor. hate to say it but my current car was made in korea
I rode a BSA motorcycle in Germany. I just swapped the amal carburetor and installed a mikuni carburetor. Because of the vibration, the fenders often had to be welded. Otherwise the bike is good and reliable.
@@robertmalinowski4887 i had several BSA,s, the weak point on most British bikes were the electrics, Joe Lucas wasnt known as the prince of darkness for nothing
My family lived in England from 1954-57, where my Father was a U.S. Army engineer whose unit was involved in lengthening runways at air bases in order that they could handle strategic bombers like the B-47 and B-52. Dad would become really irritated when they were conducting a concrete pour and the civilian British concrete truck drivers would just stop and have tea when the pour was right in the middle of completing a section and it was important to pour the entire section while the concrete was wet so that it would bond and set well. Dad also bought a Morris Minor mini station wagon while we were there. He did have a few problems with the car and he said there was no sense of urgency among the repair people to get the car on the road. The car was shipped back to small town Oklahoma, where at one point it made the local news when Oklahoma State University students asked Dad to let them see how many people they could cram inside the car...........Believe it or not they got 17 people inside that car...not children either!
in 63 there was a derelict MM wagon in a yard next to our park in S. San Gabriel and my dad, a lifelong mechanic that could get ANY vehicle going, took a look at buying it. And turned away!
I was an apprentice mechanic in the late 60s and trained as a panelbeater in the mid 70s. I well remember the deliberate problems caused by the lazy and militant workers. The number of hours I had to waste stripping out the seats and carpets of cars to remove nuts and bolts which had spitefully dropped into chassis members beggars belief. Fit and finish, along with good even close lines were an alien concept to many of them. I agree, though, with your verdict on the management (or should that be miss-management?) issues. Great video, Jack.
@@LordOfLight who the hell else should I blame? Some innocent person spent a huge percentage of their disposable income on a new car, with the expectation of reliability and quality, and this tosser destroyed his dreams because he was having a bad day. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest his nether regions, and yours for sympathising with him.
@@eddiewake2416 You're a fool. Worse, you're a self-indulgent fool. You like blaming this guy. I know better than to argue with fools; I'll let life work its magic on you and one day you'll cease to be a fool. The bad news is there is much pain for you between now and then. Goodnight.
I never forget the smartest history professor I ever had at university. She made a bold statement saying: "After WW2 the infrastructure in Germany was completely destroyed. That forced the Germans to built the entire industry from scratch (a thing the Marshall plan made possible). In the meantime the British could and did produce things in more oldfashioned and often outdated factories. This turned out the be a disadvantage on the long run. Factories in Germany were much more modern and efficient. And one heavy factor was of course the loss of the colonies that had made Britain a strong and rich empire" .
This explanation a good one, yet I feel it is only partly true. Just look at the Soviet-occupied zone in Germany that would become the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949: The Soviets dismantled numerous industrial plants in their occupation zone that were undamaged or partly damaged and relocated them to the USSR. This was done as part of the reparation programme, so the GDR after 1949 had to build industrial plants from scratch to get their industrial production going again. This lead to the interesting situation that in the 1950s and 1960s the plant-based industry of the GDR was doing well, even by western (capitalist) standards, but the inherent flaws of the socialist/communist centrally planned economy meant that, as time went on, more and more funds had to be channeled into maintenance and modernisation to keep the plants going, money that the GDR didn’t have, which meant that modernisation of existing plants in many parts effectively came to halt. Yes, modern equipment is important, but equally important is, you has got to have money to modernise and keep your means of production up to date, otherwise your factories that were once state of the art are going to be outdated after a couple of years.
@@ngw1976 Agree. It seems simplistic to say that Germany and Japan were funded into a position where they could take advantage over the actual winners of WW2. Italy was also in the same position and did equally well 1950-1980 (then lost its mojo). There were a good 15 years when that wasn´t the case and UK was still massively ahead of the game. If you think Coventry and London got bombed, take a look at cities in Germany. Japan didn´t even have roads, let alone a car industry in 1945. This without talking about massive psychological effect of living in a world where your beliefs have been shown to be criminal lies. In most manufacturing sectors, UK has failed to invest since WW2. Large family-owned businesses have been sold off with nothing for the workers or communities who built the companies or communities in which they where based. Compare that with VW, where the local state has ownership and a veto, or ZF where the F is for Friedrichshafen´s continued role in the company. They depend on each other. BMW & Daimler have their basis still in the ownership of families who will not sell, the huge Japanese companies which include the car sector are similarly based on ancient family businesses and local loyalty. There are still car factories in the UK, but as we have seen, foreign ownership means that UK plants are more vulnerable to closure than home plants. Even the marketing importance of being perceived as British isn´t looking great for long-term futuer of Cowley plant.
@@martinrichardhorrocks9869 Agree. Regarding the British car industry, I'm inclined to think that the decline set in when, under pressure from foreign car companies trying to gain a foothold in the British car market, British Leyland was established. The idea, if I'm not mistaken, was that by forming one "happy company", the various brands like Jaguar, Rover, MG, Austin etc. would remain competitive and profit from synergies in the field of technical development and part sharing. What looked good on paper turned out to be disastrous. You, no doubt, are more familiar with this "malaise era" than I am, but my family witnessed the "build quality" of BL cars first hand. My dad owned a 1978 Jaguar XJ6 4.2litre. Even nowadays he is regaling me with tales of how unreliable that particular car was. Design-wise the XJ II series looked - and still looks - great, but the electrical systems were shoddy and the engine had a tendency to overheat, especially when he driven at high speeds on the German autobahn. We always had a 10l canister of water in the boot to refill the cooling system, and our holiday tours to Bavaria where my grandparents lived were always planned with making sure which places along the route had BL dealerships/garages. Ah, "merry" auld times. 😁 After the XJ II my father bought a XJ40 which was considerably better, but in 1999 he switched to a BMW 740i (E38), which he kept for a 17 years. Wonderful car, the best-looking 7 series in my opinion, and the car never let us down. 😉
Just another excuse. The Brits still had a 10 year head start. The workforce is generally lazy, envious, and too class conscious. Everything they touch turns to shit.
Visited UK in the 1970s. I experienced bad employee attitudes. Our flight was delayed. The bus driver, who was supposed to pick us up, walked off work without telling his office at the end of his work day. Our tour leader had faxed the bus company from New York to forewarn them of our delay, but we were left out to dry. The bus company did not know the driver was MIA, so they just kept telling us that our bus would arrive sometime soon. After waiting at Heathrow for over 2 hours, our tour leader had to call another bus company to pick us up.
I worked in the British motor industry from 1969 to 1973, for a component manufacturer,we also had a factory in a depressed area at Resolven in South Wales ,a former mining village, frquently problematic as a lack of a suitable workforce. The Leyland problem was largely as you identified complacency along with aggressive unions, incompetent management & government interference simultaneously. It should also be taken into account that Donald Stokes was a Marketing man & a Labour supporter contraindicated for an engineering concern, additionally there was infighting amongst the various inherited companies & the company was never properly restructured,it had 45 plants in the U.K alone,additionally it neglected its overseas subsidiaries. Michael Edwardes was little better as although his family was in the motor trade,they had a successful motor repair business in Port Elizabeth ,South Africa.I doubt that would help much in a manufacturing environment . Iworked a further 20 years in the motor industry in S.A. & met many people from the U.K. motor industry who often had interesting stories to tell.
@@Comakino No. l worked very briefly for Datsun/Nissan (a bad mistake), then for just over 20 years for VW. I did look at BMW ,but was not impressed by their methods. All the manufacturers her in those these produced shoddily made vehicles. I bought a 1971 built Rover 3500 shortly after arriving here. I spent the next 20 years sorting out build problems on it,Leyland’s build quality was appaling. I still have today in running order.
Good story. I would disagree regarding Michael Edwardes though, he was experienced in running big companies by the time he became BL Chairman. He brought in a lot of reforms that at the time saved the company, though some were not popular. There were cheap and quick fixes (e.g. turning the Princess into the Ambassador and the Marina into the Ital) to buy time until the newer models came out and rationalised/streamlined the model range. He also stood up to the unions, and focused on the core car/vehicle making business by getting rid of companies in the group like Prestcold (a refrigeration business). Had he been given longer by Maggie Thatcher, it would have got better still. His book is well worth reading.
@@robincook3367 I accept that Michael Edwardes did achieve some improvements. I believe he came from Exide batteries ,but the manufacture of these is simple compared to something like a motor vehicle. My point is that to manage a company producing an engineering product it is a requirement to understand engineering. I worked in the motor industry for 25 years & saw the results of this & I maintain that it is the main reason the German companies are successful. A classic example of a company failing through lack of an engieering orientated head is General Motors, John De Lorean predicted this in his book when the first finance man became head.
The Japanese had huge success with automotive manufacturing because Edward Deming went over there after the war and helped them streamline their production (he was a brilliant Industrial Engineer and developed most of the Just In Time manufacturing methods used today.)
@@capmidnite It had to run concurrently with Just In Case. I remember a buyer at Honda UK telling me he kept a large bag of a certain circlip under his desk just in case the just in time stock did not arrive on time. One problem was getting past the trucks queuing up outside a factory ensuring their load got in at the correct time, just in time as there were penalties for being late. When all your suppliers surround the main plant JIT is fine. When the supplier is at the other end of the world, on the UK road system rather a lot of variables come in to play.
Thank you for mentioning Deming he never gets the respect he deserves. If the Americans had taken his theories to hart I wouldn’t have 3 Hondas and a Toyota in my driveway
@@rogerthat117 It also helped that the Japanese had fuel efficient cars in the 70s when the Oil Crisis hit. Japanese cars imported to the USA in the 70s and early 80s were prone to rust out easily, even though the rest of the car was reliable.
Not just tea and biscuit. Before NUMMI, the GM manufacturing plant at Fremont, Calif., was replete with problems, from negative attitudes to high percentages of rejected cars. Sex, drugs, alcohol and gambling were prevalent daily activities, right on the site. The animosity between labor and management was so deep that assembly line workers’ way of fighting management was to sabotage the cars at the line, leaving parts or Coke bottles inside the doors or omitting a few screws, etc.
I recall listening to a podcast several years ago on This America Life about the troubles at that plant and it was horrific. The production lines at Fremont seldom stopped, and when mistakes were made cars continued down the line with the expectation that they would be fixed later. I feel for the people who bought a car made there.
End of the day that’s crap management. If you can’t manage your workers, it’s definitely your fault. Other people can, so why can’t you? Too much credence is given to management and not enough blame. They’re there to manage workers correctly, if they can’t do it they’re crap, end of story. Anything that goes wrong is a result of bad management - management are there to manage and control the workforce. If they fail, the company fails. Blame the management,
My dad's stepfather was a Glaswegian in Coventry, working in manufacturing and a hard-line union man. He told me he'd rather a company went out of business than the union lose a strike. Coventry was the Motor City of the UK. So many people worked at 'the Jag' or 'the Alvis'. Until they didn't.
It's what scares me, I was young but remember the 1970's, it wasn't a good time. The industries were destroyed but its happening again, the only thing now its the public sector unions who have the power.
I agree with him. My reasons? If a company cannot survive unless it's to the detriment of a person, I believe that a persons life is far more important. Think of it this way - a company survives but it kills people - you can see the problem surely? Imagine going to work and being worse off than if you'd stayed at home or taken another job elsewhere. If a company cannot survive then it should indeed close down because the business plan clearly does not work. Yes - the same should apply today and it would be thousands of them but government subisdise peoples wages. Why on Earth should an outsider (the public through taxes) line the pockets of others for their very bad business plan? A business should be strong and not so weak that it requires government help. Yes jobs are important but why on Earth should things be subsidised by others? How did it get this way? An inept and weak government that's why. Governments are too intertwined with businesses and so pander them. Classic examples currently include the NHS where it's staff are for the most very badly paid. Managers are on superb wages. Why? Why should such a business plan (and it is ran as a business) exist, even in a government ran business? Wages have been allowed to fall and fall to the point where they require government help. Wages so low that if they instead became unemployed their lifestyle would improve. 40% of British workers are on support benefits. There are strong British companies that do not require government help with wages for staff. ALL companies should be like that. Yeah - I'm old enough to remember the boom times. The days when just one in a household worked and yet their (unsupported) wages paid for everything and even for holidays. It was all killed off by inept governments.
In my experience management styles get the unions they deserve. Enlightened, progressive companies (there have been a few) get moderate unions or sometimes no unions at all. Badly run concerns with draconian or outdated management styles get militant unions. When dogmatic and ideologically driven government is involved you can expect fireworks.
If you have ever worked for the old school union system with “Shop Stewards” and the bowler hatted idiots in management, you will know why we failed. It was a disaster waiting to happen. I own and run a metal fabrication shop in the south of England and nobody, who walks in my shop knows if I’m the labourer or the boss… we are all equally liable for what goes out of the door!!!
@@antschiari8000 Both your nation and mine desperately need fundamental inheritance reforms if we are to survive. Different systems that achieve the same result of putting morons in positions of significant power through no qualification beyond birth.
I come from Britain, and we pride our selves in being a democracy and an example to the world in this manner. But we have this caste system, kind of like they do in backward nations such as India. We have to get rid of the royal family and much of these ridiculous systems of authority and reconstruct everything for a TRUE democracy. We otherwise are a flawed democracy. I hate living in this stupid country, and I drink coffee and not eat! But I loved the European Union, until the Brexit-tards fucked it all up for us; the EU was the best democratic system in the world by far!
Absolutely, bad management, bad decisions, bad government, bad industrial relations, it’s all down to the class system, this government is following the same ideologically driven pattern and it’s having the same results. The Japanese have been manufacturing in the UK for 30+ years without industrial problems, it’s clearly British management that is the problem.
It’s always been who you know not what you know unfortunately. See the Oxbridge chumocracy at top of politics on both sides- there are more classics graduates in Parliament than qualified engineers (and probably scientists if you discount medics) and when they talk about ‘business’, they mean finance or commercial legal services, not making stuff. Maybe we need an Elon Musk to come in and shake the tree.
@@heronimousbrapson863 Probably not, I'm thinking an outsider, probably non-brit, who doesnt give a four letter word starting with F for politeness and 'this is how we do it round here'...
My family worked at Longbridge. Tales are unbelievable. Red Robbo, 523 walkouts in 30 months. Measured day work. The union's killed Longbridge because they had the management they deserved
I really hope you make a written record of your family's experience working at Longbridge. The press could never publish these stories because the print unions would strike so the stories only exist in the memories of those who lived through it, when those people die, the record of what went on in those times will be lost. I hope you interview your family members and get a detailed record of what happened, publish it on the internet so that people can find it by searching.
As an 82 yr-old living in the US, I can relate to your story. I grew up when we made a lot of cars, and boy did they sell! But when things went global, we could not compete with the Asians. Same problem with unions - got to a point where a guy on the assembly line who turned three screws over and over made more than a college grad with a Masters degree. Our middle class was spoiled, lazy and just wanted to be entertained. The Japanese were industrious, hard-working and smart. I guess we survived, but it sure ain't the same any more. Now, when I see the Chinese numbers of electric vehicles... here we go again.
It's now a common fact that Union labor is approximately 21% more productive than their public non-union counterpart. Union labor is way more loyal to their jobs and as they age their experience makes them more valuable. I worked non-union and union for a total of 44 years and there was no comparison. And in a non-union environment, your job was only as secure as your boss's emotions.
Did they NOT rotate people around (to learn different parts of the Line) so to jump in when someone was out sick ??? I think the Electric Car trend is going to die out.
I remember a labor lawyer representing management, saying, that 100%:of the time, problems, that management has with labor unions, result from piss poor management. The big company, that I worked for, took that fact to heart and got rid of their bad management, and they no longer had union problems. I'd have to say, that bad management was the genesis of the British car industry problems, but the coup de gras was the government consolidation of the industry, where it cut out the pride, each individual nameplate's workers may have had.
My father, an MD, left Henry Ford hospital in Detroit because an assembly line worker doing nothing more than working a lever, made as much money. He knew that kind of economy was not sustainable & moved to Kentucky.
@@andrewhansen4179 pure BS. The union shops I've worked at were a sad joke. Put in 4 hours and get paid for 8. Then go on strike so you only have to work 3 hours a day.
In 1963 my dad bought a new Sunbeam Alpine. As kids my twin brother and I rode with him from California to Florida then back to California TWICE (2 round trips). In 1970 he gave it to us, we drove the heck out of it. Ultimately, that began my career as a mechanic..
As a teen here in America I would have about done anything to have owned a MGB or a TR6, these cars were just so beautiful and fun, granted I never got to ride one, but when I was 15 there was a light blue MGB sitting in the back of our local Dodge dealer which I walked by on my way home from washing dishes at local Shoney’s Restaurant at midnight and sit in that MGB shifting gears and imagining I was driving this beautiful British Sports Car on are winding mountain roads, then one day it was gone, I was heart broken 🥲I still remember that non-running light blue MGB and I’m now 60.
In the late '60s , on a working holiday from Australia, I worked for a time at a Birmingham car factory churning out Austin 1100s. I was amazed at the high wages car workers earned compared to Aussie car workers at that time. In Australia working on a car production line was fairly low paid and mainly done by recently landed migrants, many with little English, as a means to break into the workforce. In Birmingham however, I found the jobs were very sought after and the pay was more than could be earned by qualified tradesmen such as plumbers, carpenters and motor mechanics, many of whom I worked with , who had given up their skilled jobs to work on the car production line. The line I worked on was sanding down the primer coat on the 1100 body shell prior to another coat of paint being applied further down the line. The workers on my line were sanding by hand and worked their shift half hour on and half hour off. Every half hour one crew would drop tools and sit down while the alternate crew got to work. Two crews of highly paid workers to cover one shift of unskilled work didn't strike me as being a great business model and if this was an example of the British car industry in general I am not surprised it couldn't survive global competition. Another aspect was the cars themselves. The Toyota Corolla in it's original form had an 1100 cc engine and competed directly with the Austin 1100 and I am sure contributed to it's demise. The car industry in Australia has also died after many years of government subsidies but Aussie never really exported cars and the domestic market is too small to sustain a car industry.
When I moved to Aus every other car was either a Falcon or Commode and of course where I worked there was an ongoing debate.... It was really sad to see Ford and Holden go along with Toyota and Mitsi and previously Chrysler and Leyland. Aussie Leyland were very innovative and had a lot of Aussie input .... The Prime ministerial car was a Holden Statesman - very hi spec but alas now a BMW (I think..)
@@MrPomdownunder yep, way back the average family car in Oz was a six cylinder GM Holden or Ford Falcon with to a lesser degree the Chrysler Valiant. The small cars which were popular were the Mini Minor and Volkswagen Beetle.Then came the Japanese invasion, with Nissan, Toyota and mistershitty and they had inclusions like radios, heaters, carpets none of which were standard in the Holden or Falcon. We had too many cars to choose from for the size of our population so local production, after sucking up millions in government assistance, finally died. Us oldies loved our rear wheel drive 6 cylinder go anywhere runabouts with wind up windows, bench seats (for a genuine 6 seater) no aircon, no power steering or disc brakes and a simple motor which could be stripped down and rebuilt in your driveway. ( personal experience here). I was a Holden man, loved them and drove them from the FJ to the last of the commodes.
Holden's from the 70's were rust buckets, very unreliable & easy to fix. I bought a VF2 Commodore, which is the last Holden made in Australia. In the last 6 years of ownership, have just done scheduled services. Apart from replacing the battery & a set of tires, not a single failure in the car, not even a light bulb has blown. They finally make a quality car & they closed down the factory. Disgusting.
@@SunRise-ul7ko All those adverts saying that Holden would survive as a brand - Not actually making any cars in Aus but rebadging Global GM stuff.... All those millions of tax dollars..Thanks GM...
I owned my car repair business in NZ thru the 60's and 70's and ended up specialising in BMC. Minors, A30's, minis, Landrovers, Jags etc. Before that I worked on British motorbikes. They all had aspects in common, oil leaks galore, even when new, design faults that stayed unfixed or worsened for decades. The cast iron lump "A" series engine, made for the A30 and still used in the 90's. The Japanese made real improvements with every model even with major changes. When the Toyota Landcruiser came out, farmers cancelled their Landrover orders and bought cruisers despite being made by the yellow peril. I reckon the best small UK car was the ubiquitous 1100, everyone's mum had one, they drove and handled well, were long lived and easy to maintain with parts common to other BMC. Lucas was a joke, fortunately parallel imports allowed alternatives. BMC made both the Landrover and the Austin Gypsy, which like Jag and Triumph relentlessly competed until they died out. The Gypsy had a wonderful pressed sealed chassis and tough A90 or Wolseley 110 engines but rotten UK mild steel body work that rusted from day one. The Rover had shit mechanicals, chassis, engine and gearbox but great galvanised and aluminium bodies. If BMC had the wisdom to combine the best bits of both, and they were pretty compatible, it would have taken the Japs much longer to outsell them. When I imported bulk parts from the UK, my first job was to inspect each item and reject the faulty ones, the UK exporters expected this and usually compensated. Fortunately a lot of better bits were made in Australia. The colonies stopped regarding "Made In England" in favour of "Made In Japan".
Had Rovers and would fume over the fact there was never any improvement . It was like, have they never driven or worked on these machines they build. Makes one angry to see a good product die from neglect.
I worked as a salesman for a motorcycle importer here in NZ. As a little pay perk we'd assemble and pre deliver bikes after hours. We had Triumphs, and Yamahas, and we got the same pay for each, we hated doing the Triumphs, much preferred the Yamahas. As an example, a Triumph Bonneville would take around 12 hours to get fully ready to put on the showroom floor, a Yamaha XS2 would be ready in about 3 hours. On the Triumphs we had to check every nut and bolt, tyre pressures, even spoke tensions on the wheels. All the covers, all the fittings check the lights and wiring, oil levels, even the acid in the battery. The Yamaha, we could take it for granted that other than basic unpacking from its crate, putting the front wheel and handlebars on, there was not much to do and two hits on the starter button and it would be running. Put the D plate on and whip it around the block to check brakes and such and wheel it out to the showroom.
"SLIDE OF PRIDE" when pride in your product and your company is slowly eroded it's demoralising for the everyone and there can be only one outcome The proverbial sh#t does roll down hill. I worked for Toyota UK in Burnaston and know that the people at the top could pick up the tools and build a car. Life isn't a Carry On film anymore, I guess the 70s were just a sign of their times and a culmination of years of rot, it's a shame, but I still love the Carry On films, I will now stand down from my soapbox. Quality video as usual.
I've always thought that, yes, there were issues with work ethic, but ultimately the problems stemmed from where the buck stops -- management, especially senior management. Managers need to earn respect, to be tough but fair. Everyone involved needs to feel that they're part of a team, working together to deliver the product.
@@juergenlohse6902 But British craftsmanshift can't compete with mass produced products which are more affordable for the average person. I'm happy we still have fine craftsmanship in the world. I just wish I could afford it. And I make very good money.
You forget management was put there mostly by unions. It is the direct fault of most of the workers (Except newcomers like the father of another comment here).
A friend of mine bought a beautiful new Series 3 XJ Jaguar when they arrived on the scene here in Australia. Of course, he suffered a string of issues including oil leaks and nuts had been placed inside the hubcaps at the factory, obvious for a bit of fun. Took him ages to find the rattle. He sold it after about two years and bought an S Class Benz. He lamented the loss of the beautiful Jag and used to say “ If only they’d let the Japs build it.” True story.
I grew up on the edge of the industrial West Midlands in the 70's and many of my friends worked in factories. I clearly remember one anecdote which summed up everything: A friend in the pub after work was boasting that their floor had managed to get a whole days production of bathroom taps rejected by quality control as they made them so badly. I was confused and asked why this was good. The reply was "It taught management a lesson. Shop steward was really happy". There really was a civil war going on. Union leaders goading inept management and inciting workers who were largely caught in the crossfire.
this "US Against Them" is constantl imported into Canada as I know and have worked with so many Brits in the west. It sucks as most of my early work was in the USA where a "work ethic" is (or used to be) such a large "can do" part of American culture.
Even japanese cars produced in UK in the 90’s had problems. There were so big quality issues, that as I was working in a Toyota dealer at the time, many customers only accepted cars with vin that indicated the car was made in Japan. If it had UK made vin, they refused to take delivery
As a young Canadian travelling around, I spent the winter of '62 working as an instrument fitter in London. It was a simple job of collecting a box of parts from stores and then polishing rough parts and assembling and testing the result. The first one took me three days, the second one two days, and the third one was done in a day. When I went to stores to get the parts for another, the foreman took me aside and cautioned, "We accept that it takes two days to assemble one. Don't spoil it for all of us...." So I had to learn to work very slowly, polishing and re-polishing parts, and scratching my butt. All the other men on that production line thought this was a really plumb job..... It was a very long and boring time until spring when I could hit the road again. So that's when I learned about British labour practices........ When I did hit the road it was on a British motorcycle, so I learned a whole more about British engineering.... I do note that the British made excellent steam engines in the distant past, but have completely lost it since then.
In the US/North America around that time it would have been like: “Just take your time and be thorough, quality is job number 1” *returns the next day* “Wow, you are done already? Let me see if I can find any other work for you Mr. Smith.” *returns a minute later* “Looked around for some work for you, there’s not any I can find, you can get off early, see you tomorrow Mr. Smith”. Though that’s not very accurate depiction, it certainly shows the differences between attitudes in the US/North America around that time compared to how it was in the UK around that time.
I was trained as a toolmaker by a tec college in the 1970's . 5 years with apprentiship, superb training but when I finally got employed as a skilled man I found that any enthusiasm for the job was frowned on by the closed shop union, and ignored by management. I left before it destroyed my soul completely.
Labour relations in the late 60s, 70s and early 80 were appalling. My dad would often cite that the wrong person made a cup of tea and everyone walked out. Quality was therefore abysmal and the common thought from the workers were that they would never buy a car that they produced. I could rattle on about this but I'm fed up relating these tales. Remember Red Robbo slagging off the products that he built - instant dismissal but this was the general thinking behind the products. Strikes meant less money for R&D and you had some horrendous designs coming out.. and the press had a field day. Forming the Leyland group was a complete mistake and companies should have been allowed to fail without years of support by the Government of the day with the same eventual ending. Coming home from school us kids were more often that not met by our father out on strike. It was endless, and depressing. A turning point was when Honda got involved, only to lose their support when part was farmed off to BMW without any consideration for Honda. If it could go wrong it did and the eventual management by-out was a fiasco. Shame, because there were some good cars about at the very end... Great video, if a little frustrating and upsetting for me.
I had a triumph spitfire during my college years. Problem #1 lights, electrical shorts that had to be painstakingly followed, corrected and then reoccurring in a different circuit. #2 Right front wheel knock off hub mounted on the left front. Eventually this caused the left front wheel to unwind and fall off. Then no front wheel hub in North America. The company in England stated that none were available in their warehouse. They would be making them soon. One year later and with 2 months shipping time a repair could be made. I learned my lesson, but I enjoyed the brief driving experience. Happiness is driving a spitfire but true joy is trading it in.
Hi, poor management end of. Working in VM in Ellesmere port I reported a fault in a product being made to a member of management, 'It will get picked up down the line,' was the reply. 'Why not correct the problem at source?' I asked. 'Can't stop production.' so we carried on making rubbish at management behest.
Thank you very much for an excellent review. Unfortunately, most analysts overlook the complex and interrelated cultural factors. Germans and Japanese are culturally more unified in their lives, unlike the every man for himself culture of UK and US.
You are exactly ON point. The U.S. has established its traditions from old England - the early figures in the American colonies were tied to and agents of the CROWN And still are. The CROWN still owns two thirds of the USA. The majority of people do not know where The capital of the United States of America is ? And those that guess - get it incorrect - as it is NOT where they think it is. In European royal circles these early leaders in the North American colonies where their agents with code names - George Washington was Washington 711 - and Benjamin Franklin was known as Moses. A reference to parting the pond for infiltration through the Hellfire Club and Nine Sister lounges. George Washington took orders from the Grand Lodge of Masonry from Daniel Coxe for plans for the federation of the British colonies. Benjamin Franklin became Post Master - an early form of what is today the NSA to spy on letters of concern. Independence Hall was constructed by Masons to formulate a revolution to take state powers and convert the centralized control of the GOVERNMENT. Rothschild's understood the importance of the Postal Service controlling it in Europe and control the "Pony Express" under Franklin. I call it the first NSA of its kind. Adam Smith was educated in the school of economics in Cambridge - England. He championed "open free Markets" giving total control of all the country's ports to offshore interest to the East India company. The Pope controlled Britain under the treaty of 1213 and all its possessions including acquired territories in India - America - Africa and China. How do you think we have such impressive Universities! Clue ... "Opium" trade.
and this - we fight only for us - is a narative of the brutal captalime in both countries as only by this they can press down wages ... and it worked until last 2020 but seems people realize and quit more often ..
A mate of mine worked for Leyland , I had to work 10 days to earn the same as him in a week. He always complained how poorly paid he was. The funny thing he took so many sick days a month , and still left me for dead in the earnings stakes. I felt sorry for the workers who were trying to pay a mortgage get kids brought up because of the strikes, my mate didn't care he went back after the strike got overtime etc and just threw the cars together . He went on to other jobs after Rover folded with the same attitude, he did not stay long in any of them then wound up on the dole where he remains. He felt he was entitled to everything ...he was the rule not the exception...
No he wasn't. Not that there aren't plenty like him, but not the rule........except in places where management were so awful they engendered that kind of attitude.
Thats the responsibility of Management. Should have closed down the plant and built it in the West Country.First item? Top Class management, ( same level as BMW!) not boys in suits who just past the "management" exam!
Now that "The English patient" disease has spread throughout the British Public Sector. Much evidence daily now and worsening. EVERYBODY OUT is not just a sound from the distant past UK. For the most part, the UK does not have a manufacturing base anymore worth a mention, So Red Robbo clones near extinct there now. Plenty of clones in the Public Sector though. TV News channels allow them to spread their good words to all for the benefit of the Nation. It is fake news that only British Cars suffered extensive corrosion. Most maybe all did back then. My father died forty years ago. His Toyota Starlet's metal dissolved as you stood there watching it. Even the Japanese did not have access to top quality metal and protection processes back then.Some of the items on my Honda proof positive of that. Italian car companies withdrew from the UK consumer market due to shocking terminal corrosion issues with their cars. All that seems to be conveniently forgotten by those determined to bad mouth assure this nation's ongoing decline. Some say that is both assured and deserved. Ask your friendly MoT tester how many relative modern day Fords, Mercedes etc he has failed due to serious corrosion in recent years. Only in the UK .. :SIGH: The land of the increasingly self-inflicted. EVERYBODY OUT. The words of the Nation's Lynch Mob.
There was a chap who worked at Cowley that was caught stealing car parts. When the police went to his house they found that he’d been building a Princess Vanden Plas in his garage with the parts he was stealing.
I worked in a factory in the 70's and 80's and there were people in the workforce who saw it as their 'job' to find any possible dispute and stop production. Many, not all of them saw themselves as communist and 'working against the system'. Workers and management knew this, but they were unable or afraid to remove or disempower these people. By the same token there were elements of management who took any opportunity to 'put the workers in their place' It was all politics and we see where it ended up, and knew it was going there. Small independently owned companies could probably have survived, but there was no accountability in the huge monoliths.
I used to deliver parts to Fords at Halewood. At one time all the workforce walked out and I was stuck there half unloaded. When I asked why they walked out, I was told that a member of management had walked on the shop floor.
Same at Longbridge...British Leyland managers had to get permission from the shop stewards if they wanted to enter any of the factories, & if they wanted to show a visitor around, this required a long (& somewhat embarrassing...) wait whilst the shop stewards called the union leadership with all the visitors details after they had been questioned & interrogated over who they were & what was their reason for visiting...& even once permission was given by the union, a shop steward would tag-along listening-in to all the conversations between the British Leyland manager & his now highly bemused & even intimidated visitor...
You have provided a fascinating and accurate account of the car industry and it's sad decline! I myself trained at Short Brothers aircraft factory in Belfast and it suffered from the same kind of problems. The factory itself was decades old and in dire need of modernisation; however, the company was only interested in cutting costs and seemed to always be looking at the workforce as a bunch of work-shy louts. In 1987, I left Shorts to work at Saab Aviation in Sweden and it was like leaping decades ahead for me. The Swedes had an ultra-modern factory with good management and good employee relations. It was immediately apparent to me that I had been working in the dark ages! The British aviation suffered from the same bad management and lack of vision as the car industry!
I will also add that the way we buy or rather obtain cars now, will have a massive affect on the industry globally. The majority are now leased/rented from new, then swapped after 2-3 or 4 years. As a result I genuinely don’t think people care about their cars like they used to, they are seen as almost disposable, or something to ‘update’ like a mobile phone. With the insane complexity of modern vehicles now people buying them down the line are going to be in for some shocking bills when they inevitably go wrong… and of course no one can repair them at home on a Sunday morning… I think this will have serious repercussions for car manufacturers in the rest of the world!
A guy I used to know loved to tour Africa in a Landy. The first thing he did was to strip out all the electronics and fuel injection and replace them with stuff he could repair by the light of a kerosene lamp in the middle of nowhere. Modern cars produce amazing power with unbelievable fuel economy compared to the cars I grew up with, but they need a lot of maintenance. If something stops working the mechanics don't waste a second trying to repair it. They chuck it out and install a new part (at a cost that would have bought a whole car in my ancient days).
In 1983 I was sent from Canada to the old Bowater Mersey paper mill in Ellesmere Port to help with the engineering of the three paper machine rebuilds that were 2 years behind schedule. The old mill had 14 unions I was told and went under from labour issues. A Canadian company bought it and were rebuilding it as a non-union mill. I remember going into the control room one day about 10:15am. And the operators were all in the adjoining kitchen/lunchroom. I noticed a number of alarms beeping and flashing on the screens. And asked the operators how did they know if these were critical alarms or not. They responded that it didn't matter because it was tea time and they continued to discuss a cricket game for the next five minutes before going back to work I worked there for 2 years and yes during tea time it didn't matter if the pulper was overflowing and the ground floor was 2 foot deep in pulp. How can you run a mill efficiently with those kind of ingrained attitudes. But I also acknowledge there are bigger issues; at the time the labourers and skilled tradesmen were paid about 1/2 to 1/3 that of Canadian workers who were mostly unionized when the cost of living was definetly not lower than in Canada.
With a well known car channel spannerman's assist with his angle grinder on the door hinges. FACT! They did come off too. His angle grinder was made in the UK though.
I believe that part of the problem was the "Be British, Buy British" attitude for a long time (same here in the U.S. with "Buy American") where problems with the industry were glossed over because they didn't get the market feedback that was needed to avoid getting passed by other countries. A prime example in the period was Lucas Electric, the Prince of Darkness, that was used because they were the only British supplier. Why improve quality and innovation when they were still buying your cars anyway?
I was told that the faulty electrics in my A-H 3000 was because the wires were covered, not by rubber, but by WW2 bandages. Why do I think of Benny Hill?
My dad bought a new Rover 3500 SE in 1982, it was a beautiful and well made car and aside from some small issues it was reliable and he owned it for ten years. BL could make good cars when it tried, they weren't all terrible like the Morris Ital. I think pride in the product is a factor.
He owned it for 10 whole years? A typical Toyota goes 10 years before needing its first repair. I have a Mazda that's 25 years old and still going strong. If that's the best of the brutish car industry, no wonder it failed.
I had an Rover SD1 2600, a fantastic car ,smooth as hell good, fuel consumption . British engineering is world beating. Politicians and the management class they come from are fucking useless as we are finding out to our co0st today.
@@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus rubbish I worked on all marques, they all break down from time to time. Trouble with the Brits is their inherent snobbery. If they buy a foreign car and its a lemon they tend to keep stum and suck it up.
Old timer here: I worked in Linwood Scotland during the sixties / seventies, where the Hillmans were produced. I can only speak to the guys on the floor at that time. Any excuse, and I mean any excuse, was a reason to down tools & wildcat. Of course poor management was serious issue, but the mentality of all the Union members was one of....."who do those bastards in their collars and ties think they are". And by downing tools and walking off, this was an almost weekly thing. Old Firm game being played and few showed up for the shift. 'Them versus us' mentality and it really was a large reason for the demise of Linwood.
Hmm, I grew up in Coventry. My Dad, Granddad, Uncles and Aunts all worked for Morris, Jaguar, Talbot/Peugeot, Triumph, Hillman, Land Rover, Massey Ferguson and Alvis. I saw my Dad move from one to the other. I remember most of my family members were hardly at work in the 1970s; it appeared they were always on strike. The inefficiencies in the industry could have been resolved into the 1980s, just like they did in the USA. My Granddad worked for British Leyland at the Standard works. He worked nights for a decade. At the same time, he also had a full-time job during the day. He managed it because they slept during the night shift. They couldn't get rid of the bad practices because the Unions would call a strike if anyone were disciplined or sacked. If only they knew then what we know now. Would they had some national pride and pull the British Car industry into better shape?
I work for a huge American multinational with factories all over the world from China and Russia to the US and Brazil. Our most problematic workforce is Liverpool. Incredibly militant, constant complaints from the production workforce over the pettiest thing. I was in a meeting with Management and Production a couple of years ago and I was stunned how aggressive, rude and combative the Union reps were. It's working against them as they all work to rule, and as a result productivity is low, profits are near zero, performance onuses are zero. The factory will very likely be moved to France, the Americans are just about done with them. The other factories in the UK are fine, no problem and two of them have spent £20 mill between them expanding production. Liverpool is a microcosm of the 70's UK workforce.
I've heard anecdotal stories of 19th century British industrialists sending their sons to study classics at oxbridge. In Germany industrialists' sons studied engineering. So maybe a longstanding cultural problem...
The "cup of tea and a biscuit" analogy reminded me of a story I read years ago about the BSA factory. Some visitors were being shown through the works and one of them asked about an oven he had spotted. Their guide told them it was used to temper new crank shafts and opened the door to show them the insides, only to find two pies in there, warming up for lunch!
Having spent 40 years in the British motor industry in vehicle components during a visit to a well known British Motor Electrical Manufacturer in Birmingham i stopped to ask a assembler on Dynamos .I was immediately ushered away not to speak to this man as the Area Manager was behind me and i was not supposed to do this because of a possible walk out of the men on this facility.It is of little wonder that we we lost major automobile car manufacturers to other Nations
Prince Charles opened up a BSA plant in LA very near our house in the mid-sixties: they were going to take the motorcycle market and Japan hadn't got going strong just yet. I think the plant was in Irwindale (industrial zoning) bu tnot sure, and don't know what happened to the plant.
we used the electrode holding ovens to cook pies and other greasy delights , even cooked a whole pheasant in tinfoil that a scaffolder had dropped a well aimed clip on from up on a rig jacket in an 80s fabrication yard happy pre thatcher union days !
Not just cars. When I went to school in Australia -1950-60s- we were taught about wonderful English bone china, sheffield steel industry, Axminster and Westminster carpets, and their giant shipbuilding industry. So the problem seems to have been more than just the car industry.
I live in Australia. In 1975, my parents purchased a brand new Triumph 2500 TC.......it was just rubbish. As a seven year old, I remember it literally breaking down as they left the showroom they purchased it from. We were still so close to the dealer that some employees from the dealership were able to come out and push it back into the premises to investigate the problem. They somehow patched up the issue and we hit the road back to the country town we arrived from.......but were stuck in Sydney an additional four days over what was planned. For the next five years that dad owned it, it was frequently off the road due to another glitch that required attention. That Britain still has a car industry now is astounding! Around that time, Australia still made plenty of cars, but due to poor quality, changing market preferences, expensive unionised workforces and the government removing import tarriffs, they are now all gone, the last car being produced in 2017. If the UK isn't careful, literally ALL it's manufacturing will be lost to China, Thailand or India.
Hi Noel, that last sentence is a bit late. British companies do not own anything, and haven't for years. All of our utilities, ie Gas, Electricity, Water etc, are foriegn owned. We don't even own British Airways, or for that matter, the airports they fly from. The steel industry is owned by India. Power generation is owned by the French and the Chinese. As this video states we don't own any car manufacturers. We are building 3 new Royal Navy auxilliary ships, but the main company in the consortium is Spanish. The once great British Merchant Navy is now all but defunct, so we must rely on Foriegn shipping to deliver our goods. Everything we buy, which used to say Made In England or Britain, now says Made in China, Thailand or India. And the list goes on.
@@ivorgotten2368 Yes I can relate. In 1975, our government was a signatory to the Lima agreement. From that point, on, the decline began. They did this without our approval. It meant manufacturing was effectively handed to developing countries on a platter, at great expense to ourselves. Now, helping others is admirable, but handing over entire industries? Two questions here:- is it really our job to ensure Chinese peasants are employed? And secondly, our leaders are elected to serve us, not the entire world. We currently have a leftist government pushing for us to be yet even greener, when we hardly contribute anything to g/w as it is. China is the No.l emitter. It's akin to asking someone to lose weight when they're anorexic whilst the fat kid escapes scrutiny. That we invest in China at all is treacherous. Organ harvesting, slave labour and genocide is apparently acceptable again. Every time Australia had a company that was successful, be it cars or making cookies, foreigners came in and just took control. It's just infuriating. Our.......ahem.......'government', just does nothing. I could say so much more, but you get my sentiments. Thanks for the insight.
Most of the problems with vehicle manufacturing in Australia can be sheeted home to GM. They progressively meddled more & more in GMH decisions over the years, adding stupid "innovations" that destroyed the reliability of, in particular, Commodores. At one time, most electrical systems etc, were locally sourced, but as GMH went more & more to imported accessories, the cost went up & the value down. All this had happened before, with Leyland Australia, so the warning was there, but GM in the USA didn't care. By the time GMH closed manufacturing down, they were already a large im porter, but those cars weren't selling, either. It didn't get any better in the years since, so now, GM has pretty much disappeared from the Australian market.
My family was in the car audio business in the late 60s and through the 70s, and the one thing I saw in the construction of the cars was that the British would use ten or twelve pieces to make a glove box door work, when a simpler arrangement of three or four parts would do better and more cheaply. It was like the legendary Rube Goldberg was designing cars in the UK. Did you ever look under the bonnet of a U.S. legal 12 cylinder E-Type? That it even ran was a miracle of modern technology!
My brother works for a firm rebuilding vintage cars for them. He refuses to even take a look at a jaguar never mind rebuild it. Says they're all just rust buckets with chassis designed by country yokels heavy on weed. Spares are also hard to come by, rebuilders usually end up buying another Jag just to cannibalise it for spares.
I worked for the USA Jaguar Cars organization ‘86 - 2000. You can never blame who Jeremy Clarkson often referred to as “the British worker Johnny.” The issues started at the top, when the top was removed and replaced by Ford execs there was a brief period of hope. Then the top of Ford was replaced and it all went straight down the crapper. Props to the lads and lassies at Browns Lane who in one year received Ford’s highest quality plant award, and were subsequently shut down. That there was anything left for Tata to buy is a miracle. Yet I fear the future may be even worse.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head. Strong unions, an unmotivated workforce, and inept management were the major factors in the demise of the British car (and motorcycle) industry. One thing not spoken about was the lack of "not looking over our shoulder" when it came to the competition brought on by simple arrogance. One legendary example is when the President of BSA/Triumph took delivery of a Honda CB750, the drive chain broke, and he didn't see the Japanese motorcycle industry as a threat after that.
Yet strong unions work well in Germany and France. Our culture of clash and conflict (thriving for 12 years under the current Tory coup) is very different to theirs of cooperation.
Unmotivated work force , inept management... if the managers got their act together, the workers just want a proper share....politics needs to follow solid business leadership not the other way...
Leyland was hopeless, and the Japanese and Germans killed off the rest by making better cars, and cheaper cars. Look at the TR6/7 vs the 240Z. Leyland should have made the mid-engined MG prototype they had on the cards and focussed on lower volume, for higher profit. There's a reason Land Rover and Aston are still around.
@@Comakino Aston Martin has been a curse for its owners since 1923. Not long before its vampire attraction does for Lawrence Stroll either by the look of things! A mass manufacturer without premium brand recognition cannot reinvent itself as a low volume high profit offer. BL arguably had the brands like Jaguar/Rover/MG/Triumph to do what BMW&VW/Audi & gradually increase volume of quality products. ** Unfortunately, BL couldn´t do quality ,particularly not quality in all aspects of the business (TQM) as per the Germans and Japanese. I think there is also a British perception problem of mistaking luxury/exclusivity (based on élitism) and quality (based on value). * * Jaguar is about to find this out with its new strategy to become a luxury brand even though it hasn´t managed to be a serious player in the lower level premium market sector. Clever image protion has to be matched or exceeded by appropriate product, service and some sort of "specialness". Jaguar Land Rover simply don´t have the resources to put themselves there, and wishes fall short of plans.
Really enjoyed the clarity with which this story was arranged and presented. My years in and out of the UK has given me a shorthand in describing British social and economics problems as; "we have a heritage" and "It must be either/or" never considering that it might be 'neither/nor'.
I recently visited the UK from London to Birmingham. It looks frozen in time like Japan. Great and proud empires do not easily give up comfort in favor of modernity. Same with my hometown, too weak and poor to change anything, if it ain't broke don't fix it kind of attitude….
That's because both are heavily developed countries with not much more room to build up plus Brtiain is very traditional & there are laws in place to prevent the destruction of old historic buildings & architecture (which in my opinion is a good thing)
Yes! The comparison with Japan is SO true! Except Japan was so modern during it's heydays that nothing felt old even now. The only thing that gave things away was the browning white fixtures. I left UK 12 years ago and return every 6 years to see my friends. When I went back last year, everything felt delayed and overcapacity. The train services was abysmal and all the highways were gridlocked. I used to think Manchester airport was amazing but it felt terribly designed and rundown now. :(
In 1979 i started an apprenticeship with Lucas Girling, i was 16. In just a few days i was amazed how the workers on the factory floor were taking the piss. Going to the toilets with news papers under there arms, Going to wash there hands half an hour before lunch, going to the toilets for half an hour after lunch. I knew at the age of 16 that this would not end well. I only done 3 years of my apprenticeship, because the factory closed, with a loss of 3000 jobs. Lazy bastards.
Michael, I speak from experience that those negative and harmful to the Nation qualities are still alive and kicking in the UK. Not in what little now remains of the now extinct UK manufacturing of course, but in the Public Sector. Another tells me that many hundreds of Laptops issued to civil servants within one Government agency went missing. Far too much "The Taxpayer must provide" mindset now rife in many areas of the Public Sector. Meantime, EVERYBODY OUT. Where's my tea and biscuits.
Yes i visited the Factory in Koblenz in Germany the difference was Night and Day compared to the UK plant-they worked hard in Koblenz and deserved to succeed
My grandfather worked at the Cowley plant in Oxford in the 50s and 60s and the toxic Unions would strike every day for the slightest things, such as on one day the factory stopped because one side had chocolate biscuits and the other didn't.
Spot on and the very points I have been countering those posting in the press blaming Thatcher. In my youth I was aware of this malaise by my father (a displaced person after the war) asked the owner of the textile factory employing him why he didn't replace the belt drives on his machines with modern electric motors (as in Europe). ''We're OK, we are making profits''. Over those years, 60's - 80's, I'd heard operators offer suggestions to be told ''You are here to work not to think'', and then operators clocking in at the last minute, brew tea, then switch on thie machines. Whilst in Germany and Japan operators arrive in good time to switch on the machine (to warm up), then make coffee and start work ''on the buzzer''. All the large manufacturing sites I'd worked in are now housing estates.
I had a friend that bought a used Jaguar around 2002 and I'm thinking it was a '94 or '95 car, it had a pressure switch that failed on the anti-lock brake system and the only replacement part available was oem. What I thought was a $30 part, cost nearly $600 from Jaguar. He freaked out on the price but coughed up the money to buy it and get the car back on the road. A couple of months later he had something else very expensive fail and he gave up on the car and sold it for next to nothing. The huge parts mark up in the US turned many away from British cars.
I remember in the late Seventies there was a story that the management of FIAT fired an exeptionally lazy worker who did not show up for work for more than 65 percent of the time and that for many months. What happened: The factory workers began a strike for the "poor" coworker! It should be mentionned that the guy was not reallly sick during that time! From what I have heard this willingness to strike was quite the same in the UK and to a certain degree in France as well.
I think a lot of 'stories' exist to create anti-,union narratives. Unions in France and Germany have worked with management to create very effective and efficient companies.
The slaves were rebelling against their masters --and the elite Rulers/Bankers who like parasites feed of the labor of the people by stealing part of the compensation of their labor. They call it TAX - and when NONE of the people volunteered to give any of the compensation away - then it becomes THEFT by the CORPORATE GOVERN MENTAL Elite - on behalf of the BANKER CREDITORS busy with their double ledger book keeping entries - they want to know where THEIR income is coming from -- Those parasites steal the wealth/money from the honest hard working people -- The agents of those parasites are hiding in the House of LORDS wearing wigs made from the hair of a horses ass - The un-elected Black robed devils in the SUPREME COURT scribble the doctrines (Statutes) of the GOVERNMENT religion by which they rule and control the disciples - obedient voters who are the Masses of Slaves -
I saw a similar problem while working on a G.M. assembly line in Baltimore, MD. The U.A.W. was reflexively antagonistic to the company, shielding employees who performed poorly or whose attendance was unreliable. That hurt quality and drove up prices. Union dues come from employee wages which come from company profits. Shortsighted union leaders destroyed jobs.
At the end of the seventies Fiat was in great difficulty with the Unions, but in 1980, 40,000 FIAT employees and executives paraded through the streets of Turin in protest against the picketing that had prevented them from entering the factory for 35 days and was called "Marcia dei 40.000". The demonstration had the direct effect of pushing the Unions to close the dispute with an agreement in favor of FIAT. It is conventionally referred to as the beginning of a radical change in relations between large company and trade unions in the country. This probably saved Fiat from ending up like British Leyland
I worked at a large printing plant in the 1990's. The pres supervisor (one of the most important positions in a large plant) was about 45 and very English working class in accent and mannerisms. I asked him if he ever went back to England and the answer was one time, never again. I asked, "Why?". He said that when he visited that one time that all his friends and colleagues who had anything on the ball had emigrated. Only the losers had stayed in England and he had no sympathy or interest in those left.
Another great article Jack, keep it up. I used to feel offended by foreign ownership but in essence it’s more important that we make components and build cars in the UK rather than worrying about which country owns the shares
Decentralisation was a much bigger issue than Jack makes out. It led to higher costs and lower quality and was the six-inch nail in the coffin. Successive Labour governments from 1944 on energetically promoted "Up the Workers" and set the workforce against the owners. There was a sense of entitlement and the feeling that if the unions didn't get their way, Big Brother would step in and punish the managers.
@@shadeburst Oh! Dear! You really have no idea about human behaviours, have you. I knew a lot of owners who would skin their Grannies for the price of their skins. They expected a workforce to produce shiny new goods in dirty, draughty workshops without decent tools or efficient production methods. Just recall the distain with which the owners treated their workers before the days of unionisation, and how they bitterly opposed any suggestion to provide decent wages, healthcare or even protective working clothes. My goodness, workers' cottages with proper heating, internal plumbing and lighting? Whatever next? Livable wages?? You really have taken on board the right-wing propaganda.
I don't think internal competition being destructive to Leyland while not being so to Volkswagen is necessarily a good comparison. Like you point out Volkswagen has a lot of options, but they are based on a lot of same parts. British Leyland had similar cars competing with each other that didn't have such commonalities, they were just different cars thus there was no cost benefits in production. The big problem as you said was the captive market they enjoyed in the early decades after WW2, they lacked innovation and investment that their competitors had to make since all of mainland Europe was bombed to bits and pieces. It's also hard to blame the workers, the anecdotes can be a bit misleading as it's not necessarily the result of such simple event that a strike was called, it might be something that had built up over time with one of the big things being the trash state of the factories (something investment would've corrected, instead they paid with the losses from strikes which was not beneficial to either party). I think workers in the 90s or these days would get at least as militant as in 70s if they had to endure the kind of conditions and (mis)management that the workers back then had.
It's an absolute tragedy that so many of those great names are no longer with us, especially since in so many cases it was simple human pig-headedness that caused all the issues! Classic example is of course the Triumph Stag, was originally envisaged to use the 3.5l Rover V8 but very early on in the design process Rover said no (allegedly because of the old rivalry between the two companies), so Triumph had to design their own engine from scratch in a fraction of the time they needed - and we know how that went. Could have been one of the all-time great cars, could have been a V8 MX-5 years before Mazda had the idea, but the crap engine let it down. What really annoys me about the whole process is that Austin basically kick-started the Japanese car industry after WW2, with their agreements with Datsun/Nissan (the US did the same with Toyota, and they're not much better off). Austin engineers went to Japan, saw the way they did things there, came home and CHANGED NOTHING. The same thing happened with the motorbike industry, when Triumph, Norton, BSA etc started getting kicked by Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki... maddening that no one thought to do anything about it. (Incidentally, Triumph Motorcycles is entirely British owned. To my knowledge, they're all that's left. 😭) Even worse is that Rover MG could have been amazing, the Rover 75 was an absolutely fantastic car that could eat its German rivals for breakfast - and it failed because Rover had a reputation for unreliability. Which the 75 absolutely was not, but how do you convince people of that? The damage had been done.
In the early 1960th I worked for a Ford dealer in the Netherlands as a 16 year old. My task was to prepare new cars for delivery most either English Cortinas and Germans Taurus' in more or less equal numbers. Th e cars needed a check of all bolts, clamps and completeness of parts . No Cortina was ever without defects or surplus part such as screws or bolts lloose, missing or left over. Floor mats missing, trunks not fully outfitted etc. A clear indication of workers care and pride being insufficient. Never were such incidents encountered in the German Fords. The two cars were identical in size, power and price but incomparable in quality and up to date technology. I always liked the English Fords but after that I would never buy one.
My dad worked in engineering all his life (CNC not for the car industry but did do precision work for F1 for Bennett and Arrows). As an apprentice in the early 70's a place he worked at went on strike one day because the WRONG BISCUITS were put out in the tea room. The manager even apologised and promised the correct biscuits would be delivered for the next day, but no dice. Everyone (except my dad) downed tools. The foreman told my dad to stop work, to which my dad asked: Do you pay my wages? When the guy said 'no', my dad said: Then F off! Dad always hated unions.
Hating unions? Unions are great, ask the unprotected American workers or the zero contract working poor. In Germany, the unions are part of the management in all enterprises. You should hate idiots, be they in unions or the management.
Stavros K. Exactly. But theres a major problem. democracy. If a bunch of idiots are the workforce of a big industry, you can't pretend that the voted union representatives can be better than them. I was an union representative, working in a small mechanical industry (30employee) , but they voted me because I have the balls to fight for having our rights, not for bullshits. There are (were...) many cases here in which unions are committed to save the job of people who deserved to be fired rather than work to let the company run with better rights for the employee.
@@nkelly.9 Henry Ford created the weekend with christian values in mind. Unions only spread them faster in certain areas. Weekends was something that would be as worldwide regarless of unions.
An interesting analysis. The militance of the workforce , a sure contributor to the demise, was crushed by Thatcher during the eighties. The major blame though imho lies with the management of the factories. As long as the founder of a brand was still in full control eg. Sir Lions of Jaguar, he was able to produce cars the likes of the Jaguar E-type after an amazingly short development time. All this for a very competitive market price, meaning that the production proces was very efficient. Management was by common sense and down to earth with a detailed knowledge of all aspects of car design, production, marketing etc. Knowledge acquired by learning on the job and not in a fancy business school. Only when the financial professionals started having the top positions in management instead of the engineers, things started to go down. When the politicians started to meddle with affairs the demise was accelerated. After my recent visit to a Volkswagen plant, I was astonished about the level of engineering involved designing the cars but also the production facilities with ease of assembly in mind. Very little specialised labour force is required for work on the production line. For instance, random students looking for part time jobs are trained very briefly to execute a few simple things and a permanent local quality control ensures that no mistakes are passed on down the line. In the German car industry the engineers are calling the shots. It iseems no coincidence that Bentley and Rolls Royce are German owned nowadays I believe. The British skills of the workers are among the best in the world and the Japanese and Germans are profiting of it, it is the management to blame.
Also I think they made some funny-duddy car designs that once we were out of the 50s and 60s couldn't compete with Italian designs, German and Japanese efficiencies. The only UK cars that stood out were the high end cars. Having said that, had management allowed the designers to do their thing British car designs would have been way ahead of the competition. The Austin Allegro was meant to be a hot hatch. Its design was a good 15 years ahead of its time but management said no and instead, they produced that grandpa design .
Management always had a thing about costs. Everything had to cost nothing but look like a million pounds. That's why British cars always ended up looking a bit strange.
Quality, quality quality. I am a Canadian born in1950 and we had lost of British car in Canada at that time but their quality was poor, poor, poor. There is your answer
Thanks for the history lesson and I've watched the slow decay from 20,000 km from the action. I hope the UK can keep making cars. Australia on the other hand does right hand drive conversions of American SUVs, has a nice line of field machinery and long haul trucks. Keep up the great work Jack.
Good video and well balanced. The story about the trim shop is telling, but to me it reflects more on unprofessional senior management largely composed of old school tie types to whom the notion of including the work force in management decisions, sharing responsibility and the benefits with staff was anathema. They did not innovate or invest in modern production plant. I remember working at a large manufacturing company in the mid 70s which had a machine made in 1916 stamping out steel parts.
I left belfast to work in England in the early seventys in the major construction industry and several times I had to return to Belfast to get workers because the English men were so lazy all they wanted to do was sit down drinking tea
Excellent summary - I don't think it matters too much who owns the brands - so long as the cars are being built here. Rolls and Bentley are making far more cars (and money) than ever before and the cars are really well built.
I know nothing about cars and car manufacturing. But I love your speaking style. You seem perpetually on the edge of delivering a punch line to a joke. And yet you are not telling a joke at all. You just seem very pleased to share your knowledge and thoughts. You also leave the ending conclusions open to the audience in a nice way. I think if you spoke on any topic, it would be similarly charged with the joy of sharing ideas.
Back when I was a mechanic, I had a boss who told me: "the problem with the British car industry was the British class system, the people who designed cars wouldn't talk to the people who built and worked on them; they had great designs but they never fixed any of the problems".
Very interesting video 🙏🏻 The recovering car industry as well as many other industries in the UK will deeply suffer from the worst decision ever, the Brexit. Ordering goods in the UK has become a living nightmare with never ending extra costs, shipping delays and customs hassles. Honestly I try to avoid ordering in the UK as often as possible... 😩
There were multiple factors, I am sure. The British bike industry had obsolete engineering, massive QA issues, poor production techniques and adherence to Whitworth and SAE fasteners , instead of Metric. As mentioned in this article, the British unions had an impact also. The 1969 Honda CB750 was the first inexpensive superbike, and it immediately outclassed and outsold all British bike designs-John in Texas
Your picture of the red E-type woke me up! I had a '67 4.2 E-Type coupe in Nassau Cream. Still the prettiest car I ever owned. It was 4 years old when I got it, sure of many years service. Got "Jagged-out" fast and traded it for a 914 in a year.
The Car Companies you listed in the opening of the video only just covers the tip of the Companies that we once had. It is really sad that we have lost so many Manufactures.
One thing you seem to have not mentioned is the designs and quality of the cars we were producing. I don't recall any of the Leyland brood of cars having a lot of success in terms of quality and design. Apart from the mini of course. My Father was a mechanic and he and mum bought a Datsun when they first started becoming available in the UK. He was very impressed with the quality of the engine and the better and more modern design. He said unless Britain pulled it socks up real quick, our car industry would disappear. So Japanese cars started to become more popular of course. Ford , Peugeot, Audi and BMW pretty much replaced the British car market over the decade.
In 1961, I bought my 1st new car. I really liked the way it looked. It was so fun to drive. It was an MG1100, black, with nice, brick red, soft nuagahyde upholstery. It stopped working with only 6700 miles. It was still under warranty. The dealer couldn't fix it. It sat in the shop for over four months. That engine oiled transmission had burned out. I managed to get the dealer to give me a partial refund. It could have been such a great car.
The problem with internal competition at BL was the duplication of parts design. All the VW group cars use the same engines and platforms. At BL they developed, for instance, the Rover V8 and the Triumph stag V8. This was not the only example that lead to inefficiency. You are correct about the complacency of the management and the them and us attitude which lead to the absurdity of the smelly cat dispute.
That is a much talked about myth. The reality was that when Leyland bought Rover in 1967 both Rover and Triumph were already well down the road with their V8 designs including in tooling up for production. Canceling one would have meant big delays and expense as you retooled one of the production facilities for greater volume (Rover could not build enough V8s as it was for Range Rover and P5/6 let alone supply Triumph). Basically the money had already been spent.
@@grahamariss2111 The Stag V8 was an atrocious piece of work, underpowered and unreliable, which was left to the customer to develop. If the money had been spent, obviously nothing was left over for testing purposes. This was supposed to be a premium car, remember..... in their dreams BL saw the Stag as a competitor for Mercedes SL! Even as a teenager, I couldn´t see where the market could be for the Stag. For all the investment, the Stag V8 died quickly and was not used in any other vehicle, so the entire investment was wasted. On the other hand, I´ve never heard anybody say anything bad about the Buick V8 engine which Rover had simply bought the rights to. Rover designed nothing of that engine but did adapt it to SU carbs and developed it somewhat over the years
Actually, Rover bought the V8 from GM--it was one of a batch of early 1960s designs from GM, which included a OHC 4 used in some Pontiacs, a pushrod OHV 6 (Chevy II/ Holden "red" motor), a cast iron V6 (Buick/Holden Commodore), & an aluminium V8, which became the Rover V8/ Leyland P76 V8.
Your observations on BL, and the short piece on the Rootes Group, are pretty accurate. However, you also need to consider other factors. The Rootes brands were absorbed into Chrysler Europe. The 1970's recessions and energy crises killed Chrysler Europe with the remnants going to Peugeot (becoming Talbot). Interesting that the same happened to GM Europe 40 odd years later (including Vauxhall of course) . Merging aircraft companies into BAC started the death throes of Armstrong Siddeley and Bristol, though it took the latter a few decades to give in to their wounds. Fraser Nash gave up building their own vehicles to sell BMW and then Porsche. My favourite is Lea Francis. They were doing OK until they launched the Lynx. Killed the company stone dead. How they sold 3 is a mystery!
Well said. Note, however, that the Japanese manufacturers had a field day selling small cars in the US when OPEC crimped the pipe and gasoline was hard to buy. UK manufacturers were not ready to move in when the occasion presented.
The same could be said for the British aerospace industry. Promising designs like the BAC TSR.2 and Hawker Siddeley P.1154 got axed, while the Vickers VC-10 sold in smaller numbers than anticipated. No wonder the British aerospace industry were forced into pan-European consortiums (Panavia, Airbus, Eurofighter, etc.) to survive.
@@Sacto1654 Totally agree. BOAC (Boeing Only Aircraft Company) didn't help. Specify a plane through it's development cycle and then say you won't buy it.......
Last time I looked the Toyota plant in Burnaston was the 2nd most efficient car plant in Europe. The 1st most efficient was the Nissan plant in Sunderland. As it happens the latter was also the most efficient car plant in the world. This was a few years ago but well after the 70s. Don't blame the fellers on the shop floor for the failings of their management. "I've spent 30 years going round factories. When you know something's wrong, nine times out of ten it's the management, people aren't being led right. And bad leaders invariably blame the people." ~ Sir John Harvey-Jones R.I.P.
I worked at Austin rover in the 80s, the cars were poor, except for the Honda based ones 213 rovers, I moved to vauxhall and they were totally different, way better, I've got a dealership now and still buy the odd rover 75,mgtf in to retail, just for old times sake.
Pre WW2 it was possible to sell poor quality out of date products to the old colonial countries. No pressure to invest. Post WW2 they never got to grips with the rapidly changing market and thought they could carry on in the outdated factories that were totally inadequate for the task. The militant workforce did not help but probably would not have been influenced by the left wing activists if there had been a better plan in place.
The left wing activists were the government themselves. Being of British descent myself I wonder when the Japanese and Germans started manufacturing in the UK if there wasn't a feeling that these guys don't put up with s**t.
In the late forties and early fifties English cars and motorcycles were state of the art. I know, I owned examples of both cars and motorcycles. The Austin A40 overhead valve four was a great engine in 1947 but decidedly long in the tooth by 1977. That was the trouble. You are correct about the unions and left wing activists. But the products were all right in their day and time. The trouble was the industry did not move with the times, they did not improve their plant or product, I believe because they did not make enough profit to reinvest thanks to grasping unions and government that saw the industry as an inexhaustible cash cow.
During WWII one of the senior British manufacturing officials came to the US and took a tour of US factories. The one thing he immediately noticed was that he never saw a vise on the floor of a US factory. British factories had a LOT of them as the parts did not fit well and had to be made to fit. The "hand made" reputation of British cars, etc, may have not been to make a better, more custom vehicle, but because they had to be as the parts all had to have a bit of hand work done to make them fit.
I think that there were definitely issues with labour, but that they were secondary to the issues with engineering and manufacturing processes. British cars either were saddled with components held over from twenty or thirty years prior and built on old tooling, or they tried too hard to have one moonshot technology to wow buyers (like hydragas or hydrolastic suspension) while still lacking in the fundamentals. One example is the Mini and Issigonis's odd engineering choices that seem to have propagated through the range. Yes, it was an overall packaging marvel, but it had quite a few flaws too. For one, there is a reason that gearboxes and engines don't share a common oiling system. The lubrication requirements of the two components are very different, and separating them means that a failure of one does not kill the other. It also had a very poor radiator placement (to the side pulling air from the wheelwell where it lacks natural airflow at speed and also can get clogged with mud), and baffling suspension designs with either rubber cones or interconnected hydrolastic (why this was needed on a cheap economy car I don't know). Plus, the tiny wheels were known to kill tyres in very few miles. The car also lacked adequate planning for corrosion protection in it's design with poor drainage of accumulated moisture helping to rot them out in short order. However, at least it was easy on the eyes, unlike some other BL monstrosities like the Allegro! Going back to the engines, BL kept the same engines in production for over 30 years and could never figure out how to keep them from leaking. This wasn't even the fault of the designs either as Datsun produced a variant of the old BMC B series right up through the 70's that managed to be better and more reliable than the original! The thing is, when the Japanese had a design flaw, they would quickly engineer a solution to it whereas the British would just ignore it and pretend it was fine. Also, the Japanese electrical systems were just better. Investing in the little things like good quality electrical components are why Toyota stays a market leader to this day and why companies like GM continue to lose market share. At the end of the day, reliability builds consumer confidence and flashy features only work to get press in the short term. BL, like GM today, just didn't seem to understand how important the unseen parts are.
Our railways suffered the same fate. Bad management underfunded pushed around by the government’s during the postwar period and as they weren’t completely annihilated they stayed out of date and twenty years behind.
2004 sale to BMW?
1994, was a slip of the tongue
They sold an already dead man!
I noticed this, BL sold to BA in 1988, and then 6y later... in 2004?? Oh Jack 😂
Ford Halewood, supported by government but Longbridge/ Cowley not?
1994 ... and overall BMW lost $3 billion from the decision.
Having worked in the uk automotive industry (bikes and cars) in the 90s, having come from New Zealand I was astounded by the poor management of staff in the uk. Workers were often treated like shit, very much a reflection of the English class structure. Two examples; a boss telling me off for walking too slowly across the car park to work, even though I wasn't late to work. Another boss yelling at me for receiving a private email to my work address, saying staff had all been told not to, then admitting to other managers that he hadn't done that, and of course me never getting an apology. Just trivial muscle flexing. It put me off working in the UK.
A very good observation, you could always tell which companies had the worst management by how strong they union was.
Management were invariably treated like s**t by the workers. It was entirely mutual.
I worked on an IT project in the UK in the early 90s and had the same observation. Coming from a basically classless society (Canada), it was an eye-opener to see how poorly the lowest people on the totem pole were treated.
@@shadeburst Indeed, but the justifications can be found in the hands which held the reins - the management, not the workers. "Give a dog a bad name..."
Shit treatment of a workforce results in shit product and the distain with which many major employers regard their employees is despicable.
That class structure is gone and replaced with the liberal professional class.
I think this applies to the whole country. Great Britain is stuck in the past. I am Polish and when I came to this country 24 years ago. The development of this country used to impress me, but over time it impressed me less and less. Today I am coming to Poland to visit my family and I have the impression that my country is developing extremely fast compared to the UK. New highways, new shopping centers, new housing estates. Everything to measure the current times, modern - meeting current standards. Meanwhile, I haven't noticed any big changes in the UK. The old supermarkets as they were 20 years ago are still the same. The same gas stations outdated and not renovated for years. Stantarts of residential houses straight from the Victorian era. I have the impression that the UK, instead of developing, is slowly collapsing. This country is turning into a Victorian open-air museum.
Old, tired, general folks getting poor, elite keep to hold on to the old money and thinking.
I came to the UK more than 50 years ago.from the Netherlands.We are at a standstill in the UK.Any sensible young person get out whilst you can.
There has been a massive change in the British people over the past few decades. Now well past my 80th birthday, those many changes seen have saddened me There was a time when just about everybody pulled their weight fully and both they and the Nation benefitted. My Polish and Afro-Carribean friends of thirty years mentioned ages ago that they had seen the changes and decline. They believe that uncontrolled immigration has in fact worsened the overall situation. They are right of course. The nation should have been far more selective in who they allow in. Nothing to do with race as many "activists" want the rest of us to believe, but those who would clearly benefit this Nation with their skills and attitudes would be welcome.
Not now. The wide-open door policy clearly allows the good, the bad and the downright harmful to the Nation free access at huge cost to the taxpayers under so called freedom of movement. Nothing to do with the EU IN-OUT referendum as many would have us believe. This was ongoing long before June 2016.
That British "Right Stuff" quality which enabled this nation to overcome adversity, survive and thrive has been much depleted in recent decades. Many see our ongoing decline as both assured and deserved.
Only in the land of the increasingly self-inflicted.
There are now FOUR Chinese built MGs down my street. EVs or hybrids. Neighbours speak favourably of them. Others have reasons to never buy Chinese product. They are usually the ones who have a VW, BMW or other German stuff in their garages. My response. Those German cars were almost certainly built by the grand and great grand children of the German folks who tried to eliminate me and my family in London's East End back in the 1940s.
Funny old game folks and cars. I recently drove my friend's good-looking BMW 4-Series coupe. It was OK but I was not impressed. In fact it was nowhere near as a nice a place to be and drive as my now old MG ZEDS. I was pleased to be reminded of this when I got back into my ZT. His previous Stuttgart product cost more to repair than I paid for my MG ZS 120 new back in 2003. There was a time when he reminded me at every opportunity.
"You cannot beat German engineering and reliability John"
He never does that now. For good reasons. Thirteen thousand of them.
That's because Poland began from such a low level of development it can easily modernise. Countries like Britain have the issue of replacing old infastructure with new.
@@G96Saber indeed, a much slower and costlier endeavour
in the 80's, I remember taking my 10 yr old mud brown Morris 1100 to the mechanics with an electrical problem. He had a look over the circuits, trying to find the fault. "What about the fuse box in the boot", I asked. "Could that be the problem?" "What fuse box? There's no fuse box in the boot!" So I took him around and pointed to the brown-painted box at the back of the boot. "That one", I said. He grabbed a screwdriver and started to prise the box away from the surface and then I spotted it on the underside; "Players Please" Not a fusebox but a ten-pack of cigs (there were still two inside it). Someone left them in the boot and the next guy just spray-painted over them!
😂😂😂
🤣🤡😂
My uncle had a 70's Morris took us to elementary School
Ran well had it for over thirty years
I've heard that story a few time, the car differs and the time, but never the manufacturer. Allegro wasn't it?
That's the kind of problem Boeing now has with their unionized workers. They just leave tools and other crap in the wings and other parts where they then fly around and then break important lines.
I'll say one nice thing about the British car industry - the British motorcycle industry was worse.
That was my first thought too. I remember when I used to get MCN back in late seventies early eighties, there was something about the soap opera that was Triumph every week it seemed.
Sadly BSA,Triumph,Royal Enfield,AJS are all built elsewhere nowadays..Truly Sad..
Triumph? They have brought production back to the UK due to soaring demand. Norton have restarted bike manufacture in the UK.
@@darthninja1 No the Rocket is the only Triumph made in the UK,the rest come from other parts of the world.
@@darthninja1 I was posting about what happened 40 odd years ago
When I worked at Ford we were all told the story of the Austin Mini and how Ford could not understand how Austin could market the car at such a cheap price. Ford brought one took it back to their Headquarters were they striped the car completely and priced every part down to nuts and bolts at manufacturers prices to their surprise they worked out Austin were selling every Mini at around a £250.00 loss per car, which might explain the downfall of the Mini
That's one of the reasons Ford took so long to get a small car to market. They finally worked out how to make a profit and released the Fiesta.
VW strategy is to sell the car at a loss and clean up bigly on spares.
@@garethonthetube curiously, I own a running and driving 1980 Fiesta in the USA! Not many left....LOVE that little thing!
@@garethonthetube idk, those old Ford T models are pretty small
Jon Theodie
FORD not Ford
Ford was the man who started the FORD MOTOR CORPORATION
Another Ford with the given name of Gerald became a President
of The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Inc.
You have failed to educate yourself and learn that ALL CORPORATE
names are in the ALL CAPS iteration.
You were successfully programmed to be a ZOMBIE and not pay attention
to detail
ZOMBIES have eyes but cannot see - ears and cannot hear.
Study where the word CORPORATION comes from.
Undertake extensive reading program to better educate yourself.
You can educate yourself at minimum cost.
You can do it when you are not mentally lazy.
Start paying attention to detail.
I live in Canada. In the early 80's I ran an import company. I contacted the Range Rover management to discuss importing the Range Rover into N. America. I received a terse reply saying studies had shown there was no market possibilities in N. America and Range Rover had no plans to export to N. America... Good move Range Rover.
I can believe it!
Wow
Running car companies with accountants (e.g. Lord Stokes) rather than engineers was bound to fail. It would be interesting to look at decline of US car industry too.
The original Mini was an engineering and design marvel. I don't recall that Lord Stokes was an accountant, I thought he was a marketing/sales guy. Famously, Ford are said to have pulled a Mini apart, worked out the Bill Of Materials, and concluded that Austin/Morris/BL lost money on every Mini they sold. So they ( Ford ) continued on selling cars with cart springs on the back, that made a profit.
US story is pretty much the same: too many brands, bean counters running the show. Only difference is government did not make things worse
Don't know, bmw is doing pretty good
Running ANY company with accountants would be a disaster!
@@jamesstuart3346 you are absolutely spot-on. Lack of focus on engineering (making money by cutting-down on costly bits) - led to the collapse of once-well-known brands like Cadillac
I worked in the UK for about a year in the late 1990s. The experience I had as a North American working for a British company was fine but this is what I remember all these years later:
1. The office (almost literally) shut-down around 2:00 pm for a tea break. As a non-tea-drinker, I observed this daily ritual with no small amount of amazement. Every day a different employee was designated to make the tea and the rest of the staff would socialize during the 15 minutes the tea was prepared. When the employee returned with a tray of cups of hot tea and milk/sugar, there was always an exclamation of genuine delight from the waiting staff, like they were bringing in a birthday cake. Then the tea-drinking and socializing commenced. This entire process was usually 30-40 minutes and while enjoyable, totally ended whatever momentum had been going on in the office. From 3-5 pm, production slowed noticeably.
2. British workers were punctual at arriving and leaving the office. At 5 pm, the office was completely empty regardless of deadlines. I never saw any midnight oil being burned in that office.
3. A class system was definitely in place, based largely on where you were from, what your accent was, and where you went to school. As a North American I was kind of unaffected by it but it was very clear that if you didn't speak right/have the right background, you would only go so far in the company and society in general.
4. There were several staff members who had very little to do. I am not saying they were lazy -- the work just wasn't there. So they came in ready to work but there was little to do. Nevertheless, the management seemed to want to avoid the awkwardness and bad feeling of firing them so they never did.
This company no longer exists. If that company was representative of the typical British company, then I am amazed that anything gets done in the UK at all.
@@mybrotherkeeper1484 I agree, brother!
@@mybrotherkeeper1484 Why should your little imaginary friend have anything to do with it?
@@AllenManor Please don't encourage people who are suffering from mental illness
@@edeledeledel5490 How do you know this person is suffering from mental illness?
@@AllenManor Belief in god is evidence enough for me to deduce that they are mentally incapacitated in some way.
What went wrong? Well, let's see. Back in the 1970's I was a bit of an odd duck among my friends. While they were buying Mustangs, Cameros, and various and sundry other muscle cars I was completely enamored with English roadsters. My first Spitfire was used and was a real dog. Remember, that at that time, Triumph's sales slogan for the type was, "You always remember your first Spitfire." I will certainly always remember mine. Especially the way it looked, all torn down to pieces parts on the floor of my garage as I rebuilt the engine, transmission, and of course the electrical system. But, hey, it was used, so, I thought, I must have simply inherited someone else's problem. Right? Well, after a couple of years, I dumped it and picked up an MGB.
That car was the epitome of reliability. No matter what you did, that car could be relied upon to leave you stranded on the side of the road. So, after a couple years of spending more time under the "Bonnet" than behind the wheel, I dumped it and bought a brand-new Spitfire.
It was sexy, seductive, and promised great performance, and it delivered on all of that. It was, indeed, sexy, seductive, and had great performance, both days of the week it was running. Within two weeks of driving it off the showroom floor it had so many problems that I finally took it to a Virginia vehicle inspection station and paid to have it run through the inspections. It failed miserably. Only with the failed inspection in hand could I get the dealer to finally admit that there was an issue with the vehicle and make the necessary repairs sufficient to license the thing as safe to drive on the road.
But once the repairs by the dealer were complete, I must say that I could completely depend on that vehicle. From Virginia, to Florida, to California, to Texas, to Rhode Island and finally to Maryland (I was in the Navy at the time and moved a lot) I could completely depend on that car to break down in the middle of the hottest desert (Death Valley to be specific), the coldest blizzard (Donner Pass, no kidding), the wettest weather (Hurricane Frederick, look it up) or at the most inopportune time, like in the middle of the Oakland Bay bridge at rush hour. Side Note: I spent 23 years in the Fleet, and never heard obscenities, and blasphemies so masterfully hurled about as when the residents of the whole San Francisco Bay area slowly worked their way around my sexy, seductive and lifeless Spitfire that evening.
So what went wrong? I'm not sure about tea and biscuits, but perhaps the fact that the vehicles being turned out by the British industry at that time were rubbish had something to do with it.
Still, at this moment I have a '78 Spitfire in my garage, in its natural state, i.e., torn down to parts, and scattered all over the floor. I suppose after all these years I can only surmise that owning a British roadster is like being in a destructive relationship. You know that they are no good, but they are so damned sexy and seductive.
A yank here, you have seen a lot and driven thousands of miles. From thousands of feet high at Donner, to dropping down into death valley, wow! For a navy man you do get around.
That was quite an enjoyable and well told story. Thank you 👍
Sorry to hear that you spent so much time stranded, due to breakdowns, though!
This reminds me...
In the mid 1970s a chap in a neighboring apartment had a Triumph GT6. At least one day each month he had to give it a wrench massage. When he moved, he left the car behind.
hahaha, that was an entertaining read, thank you!
Sounds just like my experience. In 1978 I bought a nine-year-old Spitfire Mk III. It was pretty rough (backs of seats ripped out, what looked like a line of bullet holes down the side, etc.) but it was cheap and it was fun to drive when it ran. After a year, I decided I really liked driving the car but needed one that was more reliable, so I bought a brand new 1979 Spitfire 1500. That's when I discovered the problem with my '69 was not that it was an OLD English car, but that it was an old ENGLISH car. The new one was just about as bad, though in different ways.
Never mind labor or management, this car suffered from terrible engineering. I will mention two things in particular: first, some genius had put the catalytic converter right under the carburetor, which meant the fuel boiled (and the car sputtered and died) whenever I was stuck in slow-moving traffic. Second, the electronic ignition system developed a seizure disorder shortly after warranty ran out: it couldn't take the heat (the module was located inside the distributor housing), and after an increasingly short distance there would be no spark, the electric tach would drop to zero, and I'd try to coast to a safe place until it cooled. I took it back to the dealer, who offered to sell me a replacement module... but he warned that they ALL failed that way after a year or so. Instead, I traded it in at a Dodge dealer close enough to my home that the car would get through his trade-in test drive without having a seizure.
These problems were not the fault of labor, and really not of management either; these were just terrible engineering decisions. And they were things that should have been obvious to the people designing the cars.
Sigh. The Spitfires (especially the second one) were seductive and sexy, and I still miss the way the transmission shifted in the second one. I still kinda miss mine.
Production manager for Dunlop told me a few years ago that when a Japanese company were given a tour of their facilities they were appalled to find the machines for making the tyres pre dated WW2 . They were totally worn out and the tyres produced were not true and round ! The Japanese still purchased Dunlop and completely modernised the facilities. I asked the manager where the not quite round tyres went . Guess where ? British Leyland . They took any old rubbish as long as it was super cheap . So there was never any pressure at the time for Dunlop to modernise
I can relate to your comment. I worked in a factory in the 1970s where we had three lathes. The newest one was a 1939 model - it had the year stamped on a plate - and the guys working on them were proud of their age as if it was evidence of British machine tool quality. Their age showed as well, it took a lot of skill to get any precision out of these machines.
I later moved to Germany to work there and there wasn't a machine in the workshop older than 5 years. I dared not tell the Germans what we Brits used in our workshops for fear of embarrassing myself.
@@mikethespike7579 And i bet the managers were making a lot of money instead of investing in modernizing the company.
@@CFITOMAHAWK Oh, I could till you a few stories related to the behaviour management during my time working in British industry that made me understand the value of unions, even militant ones.
Many moons ago, a Japanese friend came to the UK on a visit, Built like a Sumo wrestler, the suspension in my MG nearly maxed out when I picked him up. He had a factory tour of the admirable Soichiro Honda's Complex. He noted some of the machine tools there were manufactured in the UK's Black Country.
Back in the day, some of the now well-known Japanese Motor Cycle manufacturers started making nut and bolt copies of British Motor Cycles like my BSA Super Rocket and others.
Today, you can still buy a new Royal Enfield Motor Cycle, formerly arms manufacturer based in Redditch UK. Made in the Indian Sub-Continent now. Also modern day versions of the BSA Gold Star which do not look very Gold Star like to my old minces. Saw one parked in my local supermarket car park. If I were younger and fitter, I'd be very tempted to ride again.
In one of the machine shops were I worked in the 1970s were machines with registration plates attached that said "property of the Ministry of Aviation Supply" they were given to the company during WW2 when it was a shadow factory making parts for Spitfires and the like. Also there was one machine which had a plate that had the manufacturers name and address of "Adolf Hitler Strasse, Berlin", so that would have been bought before 1939 and still in use in 1974
John Surtees the champion rider of the 1950s and 1960s told the management at Norton Motorcycles that he felt he could win the world championship on a Norton with company support. The answer after a couple of days was that yes they thought he could do that but the problem would be that he would then earn more than a director of Norton. He then rode for MV Agusta in Italy.
How many races did the director win……
I think most of the trouble with motorbikes was that they were building their own scaffold. The engineers, mechanics, and riders put their best efforts in to make the bike faster. The end result was that their young hero was killed in a crash. Might as well join the hippies.
Honda was at a GP motorcycle race. They needed a different gear ratio. A new gearbox arrived overnight (with the correct ratios). It would have taken a British factory team 6 months to change a gear ratio. It may have been Surtees who told that particular story.
@@disillusionedanglophile7680 Ya, if this happens in Canada, former British colony, it will take 6+1 months.
@@jcjko5504 I say this has more to do with how the system is set up. If you have an machine shop for racing and experimental stuff and racing has an priority I imagine you can modify an gearbox fast.
For production lines 6 months is reasonable.
Now many car companies don't make their own engines, guess the same is true for gearboxes, in that case again 6 months is fast
Do you want an cheap engine, an fuel efficient who don't pollute much or an powerful one.
Yes thank you, I want all three, it has an cost as in billions in development and this is an recurring cost because you keep improving.
I worked in the UK for 8 years. The phrase that stood out to me on the production floor was "good enough". It was like a mantra for them.
I’ve always put it down to culture. Britain seems to be great at inventing stuff in a shed, but terrible at transforming it into a healthy business model. In a philosophical sense, I can only applaud that. Arts and crafts, yea! In an economical sense, ouch. Very much ouch. And why would it be otherwise? Here is a young chap, some Colin Chapman, engineer and inventor, suddenly CEO of a car making factory, burdened with marketing issues, HR management and factory planning. Yeah. That’s his talent alright. He just wanted to make exciting little runabouts. It’s basically the Syd Barrett story: he just wanted to make music, and there came the industry
I knew a guy who had started his career working for Morgan. The factory was a number of sheds. Mechanics pushed each chassis from one shed to another for the next stage of manufacture. The factory was located on a steep hillside and... the production flow was from the bottom shed to the highest.
@@shadeburst Aston Martin used to be something like that, until the early 90’s. Scariest ride of its lifetime for any Aston was the engine being ferried on a trolly, to meet the chassis in a building across the road. I imagine they had lollypop ladies
That happens every where every time.
Syd Barrett fried his brain with psychedelics. Also, the success of Pink Floyd probably came from his replacement with David Gilmour, who pulled the band away from the space rock direction. Be Careful with that Axe Eugene vs. Shine on You Crazy Diamond.
@@shadeburst
Industrial madness as highlighted by Sir John Harvey-Jone's Troubleshooter TV series!
My first job was as an apprentice mechanic at a BL / Jag dealer, one day a brand new cortina MK 3 came in, it was like looking at something from outer space.
the BL products were thrown together items from the previous decades where the Ford was all shiney and new.
it was the same with bikes, i had several BSA,s but when all my friends got Japanese bikes, i had to admit defeat and get something that was relaible and didnt leak all over the floor.
hate to say it but my current car was made in korea
From a bikers point of view in the early 70’s, we all knew the score and nearly everyone bought Japanese.
I rode a BSA motorcycle in Germany.
I just swapped the amal carburetor and installed a mikuni carburetor.
Because of the vibration, the fenders often had to be welded.
Otherwise the bike is good and reliable.
Now making a triumphant comeback with the Royal Enfield only it's made in India !
@@robertmalinowski4887 i had several BSA,s, the weak point on most British bikes were the electrics, Joe Lucas wasnt known as the prince of darkness for nothing
@@billbogg3857 yea, i was tempted to get one but i dont bounce so well these days :-)
My family lived in England from 1954-57, where my Father was a U.S. Army engineer whose unit was involved in lengthening runways at air bases in order that they could handle strategic bombers like the B-47 and B-52. Dad would become really irritated when they were conducting a concrete pour and the civilian British concrete truck drivers would just stop and have tea when the pour was right in the middle of completing a section and it was important to pour the entire section while the concrete was wet so that it would bond and set well. Dad also bought a Morris Minor mini station wagon while we were there. He did have a few problems with the car and he said there was no sense of urgency among the repair people to get the car on the road. The car was shipped back to small town Oklahoma, where at one point it made the local news when Oklahoma State University students asked Dad to let them see how many people they could cram inside the car...........Believe it or not they got 17 people inside that car...not children either!
in 63 there was a derelict MM wagon in a yard next to our park in S. San Gabriel and my dad, a lifelong mechanic that could get ANY vehicle going, took a look at buying it. And turned away!
Given the average size of modern day 'Mericans, seventeen now would not be possible. PAAAAARP! ... 🤣
Yes I had a morris minor it was a sturdy british car could handle a lot of load, n good running.
Your dad loved that car so much he paid to ship it back to the states? Wow
I was an apprentice mechanic in the late 60s and trained as a panelbeater in the mid 70s. I well remember the deliberate problems caused by the lazy and militant workers. The number of hours I had to waste stripping out the seats and carpets of cars to remove nuts and bolts which had spitefully dropped into chassis members beggars belief.
Fit and finish, along with good even close lines were an alien concept to many of them.
I agree, though, with your verdict on the management (or should that be miss-management?) issues.
Great video, Jack.
Thank you Eddie and interesting to hear from someone who went through it all!
In normal company that kind of worker would take one warning and if he wont complay he would be fired. Looks like it's problem with unions too.
And it never occurred to you to ask why they behaved in this spiteful way: no sir, you just blamed it all on the guy who did it.
@@LordOfLight who the hell else should I blame? Some innocent person spent a huge percentage of their disposable income on a new car, with the expectation of reliability and quality, and this tosser destroyed his dreams because he was having a bad day. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest his nether regions, and yours for sympathising with him.
@@eddiewake2416 You're a fool. Worse, you're a self-indulgent fool. You like blaming this guy. I know better than to argue with fools; I'll let life work its magic on you and one day you'll cease to be a fool. The bad news is there is much pain for you between now and then. Goodnight.
I never forget the smartest history professor I ever had at university. She made a bold statement saying: "After WW2 the infrastructure in Germany was completely destroyed. That forced the Germans to built the entire industry from scratch (a thing the Marshall plan made possible). In the meantime the British could and did produce things in more oldfashioned and often outdated factories. This turned out the be a disadvantage on the long run.
Factories in Germany were much more modern and efficient. And one heavy factor was of course the loss of the colonies that had made Britain a strong and rich empire" .
This explanation a good one, yet I feel it is only partly true.
Just look at the Soviet-occupied zone in Germany that would become the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949: The Soviets dismantled numerous industrial plants in their occupation zone that were undamaged or partly damaged and relocated them to the USSR. This was done as part of the reparation programme, so the GDR after 1949 had to build industrial plants from scratch to get their industrial production going again. This lead to the interesting situation that in the 1950s and 1960s the plant-based industry of the GDR was doing well, even by western (capitalist) standards, but the inherent flaws of the socialist/communist centrally planned economy meant that, as time went on, more and more funds had to be channeled into maintenance and modernisation to keep the plants going, money that the GDR didn’t have, which meant that modernisation of existing plants in many parts effectively came to halt.
Yes, modern equipment is important, but equally important is, you has got to have money to modernise and keep your means of production up to date, otherwise your factories that were once state of the art are going to be outdated after a couple of years.
@@ngw1976 Agree. It seems simplistic to say that Germany and Japan were funded into a position where they could take advantage over the actual winners of WW2. Italy was also in the same position and did equally well 1950-1980 (then lost its mojo). There were a good 15 years when that wasn´t the case and UK was still massively ahead of the game. If you think Coventry and London got bombed, take a look at cities in Germany. Japan didn´t even have roads, let alone a car industry in 1945. This without talking about massive psychological effect of living in a world where your beliefs have been shown to be criminal lies.
In most manufacturing sectors, UK has failed to invest since WW2. Large family-owned businesses have been sold off with nothing for the workers or communities who built the companies or communities in which they where based. Compare that with VW, where the local state has ownership and a veto, or ZF where the F is for Friedrichshafen´s continued role in the company. They depend on each other. BMW & Daimler have their basis still in the ownership of families who will not sell, the huge Japanese companies which include the car sector are similarly based on ancient family businesses and local loyalty.
There are still car factories in the UK, but as we have seen, foreign ownership means that UK plants are more vulnerable to closure than home plants. Even the marketing importance of being perceived as British isn´t looking great for long-term futuer of Cowley plant.
@@martinrichardhorrocks9869 Agree. Regarding the British car industry, I'm inclined to think that the decline set in when, under pressure from foreign car companies trying to gain a foothold in the British car market, British Leyland was established. The idea, if I'm not mistaken, was that by forming one "happy company", the various brands like Jaguar, Rover, MG, Austin etc. would remain competitive and profit from synergies in the field of technical development and part sharing. What looked good on paper turned out to be disastrous. You, no doubt, are more familiar with this "malaise era" than I am, but my family witnessed the "build quality" of BL cars first hand.
My dad owned a 1978 Jaguar XJ6 4.2litre. Even nowadays he is regaling me with tales of how unreliable that particular car was. Design-wise the XJ II series looked - and still looks - great, but the electrical systems were shoddy and the engine had a tendency to overheat, especially when he driven at high speeds on the German autobahn. We always had a 10l canister of water in the boot to refill the cooling system, and our holiday tours to Bavaria where my grandparents lived were always planned with making sure which places along the route had BL dealerships/garages. Ah, "merry" auld times. 😁
After the XJ II my father bought a XJ40 which was considerably better, but in 1999 he switched to a BMW 740i (E38), which he kept for a 17 years. Wonderful car, the best-looking 7 series in my opinion, and the car never let us down. 😉
@@ngw1976 gdr didn't get Marshall plan funds...big difference
Just another excuse. The Brits still had a 10 year head start. The workforce is generally lazy, envious, and too class conscious.
Everything they touch turns to shit.
Visited UK in the 1970s. I experienced bad employee attitudes. Our flight was delayed. The bus driver, who was supposed to pick us up, walked off work without telling his office at the end of his work day. Our tour leader had faxed the bus company from New York to forewarn them of our delay, but we were left out to dry. The bus company did not know the driver was MIA, so they just kept telling us that our bus would arrive sometime soon. After waiting at Heathrow for over 2 hours, our tour leader had to call another bus company to pick us up.
Same story today in Germany and USA
I worked in the British motor industry from 1969 to 1973, for a component manufacturer,we also had a factory in a depressed area at Resolven in South Wales ,a former mining village, frquently problematic as a lack of a suitable workforce. The Leyland problem was largely as you identified complacency along with aggressive unions, incompetent management & government interference simultaneously. It should also be taken into account that Donald Stokes was a Marketing man & a Labour supporter contraindicated for an engineering concern, additionally there was infighting amongst the various inherited companies & the company was never properly restructured,it had 45 plants in the U.K alone,additionally it neglected its overseas subsidiaries. Michael Edwardes was little better as although his family was in the motor trade,they had a successful motor repair business in Port Elizabeth ,South Africa.I doubt that would help much in a manufacturing environment . Iworked a further 20 years in the motor industry in S.A. & met many people from the U.K. motor industry who often had interesting stories to tell.
What a story. Did you work for BMW in SA? I know they made a few cars there
@@Comakino No. l worked very briefly for Datsun/Nissan (a bad mistake), then for just over 20 years for VW. I did look at BMW ,but was not impressed by their methods. All the manufacturers her in those these produced shoddily made vehicles. I bought a 1971 built Rover 3500 shortly after arriving here. I spent the next 20 years sorting out build problems on it,Leyland’s build quality was appaling. I still have today in running order.
That´s a fair analysis, Alan. And you´ve not said everything.....
Good story. I would disagree regarding Michael Edwardes though, he was experienced in running big companies by the time he became BL Chairman. He brought in a lot of reforms that at the time saved the company, though some were not popular. There were cheap and quick fixes (e.g. turning the Princess into the Ambassador and the Marina into the Ital) to buy time until the newer models came out and rationalised/streamlined the model range. He also stood up to the unions, and focused on the core car/vehicle making business by getting rid of companies in the group like Prestcold (a refrigeration business). Had he been given longer by Maggie Thatcher, it would have got better still. His book is well worth reading.
@@robincook3367 I accept that Michael Edwardes did achieve some improvements. I believe he came from Exide batteries ,but the manufacture of these is simple compared to something like a motor vehicle. My point is that to manage a company producing an engineering product it is a requirement to understand engineering. I worked in the motor industry for 25 years & saw the results of this & I maintain that it is the main reason the German companies are successful. A classic example of a company failing through lack of an engieering orientated head is General Motors, John De Lorean predicted this in his book when the first finance man became head.
The Japanese had huge success with automotive manufacturing because Edward Deming went over there after the war and helped them streamline their production (he was a brilliant Industrial Engineer and developed most of the Just In Time manufacturing methods used today.)
Out of the Crisis, Deming's book. Great read.
Deming was responsible for statistical quality control. Toyota pioneered Just in Time in the 80s.
@@capmidnite It had to run concurrently with Just In Case. I remember a buyer at Honda UK telling me he kept a large bag of a certain circlip under his desk just in case the just in time stock did not arrive on time. One problem was getting past the trucks queuing up outside a factory ensuring their load got in at the correct time, just in time as there were penalties for being late. When all your suppliers surround the main plant JIT is fine. When the supplier is at the other end of the world, on the UK road system rather a lot of variables come in to play.
Thank you for mentioning Deming he never gets the respect he deserves. If the Americans had taken his theories to hart I wouldn’t have 3 Hondas and a Toyota in my driveway
@@rogerthat117 It also helped that the Japanese had fuel efficient cars in the 70s when the Oil Crisis hit. Japanese cars imported to the USA in the 70s and early 80s were prone to rust out easily, even though the rest of the car was reliable.
Not just tea and biscuit. Before NUMMI, the GM manufacturing plant at Fremont, Calif., was replete with problems, from negative attitudes to high percentages of rejected cars. Sex, drugs, alcohol and gambling were prevalent daily activities, right on the site. The animosity between labor and management was so deep that assembly line workers’ way of fighting management was to sabotage the cars at the line, leaving parts or Coke bottles inside the doors or omitting a few screws, etc.
I recall listening to a podcast several years ago on This America Life about the troubles at that plant and it was horrific.
The production lines at Fremont seldom stopped, and when mistakes were made cars continued down the line with the expectation that they would be fixed later. I feel for the people who bought a car made there.
sounds like a great job when can i get hired !
End of the day that’s crap management. If you can’t manage your workers, it’s definitely your fault. Other people can, so why can’t you? Too much credence is given to management and not enough blame. They’re there to manage workers correctly, if they can’t do it they’re crap, end of story. Anything that goes wrong is a result of bad management - management are there to manage and control the workforce. If they fail, the company fails. Blame the management,
My dad's stepfather was a Glaswegian in Coventry, working in manufacturing and a hard-line union man. He told me he'd rather a company went out of business than the union lose a strike.
Coventry was the Motor City of the UK. So many people worked at 'the Jag' or 'the Alvis'. Until they didn't.
Was he a distant relation of Arthur Scargill by any chance?
It's what scares me, I was young but remember the 1970's, it wasn't a good time. The industries were destroyed but its happening again, the only thing now its the public sector unions who have the power.
Underlining my life's experience that unions exist solely for the benefit...of Unions
I agree with him. My reasons?
If a company cannot survive unless it's to the detriment of a person, I believe that a persons life is far more important. Think of it this way - a company survives but it kills people - you can see the problem surely? Imagine going to work and being worse off than if you'd stayed at home or taken another job elsewhere. If a company cannot survive then it should indeed close down because the business plan clearly does not work. Yes - the same should apply today and it would be thousands of them but government subisdise peoples wages. Why on Earth should an outsider (the public through taxes) line the pockets of others for their very bad business plan? A business should be strong and not so weak that it requires government help. Yes jobs are important but why on Earth should things be subsidised by others?
How did it get this way? An inept and weak government that's why. Governments are too intertwined with businesses and so pander them. Classic examples currently include the NHS where it's staff are for the most very badly paid. Managers are on superb wages. Why? Why should such a business plan (and it is ran as a business) exist, even in a government ran business? Wages have been allowed to fall and fall to the point where they require government help. Wages so low that if they instead became unemployed their lifestyle would improve. 40% of British workers are on support benefits.
There are strong British companies that do not require government help with wages for staff. ALL companies should be like that.
Yeah - I'm old enough to remember the boom times. The days when just one in a household worked and yet their (unsupported) wages paid for everything and even for holidays. It was all killed off by inept governments.
In my experience management styles get the unions they deserve. Enlightened, progressive companies (there have been a few) get moderate unions or sometimes no unions at all. Badly run concerns with draconian or outdated management styles get militant unions. When dogmatic and ideologically driven government is involved you can expect fireworks.
If you have ever worked for the old school union system with “Shop Stewards” and the bowler hatted idiots in management, you will know why we failed. It was a disaster waiting to happen. I own and run a metal fabrication shop in the south of England and nobody, who walks in my shop knows if I’m the labourer or the boss… we are all equally liable for what goes out of the door!!!
And the surest way to keep a union out is to take care of your workers.
@@rickb3650 massively agree with that! You have to learn by mistakes made… Britain will never be great again because we got complacent…
@@antschiari8000 Both your nation and mine desperately need fundamental inheritance reforms if we are to survive. Different systems that achieve the same result of putting morons in positions of significant power through no qualification beyond birth.
WOW a responsible Boss- not down the golf course! Thats a first.
At Japanese plants the directors wear overalls like all the workers..
I've always felt that Britain's labour troubles were a result of its absolutely crippling class system.
I come from Britain, and we pride our selves in being a democracy and an example to the world in this manner. But we have this caste system, kind of like they do in backward nations such as India. We have to get rid of the royal family and much of these ridiculous systems of authority and reconstruct everything for a TRUE democracy. We otherwise are a flawed democracy. I hate living in this stupid country, and I drink coffee and not eat! But I loved the European Union, until the Brexit-tards fucked it all up for us; the EU was the best democratic system in the world by far!
Absolutely, bad management, bad decisions, bad government, bad industrial relations, it’s all down to the class system, this government is following the same ideologically driven pattern and it’s having the same results. The Japanese have been manufacturing in the UK for 30+ years without industrial problems, it’s clearly British management that is the problem.
It’s always been who you know not what you know unfortunately. See the Oxbridge chumocracy at top of politics on both sides- there are more classics graduates in Parliament than qualified engineers (and probably scientists if you discount medics) and when they talk about ‘business’, they mean finance or commercial legal services, not making stuff. Maybe we need an Elon Musk to come in and shake the tree.
@@lifeintheolddog5768 Perhaps not Elon Musk. He's apparently not as smart as many people think.
@@heronimousbrapson863 Probably not, I'm thinking an outsider, probably non-brit, who doesnt give a four letter word starting with F for politeness and 'this is how we do it round here'...
My family worked at Longbridge. Tales are unbelievable. Red Robbo, 523 walkouts in 30 months. Measured day work. The union's killed Longbridge because they had the management they deserved
Owd Oncle Derek.
I really hope you make a written record of your family's experience working at Longbridge. The press could never publish these stories because the print unions would strike so the stories only exist in the memories of those who lived through it, when those people die, the record of what went on in those times will be lost. I hope you interview your family members and get a detailed record of what happened, publish it on the internet so that people can find it by searching.
As an 82 yr-old living in the US, I can relate to your story. I grew up when we made a lot of cars, and boy did they sell! But when things went global, we could not compete with the Asians. Same problem with unions - got to a point where a guy on the assembly line who turned three screws over and over made more than a college grad with a Masters degree. Our middle class was spoiled, lazy and just wanted to be entertained. The Japanese were industrious, hard-working and smart. I guess we survived, but it sure ain't the same any more. Now, when I see the Chinese numbers of electric vehicles... here we go again.
It's now a common fact that Union labor is approximately 21% more productive than their public non-union counterpart. Union labor is way more loyal to their jobs and as they age their experience makes them more valuable. I worked non-union and union for a total of 44 years and there was no comparison. And in a non-union environment, your job was only as secure as your boss's emotions.
Did they NOT rotate people around (to learn different parts of the Line) so to jump in when someone was out sick ??? I think the Electric Car trend is going to die out.
I remember a labor lawyer representing management, saying, that 100%:of the time, problems, that management has with labor unions, result from piss poor management. The big company, that I worked for, took that fact to heart and got rid of their bad management, and they no longer had union problems.
I'd have to say, that bad management was the genesis of the British car industry problems, but the coup de gras was the government consolidation of the industry, where it cut out the pride, each individual nameplate's workers may have had.
My father, an MD, left Henry Ford hospital in Detroit because an assembly line worker doing nothing more than working a lever, made as much money. He knew that kind of economy was not sustainable & moved to Kentucky.
@@andrewhansen4179 pure BS. The union shops I've worked at were a sad joke. Put in 4 hours and get paid for 8. Then go on strike so you only have to work 3 hours a day.
In 1963 my dad bought a new Sunbeam Alpine. As kids my twin brother and I rode with him from California to Florida then back to California TWICE (2 round trips). In 1970 he gave it to us, we drove the heck out of it. Ultimately, that began my career as a mechanic..
Many British car owners became mechanics the day they drove off the showroom floor.
Top attitude mate 👍 don’t complain, no one bleedin cares, just get out and fix it 😂
As a teen here in America I would have about done anything to have owned a MGB or a TR6, these cars were just so beautiful and fun, granted I never got to ride one, but when I was 15 there was a light blue MGB sitting in the back of our local Dodge dealer which I walked by on my way home from washing dishes at local Shoney’s Restaurant at midnight and sit in that MGB shifting gears and imagining I was driving this beautiful British Sports Car on are winding mountain roads, then one day it was gone, I was heart broken 🥲I still remember that non-running light blue MGB and I’m now 60.
In the late '60s , on a working holiday from Australia, I worked for a time at a Birmingham car factory churning out Austin 1100s. I was amazed at the high wages car workers earned compared to Aussie car workers at that time. In Australia working on a car production line was fairly low paid and mainly done by recently landed migrants, many with little English, as a means to break into the workforce. In Birmingham however, I found the jobs were very sought after and the pay was more than could be earned by qualified tradesmen such as plumbers, carpenters and motor mechanics, many of whom I worked with , who had given up their skilled jobs to work on the car production line. The line I worked on was sanding down the primer coat on the 1100 body shell prior to another coat of paint being applied further down the line. The workers on my line were sanding by hand and worked their shift half hour on and half hour off. Every half hour one crew would drop tools and sit down while the alternate crew got to work. Two crews of highly paid workers to cover one shift of unskilled work didn't strike me as being a great business model and if this was an example of the British car industry in general I am not surprised it couldn't survive global competition. Another aspect was the cars themselves. The Toyota Corolla in it's original form had an 1100 cc engine and competed directly with the Austin 1100 and I am sure contributed to it's demise. The car industry in Australia has also died after many years of government subsidies but Aussie never really exported cars and the domestic market is too small to sustain a car industry.
Well, we Americans miss those rebadged Hodens.
When I moved to Aus every other car was either a Falcon or Commode and of course where I worked there was an ongoing debate.... It was really sad to see Ford and Holden go along with Toyota and Mitsi and previously Chrysler and Leyland. Aussie Leyland were very innovative and had a lot of Aussie input .... The Prime ministerial car was a Holden Statesman - very hi spec but alas now a BMW (I think..)
@@MrPomdownunder yep, way back the average family car in Oz was a six cylinder GM Holden or Ford Falcon with to a lesser degree the Chrysler Valiant. The small cars which were popular were the Mini Minor and Volkswagen Beetle.Then came the Japanese invasion, with Nissan, Toyota and mistershitty and they had inclusions like radios, heaters, carpets none of which were standard in the Holden or Falcon. We had too many cars to choose from for the size of our population so local production, after sucking up millions in government assistance, finally died. Us oldies loved our rear wheel drive 6 cylinder go anywhere runabouts with wind up windows, bench seats (for a genuine 6 seater) no aircon, no power steering or disc brakes and a simple motor which could be stripped down and rebuilt in your driveway. ( personal experience here). I was a Holden man, loved them and drove them from the FJ to the last of the commodes.
Holden's from the 70's were rust buckets, very unreliable & easy to fix. I bought a VF2 Commodore, which is the last Holden made in Australia. In the last 6 years of ownership, have just done scheduled services. Apart from replacing the battery & a set of tires, not a single failure in the car, not even a light bulb has blown. They finally make a quality car & they closed down the factory. Disgusting.
@@SunRise-ul7ko All those adverts saying that Holden would survive as a brand - Not actually making any cars in Aus but rebadging Global GM stuff.... All those millions of tax dollars..Thanks GM...
I owned my car repair business in NZ thru the 60's and 70's and ended up specialising in BMC. Minors, A30's, minis, Landrovers, Jags etc. Before that I worked on British motorbikes. They all had aspects in common, oil leaks galore, even when new, design faults that stayed unfixed or worsened for decades. The cast iron lump "A" series engine, made for the A30 and still used in the 90's. The Japanese made real improvements with every model even with major changes. When the Toyota Landcruiser came out, farmers cancelled their Landrover orders and bought cruisers despite being made by the yellow peril. I reckon the best small UK car was the ubiquitous 1100, everyone's mum had one, they drove and handled well, were long lived and easy to maintain with parts common to other BMC. Lucas was a joke, fortunately parallel imports allowed alternatives. BMC made both the Landrover and the Austin Gypsy, which like Jag and Triumph relentlessly competed until they died out. The Gypsy had a wonderful pressed sealed chassis and tough A90 or Wolseley 110 engines but rotten UK mild steel body work that rusted from day one. The Rover had shit mechanicals, chassis, engine and gearbox but great galvanised and aluminium bodies. If BMC had the wisdom to combine the best bits of both, and they were pretty compatible, it would have taken the Japs much longer to outsell them. When I imported bulk parts from the UK, my first job was to inspect each item and reject the faulty ones, the UK exporters expected this and usually compensated. Fortunately a lot of better bits were made in Australia. The colonies stopped regarding "Made In England" in favour of "Made In Japan".
Had Rovers and would fume over the fact there was never any improvement . It was like, have they never driven or worked on these machines they build. Makes one angry to see a good product die from neglect.
I worked as a salesman for a motorcycle importer here in NZ. As a little pay perk we'd assemble and pre deliver bikes after hours. We had Triumphs, and Yamahas, and we got the same pay for each, we hated doing the Triumphs, much preferred the Yamahas. As an example, a Triumph Bonneville would take around 12 hours to get fully ready to put on the showroom floor, a Yamaha XS2 would be ready in about 3 hours. On the Triumphs we had to check every nut and bolt, tyre pressures, even spoke tensions on the wheels. All the covers, all the fittings check the lights and wiring, oil levels, even the acid in the battery.
The Yamaha, we could take it for granted that other than basic unpacking from its crate, putting the front wheel and handlebars on, there was not much to do and two hits on the starter button and it would be running. Put the D plate on and whip it around the block to check brakes and such and wheel it out to the showroom.
@@jwboatdesigns Yet the Bonnevilles are much more valuable now. Go figure.
I can't work out why Land Rover did not have a good look at Land Cruisers...Maybe they did but they didn't seem to improve their cars...
I had an Austin-Healey 3000 that wouldnt start or stop.
"SLIDE OF PRIDE" when pride in your product and your company is slowly eroded it's demoralising for the everyone and there can be only one outcome The proverbial sh#t does roll down hill. I worked for Toyota UK in Burnaston and know that the people at the top could pick up the tools and build a car. Life isn't a Carry On film anymore, I guess the 70s were just a sign of their times and a culmination of years of rot, it's a shame, but I still love the Carry On films, I will now stand down from my soapbox.
Quality video as usual.
I've always thought that, yes, there were issues with work ethic, but ultimately the problems stemmed from where the buck stops -- management, especially senior management. Managers need to earn respect, to be tough but fair. Everyone involved needs to feel that they're part of a team, working together to deliver the product.
Enter the Japanese!
exactly ! The management is outsourced and Voila : All good old brands are profitable ! Proof, British craftmanshift is still on the market.
@crassgop hey if the whole management class are a bunch of Upper Class nitwits it’s no wonder everything goes to shit
@@juergenlohse6902 But British craftsmanshift can't compete with mass produced products which are more affordable for the average person. I'm happy we still have fine craftsmanship in the world. I just wish I could afford it. And I make very good money.
You forget management was put there mostly by unions. It is the direct fault of most of the workers (Except newcomers like the father of another comment here).
A friend of mine bought a beautiful new Series 3 XJ Jaguar when they arrived on the scene here in Australia. Of course, he suffered a string of issues including oil leaks and nuts had been placed inside the hubcaps at the factory, obvious for a bit of fun. Took him ages to find the rattle. He sold it after about two years and bought an S Class Benz. He lamented the loss of the beautiful Jag and used to say “ If only they’d let the Japs build it.” True story.
I grew up on the edge of the industrial West Midlands in the 70's and many of my friends worked in factories. I clearly remember one anecdote which summed up everything:
A friend in the pub after work was boasting that their floor had managed to get a whole days production of bathroom taps rejected by quality control as they made them so badly.
I was confused and asked why this was good.
The reply was "It taught management a lesson. Shop steward was really happy".
There really was a civil war going on. Union leaders goading inept management and inciting workers who were largely caught in the crossfire.
this "US Against Them" is constantl imported into Canada as I know and have worked with so many Brits in the west. It sucks as most of my early work was in the USA where a "work ethic" is (or used to be) such a large "can do" part of American culture.
Even japanese cars produced in UK in the 90’s had problems. There were so big quality issues, that as I was working in a Toyota dealer at the time, many customers only accepted cars with vin that indicated the car was made in Japan. If it had UK made vin, they refused to take delivery
Honda walked away from their factory. Worth less than nothing.
The US is starting to become like this also.
As a young Canadian travelling around, I spent the winter of '62 working as an instrument fitter in London. It was a simple job of collecting a box of parts from stores and then polishing rough parts and assembling and testing the result. The first one took me three days, the second one two days, and the third one was done in a day. When I went to stores to get the parts for another, the foreman took me aside and cautioned, "We accept that it takes two days to assemble one. Don't spoil it for all of us...." So I had to learn to work very slowly, polishing and re-polishing parts, and scratching my butt. All the other men on that production line thought this was a really plumb job..... It was a very long and boring time until spring when I could hit the road again. So that's when I learned about British labour practices........
When I did hit the road it was on a British motorcycle, so I learned a whole more about British engineering....
I do note that the British made excellent steam engines in the distant past, but have completely lost it since then.
In the US/North America around that time it would have been like: “Just take your time and be thorough, quality is job number 1” *returns the next day* “Wow, you are done already? Let me see if I can find any other work for you Mr. Smith.” *returns a minute later* “Looked around for some work for you, there’s not any I can find, you can get off early, see you tomorrow Mr. Smith”. Though that’s not very accurate depiction, it certainly shows the differences between attitudes in the US/North America around that time compared to how it was in the UK around that time.
I was trained as a toolmaker by a tec college in the 1970's . 5 years with apprentiship, superb training but when I finally got employed as a skilled man I found that any enthusiasm for the job was frowned on by the closed shop union, and ignored by management. I left before it destroyed my soul completely.
Labour relations in the late 60s, 70s and early 80 were appalling. My dad would often cite that the wrong person made a cup of tea and everyone walked out. Quality was therefore abysmal and the common thought from the workers were that they would never buy a car that they produced. I could rattle on about this but I'm fed up relating these tales. Remember Red Robbo slagging off the products that he built - instant dismissal but this was the general thinking behind the products. Strikes meant less money for R&D and you had some horrendous designs coming out.. and the press had a field day. Forming the Leyland group was a complete mistake and companies should have been allowed to fail without years of support by the Government of the day with the same eventual ending. Coming home from school us kids were more often that not met by our father out on strike. It was endless, and depressing. A turning point was when Honda got involved, only to lose their support when part was farmed off to BMW without any consideration for Honda. If it could go wrong it did and the eventual management by-out was a fiasco. Shame, because there were some good cars about at the very end... Great video, if a little frustrating and upsetting for me.
The product was sh1t, the workers never OK'd the product..
Hi Bob - see my comment. Pressure on sales affected everyone and that created the stress and aggro. I was IR Officer in Cov for the EEF!!!!!
I had a triumph spitfire during my college years. Problem #1 lights, electrical shorts that had to be painstakingly followed, corrected and then reoccurring in a different circuit. #2 Right front wheel knock off hub mounted on the left front. Eventually this caused the left front wheel to unwind and fall off. Then no front wheel hub in North America. The company in England stated that none were available in their warehouse. They would be making them soon. One year later and with 2 months shipping time a repair could be made. I learned my lesson, but I enjoyed the brief driving experience. Happiness is driving a spitfire but true joy is trading it in.
Hi, poor management end of. Working in VM in Ellesmere port I reported a fault in a product being made to a member of management, 'It will get picked up down the line,' was the reply. 'Why not correct the problem at source?' I asked. 'Can't stop production.' so we carried on making rubbish at management behest.
Thank you very much for an excellent review. Unfortunately, most analysts overlook the complex and interrelated cultural factors. Germans and Japanese are culturally more unified in their lives, unlike the every man for himself culture of UK and US.
You are exactly ON point.
The U.S. has established its traditions from old England - the early figures
in the American colonies were tied to and agents of the CROWN
And still are.
The CROWN still owns two thirds of the USA.
The majority of people do not know where The capital of the United States of America is ?
And those that guess - get it incorrect - as it is NOT where they think it is.
In European royal circles these early leaders in the North American colonies where their
agents with code names - George Washington was
Washington 711 - and Benjamin Franklin was known as Moses.
A reference to parting the pond for infiltration through the Hellfire
Club and Nine Sister lounges.
George Washington took orders from the Grand Lodge of Masonry from
Daniel Coxe for plans for the federation of the British colonies.
Benjamin Franklin became Post Master - an early form of what is today
the NSA to spy on letters of concern.
Independence Hall was constructed by Masons to formulate a revolution
to take state powers and convert the centralized control of the GOVERNMENT.
Rothschild's understood the importance of the Postal Service controlling
it in Europe and control the "Pony Express" under Franklin.
I call it the first NSA of its kind.
Adam Smith was educated in the school of economics in Cambridge - England.
He championed "open free Markets" giving total control of all the
country's ports to offshore interest to the East India company.
The Pope controlled Britain under the treaty of 1213 and all its
possessions including acquired territories in India - America - Africa
and China.
How do you think we have such impressive Universities!
Clue ... "Opium" trade.
@@andrew_koala2974 are you an Allegro owner?
and this - we fight only for us - is a narative of the brutal captalime in both countries as only by this they can press down wages ... and it worked until last 2020 but seems people realize and quit more often ..
A mate of mine worked for Leyland , I had to work 10 days to earn the same as him in a week. He always complained how poorly paid he was. The funny thing he took so many sick days a month , and still left me for dead in the earnings stakes. I felt sorry for the workers who were trying to pay a mortgage get kids brought up because of the strikes, my mate didn't care he went back after the strike got overtime etc and just threw the cars together . He went on to other jobs after Rover folded with the same attitude, he did not stay long in any of them then wound up on the dole where he remains. He felt he was entitled to everything ...he was the rule not the exception...
No he wasn't. Not that there aren't plenty like him, but not the rule........except in places where management were so awful they engendered that kind of attitude.
Thats the responsibility of Management. Should have closed down the plant and built it in the West Country.First item? Top Class management, ( same level as BMW!) not boys in suits who just past the "management" exam!
Now that "The English patient" disease has spread throughout the British Public Sector. Much evidence daily now and worsening. EVERYBODY OUT is not just a sound from the distant past UK. For the most part, the UK does not have a manufacturing base anymore worth a mention, So Red Robbo clones near extinct there now. Plenty of clones in the Public Sector though. TV News channels allow them to spread their good words to all for the benefit of the Nation.
It is fake news that only British Cars suffered extensive corrosion. Most maybe all did back then. My father died forty years ago. His Toyota Starlet's metal dissolved as you stood there watching it. Even the Japanese did not have access to top quality metal and protection processes back then.Some of the items on my Honda proof positive of that. Italian car companies withdrew from the UK consumer market due to shocking terminal corrosion issues with their cars. All that seems to be conveniently forgotten by those determined to bad mouth assure this nation's ongoing decline. Some say that is both assured and deserved.
Ask your friendly MoT tester how many relative modern day Fords, Mercedes etc he has failed due to serious corrosion in recent years.
Only in the UK .. :SIGH: The land of the increasingly self-inflicted.
EVERYBODY OUT. The words of the Nation's Lynch Mob.
There was a chap who worked at Cowley that was caught stealing car parts. When the police went to his house they found that he’d been building a Princess Vanden Plas in his garage with the parts he was stealing.
I worked in a factory in the 70's and 80's and there were people in the workforce who saw it as their 'job' to find any possible dispute and stop production.
Many, not all of them saw themselves as communist and 'working against the system'. Workers and management knew this, but they were unable or afraid to remove or disempower these people. By the same token there were elements of management who took any opportunity to 'put the workers in their place'
It was all politics and we see where it ended up, and knew it was going there. Small independently owned companies could probably have survived, but there was no accountability in the huge monoliths.
I used to deliver parts to Fords at Halewood. At one time all the workforce walked out and I was stuck there half unloaded. When I asked why they walked out, I was told that a member of management had walked on the shop floor.
Same at Longbridge...British Leyland managers had to get permission from the shop stewards if they wanted to enter any of the factories, & if they wanted to show a visitor around, this required a long (& somewhat embarrassing...) wait whilst the shop stewards called the union leadership with all the visitors details after they had been questioned & interrogated over who they were & what was their reason for visiting...& even once permission was given by the union, a shop steward would tag-along listening-in to all the conversations between the British Leyland manager & his now highly bemused & even intimidated visitor...
You have provided a fascinating and accurate account of the car industry and it's sad decline! I myself trained at Short Brothers aircraft factory in Belfast and it suffered from the same kind of problems. The factory itself was decades old and in dire need of modernisation; however, the company was only interested in cutting costs and seemed to always be looking at the workforce as a bunch of work-shy louts. In 1987, I left Shorts to work at Saab Aviation in Sweden and it was like leaping decades ahead for me. The Swedes had an ultra-modern factory with good management and good employee relations. It was immediately apparent to me that I had been working in the dark ages! The British aviation suffered from the same bad management and lack of vision as the car industry!
I will also add that the way we buy or rather obtain cars now, will have a massive affect on the industry globally. The majority are now leased/rented from new, then swapped after 2-3 or 4 years. As a result I genuinely don’t think people care about their cars like they used to, they are seen as almost disposable, or something to ‘update’ like a mobile phone. With the insane complexity of modern vehicles now people buying them down the line are going to be in for some shocking bills when they inevitably go wrong… and of course no one can repair them at home on a Sunday morning… I think this will have serious repercussions for car manufacturers in the rest of the world!
A guy I used to know loved to tour Africa in a Landy. The first thing he did was to strip out all the electronics and fuel injection and replace them with stuff he could repair by the light of a kerosene lamp in the middle of nowhere. Modern cars produce amazing power with unbelievable fuel economy compared to the cars I grew up with, but they need a lot of maintenance. If something stops working the mechanics don't waste a second trying to repair it. They chuck it out and install a new part (at a cost that would have bought a whole car in my ancient days).
In 1983 I was sent from Canada to the old Bowater Mersey paper mill in Ellesmere Port to help with the engineering of the three paper machine rebuilds that were 2 years behind schedule. The old mill had 14 unions I was told and went under from labour issues. A Canadian company bought it and were rebuilding it as a non-union mill.
I remember going into the control room one day about 10:15am. And the operators were all in the adjoining kitchen/lunchroom. I noticed a number of alarms beeping and flashing on the screens. And asked the operators how did they know if these were critical alarms or not. They responded that it didn't matter because it was tea time and they continued to discuss a cricket game for the next five minutes before going back to work I worked there for 2 years and yes during tea time it didn't matter if the pulper was overflowing and the ground floor was 2 foot deep in pulp. How can you run a mill efficiently with those kind of ingrained attitudes. But I also acknowledge there are bigger issues; at the time the labourers and skilled tradesmen were paid about 1/2 to 1/3 that of Canadian workers who were mostly unionized when the cost of living was definetly not lower than in Canada.
"Handmade in Britain means the doors will come off." - Jeremy Clarkson.
With a well known car channel spannerman's assist with his angle grinder on the door hinges. FACT! They did come off too. His angle grinder was made in the UK though.
not more than on french and italian cars
I believe that part of the problem was the "Be British, Buy British" attitude for a long time (same here in the U.S. with "Buy American") where problems with the industry were glossed over because they didn't get the market feedback that was needed to avoid getting passed by other countries. A prime example in the period was Lucas Electric, the Prince of Darkness, that was used because they were the only British supplier. Why improve quality and innovation when they were still buying your cars anyway?
I was told that the faulty electrics in my A-H 3000 was because the wires were covered, not by rubber, but by WW2 bandages. Why do I think of Benny Hill?
My dad bought a new Rover 3500 SE in 1982, it was a beautiful and well made car and aside from some small issues it was reliable and he owned it for ten years. BL could make good cars when it tried, they weren't all terrible like the Morris Ital. I think pride in the product is a factor.
That Rover was a good car but they weren’t well made.. you must have been lucky! Thanks for watching!
@@Number27 It was an export model to Australia, so maybe they got special attention?
He owned it for 10 whole years? A typical Toyota goes 10 years before needing its first repair. I have a Mazda that's 25 years old and still going strong. If that's the best of the brutish car industry, no wonder it failed.
I had an Rover SD1 2600, a fantastic car ,smooth as hell good, fuel consumption .
British engineering is world beating.
Politicians and the management class they come from are fucking useless as we are finding out to our co0st today.
@@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus rubbish I worked on all marques, they all break down from time to time.
Trouble with the Brits is their inherent snobbery. If they buy a foreign car and its a lemon they tend to keep stum and suck it up.
Old timer here: I worked in Linwood Scotland during the sixties / seventies, where the Hillmans were produced. I can only speak to the guys on the floor at that time. Any excuse, and I mean any excuse, was a reason to down tools & wildcat.
Of course poor management was serious issue, but the mentality of all the Union members was one of....."who do those bastards in their collars and ties think they are". And by downing tools and walking off, this was an almost weekly thing.
Old Firm game being played and few showed up for the shift.
'Them versus us' mentality and it really was a large reason for the demise of Linwood.
Hmm, I grew up in Coventry. My Dad, Granddad, Uncles and Aunts all worked for Morris, Jaguar, Talbot/Peugeot, Triumph, Hillman, Land Rover, Massey Ferguson and Alvis. I saw my Dad move from one to the other. I remember most of my family members were hardly at work in the 1970s; it appeared they were always on strike. The inefficiencies in the industry could have been resolved into the 1980s, just like they did in the USA. My Granddad worked for British Leyland at the Standard works. He worked nights for a decade. At the same time, he also had a full-time job during the day. He managed it because they slept during the night shift. They couldn't get rid of the bad practices because the Unions would call a strike if anyone were disciplined or sacked.
If only they knew then what we know now. Would they had some national pride and pull the British Car industry into better shape?
I work for a huge American multinational with factories all over the world from China and Russia to the US and Brazil. Our most problematic workforce is Liverpool. Incredibly militant, constant complaints from the production workforce over the pettiest thing. I was in a meeting with Management and Production a couple of years ago and I was stunned how aggressive, rude and combative the Union reps were.
It's working against them as they all work to rule, and as a result productivity is low, profits are near zero, performance onuses are zero. The factory will very likely be moved to France, the Americans are just about done with them.
The other factories in the UK are fine, no problem and two of them have spent £20 mill between them expanding production.
Liverpool is a microcosm of the 70's UK workforce.
Liverpool is a disease that England should remove.
Always the scousers
To much entitlement destroys the ability to produce anything.
I've heard anecdotal stories of 19th century British industrialists sending their sons to study classics at oxbridge. In Germany industrialists' sons studied engineering. So maybe a longstanding cultural problem...
somehow I can really believe that lol
The "cup of tea and a biscuit" analogy reminded me of a story I read years ago about the BSA factory. Some visitors were being shown through the works and one of them asked about an oven he had spotted. Their guide told them it was used to temper new crank shafts and opened the door to show them the insides, only to find two pies in there, warming up for lunch!
And who was running BSA then? Docker?
Whatever next, frying eggs and bacon on the coal shovel of a steam locomotive. 🤗
Having spent 40 years in the British motor industry in vehicle components during a visit to a well known British Motor Electrical Manufacturer in Birmingham i stopped to ask a assembler on Dynamos .I was immediately ushered away not to speak to this man as the Area Manager was behind me and i was not supposed to do this because of a possible walk out of the men on this facility.It is of little wonder that we we lost major automobile car manufacturers to other Nations
Prince Charles opened up a BSA plant in LA very near our house in the mid-sixties: they were going to take the motorcycle market and Japan hadn't got going strong just yet. I think the plant was in Irwindale (industrial zoning) bu tnot sure, and don't know what happened to the plant.
we used the electrode holding ovens
to cook pies and other greasy delights , even cooked a whole pheasant in tinfoil that a scaffolder had dropped a well aimed clip on from up on a rig jacket in an 80s fabrication yard
happy pre thatcher union days !
I'm glad you mentioned Clarkson's car years that is another great insight into the problems going on.
Not just cars. When I went to school in Australia -1950-60s- we were taught about wonderful English bone china, sheffield steel industry, Axminster and Westminster carpets, and their giant shipbuilding industry. So the problem seems to have been more than just the car industry.
Oh yeah! My friend told me Sheffield used to make world-renown steel and I scoffed at the idea until I googled.
I live in Australia. In 1975, my parents purchased a brand new Triumph 2500 TC.......it was just rubbish. As a seven year old, I remember it literally breaking down as they left the showroom they purchased it from. We were still so close to the dealer that some employees from the dealership were able to come out and push it back into the premises to investigate the problem.
They somehow patched up the issue and we hit the road back to the country town we arrived from.......but were stuck in Sydney an additional four days over what was planned. For the next five years that dad owned it, it was frequently off the road due to another glitch that required attention.
That Britain still has a car industry now is astounding!
Around that time, Australia still made plenty of cars, but due to poor quality, changing market preferences, expensive unionised workforces and the government removing import tarriffs, they are now all gone, the last car being produced in 2017.
If the UK isn't careful, literally ALL it's manufacturing will be lost to China, Thailand or India.
Hi Noel, that last sentence is a bit late. British companies do not own anything, and haven't for years.
All of our utilities, ie Gas, Electricity, Water etc, are foriegn owned.
We don't even own British Airways, or for that matter, the airports they fly from.
The steel industry is owned by India.
Power generation is owned by the French and the Chinese.
As this video states we don't own any car manufacturers.
We are building 3 new Royal Navy auxilliary ships, but the main company in the consortium is Spanish.
The once great British Merchant Navy is now all but defunct, so we must rely on Foriegn shipping to deliver our goods.
Everything we buy, which used to say Made In England or Britain, now says Made in China, Thailand or India.
And the list goes on.
@@ivorgotten2368
Yes I can relate. In 1975, our government was a signatory to the Lima agreement. From that point, on, the decline began. They did this without our approval. It meant manufacturing was effectively handed to developing countries on a platter, at great expense to ourselves. Now, helping others is admirable, but handing over entire industries? Two questions here:- is it really our job to ensure Chinese peasants are employed? And secondly, our leaders are elected to serve us, not the entire world.
We currently have a leftist government pushing for us to be yet even greener, when we hardly contribute anything to g/w as it is.
China is the No.l emitter. It's akin to asking someone to lose weight when they're anorexic whilst the fat kid escapes scrutiny.
That we invest in China at all is treacherous. Organ harvesting, slave labour and genocide is apparently acceptable again.
Every time Australia had a company that was successful, be it cars or making cookies, foreigners came in and just took control. It's just infuriating. Our.......ahem.......'government', just does nothing.
I could say so much more, but you get my sentiments.
Thanks for the insight.
@@ivorgotten2368 so very 😥
British still have the breweries and pubs
Most of the problems with vehicle manufacturing in Australia can be sheeted home to GM. They progressively meddled more & more in GMH decisions over the years, adding stupid "innovations" that destroyed the reliability of, in particular, Commodores. At one time, most electrical systems etc, were locally sourced, but as GMH went more & more to imported accessories, the cost went up & the value down. All this had happened before, with Leyland Australia, so the warning was there, but GM in the USA didn't care. By the time GMH closed manufacturing down, they were already a large im porter, but those cars weren't selling, either. It didn't get any better in the years since, so now, GM has pretty much disappeared from the Australian market.
My family was in the car audio business in the late 60s and through the 70s, and the one thing I saw in the construction of the cars was that the British would use ten or twelve pieces to make a glove box door work, when a simpler arrangement of three or four parts would do better and more cheaply.
It was like the legendary Rube Goldberg was designing cars in the UK. Did you ever look under the bonnet of a U.S. legal 12 cylinder E-Type? That it even ran was a miracle of modern technology!
Man, I love that car!
My brother works for a firm rebuilding vintage cars for them. He refuses to even take a look at a jaguar never mind rebuild it. Says they're all just rust buckets with chassis designed by country yokels heavy on weed. Spares are also hard to come by, rebuilders usually end up buying another Jag just to cannibalise it for spares.
I worked for the USA Jaguar Cars organization ‘86 - 2000. You can never blame who Jeremy Clarkson often referred to as “the British worker Johnny.” The issues started at the top, when the top was removed and replaced by Ford execs there was a brief period of hope. Then the top of Ford was replaced and it all went straight down the crapper. Props to the lads and lassies at Browns Lane who in one year received Ford’s highest quality plant award, and were subsequently shut down. That there was anything left for Tata to buy is a miracle. Yet I fear the future may be even worse.
In India tata's business FULL on boom ! 🥳
Specially cars I'm talkin about! Tata's nexon EV rock !
In India ! People's literally waiting for cars 🤣 2-3 years ! Here !
You pretty much hit the nail on the head. Strong unions, an unmotivated workforce, and inept management were the major factors in the demise of the British car (and motorcycle) industry. One thing not spoken about was the lack of "not looking over our shoulder" when it came to the competition brought on by simple arrogance. One legendary example is when the President of BSA/Triumph took delivery of a Honda CB750, the drive chain broke, and he didn't see the Japanese motorcycle industry as a threat after that.
Yet strong unions work well in Germany and France. Our culture of clash and conflict (thriving for 12 years under the current Tory coup) is very different to theirs of cooperation.
Unmotivated work force , inept management... if the managers got their act together, the workers just want a proper share....politics needs to follow solid business leadership not the other way...
Leyland was hopeless, and the Japanese and Germans killed off the rest by making better cars, and cheaper cars. Look at the TR6/7 vs the 240Z. Leyland should have made the mid-engined MG prototype they had on the cards and focussed on lower volume, for higher profit. There's a reason Land Rover and Aston are still around.
@Retired Bore I don't give crap as to what his title actually was. He was the man in charge, that was my point.
@@Comakino Aston Martin has been a curse for its owners since 1923. Not long before its vampire attraction does for Lawrence Stroll either by the look of things!
A mass manufacturer without premium brand recognition cannot reinvent itself as a low volume high profit offer. BL arguably had the brands like Jaguar/Rover/MG/Triumph to do what BMW&VW/Audi & gradually increase volume of quality products. ** Unfortunately, BL couldn´t do quality ,particularly not quality in all aspects of the business (TQM) as per the Germans and Japanese.
I think there is also a British perception problem of mistaking luxury/exclusivity (based on élitism) and quality (based on value).
* * Jaguar is about to find this out with its new strategy to become a luxury brand even though it hasn´t managed to be a serious player in the lower level premium market sector. Clever image protion has to be matched or exceeded by appropriate product, service and some sort of "specialness". Jaguar Land Rover simply don´t have the resources to put themselves there, and wishes fall short of plans.
Really enjoyed the clarity with which this story was arranged and presented.
My years in and out of the UK has given me a shorthand in describing British social and economics problems as; "we have a heritage" and "It must be either/or" never considering that it might be 'neither/nor'.
I recently visited the UK from London to Birmingham. It looks frozen in time like Japan. Great and proud empires do not easily give up comfort in favor of modernity. Same with my hometown, too weak and poor to change anything, if it ain't broke don't fix it kind of attitude….
That's because both are heavily developed countries with not much more room to build up plus Brtiain is very traditional & there are laws in place to prevent the destruction of old historic buildings & architecture (which in my opinion is a good thing)
Yes! The comparison with Japan is SO true!
Except Japan was so modern during it's heydays that nothing felt old even now. The only thing that gave things away was the browning white fixtures.
I left UK 12 years ago and return every 6 years to see my friends. When I went back last year, everything felt delayed and overcapacity. The train services was abysmal and all the highways were gridlocked. I used to think Manchester airport was amazing but it felt terribly designed and rundown now. :(
In 1979 i started an apprenticeship with Lucas Girling, i was 16. In just a few days i was amazed how the workers on the factory floor were taking the piss. Going to the toilets with news papers under there arms, Going to wash there hands half an hour before lunch, going to the toilets for half an hour after lunch. I knew at the age of 16 that this would not end well. I only done 3 years of my apprenticeship, because the factory closed, with a loss of 3000 jobs. Lazy bastards.
Their...
We had a branch of Lucas hurling down the road from me. The workers stole everything that wasn't nailed down.
Agreed and Lucas electrics were crap.
Michael, I speak from experience that those negative and harmful to the Nation qualities are still alive and kicking in the UK. Not in what little now remains of the now extinct UK manufacturing of course, but in the Public Sector. Another tells me that many hundreds of Laptops issued to civil servants within one Government agency went missing.
Far too much "The Taxpayer must provide" mindset now rife in many areas of the Public Sector.
Meantime, EVERYBODY OUT. Where's my tea and biscuits.
Yes i visited the Factory in Koblenz in Germany the difference was Night and Day compared to the UK plant-they worked hard in Koblenz and deserved to succeed
My grandfather worked at the Cowley plant in Oxford in the 50s and 60s and the toxic Unions would strike every day for the slightest things, such as on one day the factory stopped because one side had chocolate biscuits and the other didn't.
those chocolate Hob Nobs are delish, mind lol
Spot on and the very points I have been countering those posting in the press blaming Thatcher. In my youth I was aware of this malaise by my father (a displaced person after the war) asked the owner of the textile factory employing him why he didn't replace the belt drives on his machines with modern electric motors (as in Europe). ''We're OK, we are making profits''. Over those years, 60's - 80's, I'd heard operators offer suggestions to be told ''You are here to work not to think'', and then operators clocking in at the last minute, brew tea, then switch on thie machines. Whilst in Germany and Japan operators arrive in good time to switch on the machine (to warm up), then make coffee and start work ''on the buzzer''. All the large manufacturing sites I'd worked in are now housing estates.
I had a friend that bought a used Jaguar around 2002 and I'm thinking it was a '94 or '95 car, it had a pressure switch that failed on the anti-lock brake system and the only replacement part available was oem. What I thought was a $30 part, cost nearly $600 from Jaguar. He freaked out on the price but coughed up the money to buy it and get the car back on the road. A couple of months later he had something else very expensive fail and he gave up on the car and sold it for next to nothing. The huge parts mark up in the US turned many away from British cars.
That'll be your import taxes protecting home industries, then. 🙂
I remember in the late Seventies there was a story that the management of FIAT fired an exeptionally lazy worker who did not show up for work for more than 65 percent of the time and that for many months. What happened: The factory workers began a strike for the "poor" coworker! It should be mentionned that the guy was not reallly sick during that time!
From what I have heard this willingness to strike was quite the same in the UK and to a certain degree in France as well.
I think a lot of 'stories' exist to create anti-,union narratives. Unions in France and Germany have worked with management to create very effective and efficient companies.
Unions almost destroyed the U.S. economy in the 1950’s and 1960’s through strikes and demands for more salary for less work.
The slaves were rebelling against their masters --and the elite Rulers/Bankers
who like parasites feed of the labor of the people by stealing part of the compensation of their labor.
They call it TAX - and when NONE of the people volunteered to give any of the compensation
away - then it becomes THEFT by the CORPORATE GOVERN MENTAL Elite - on behalf of the
BANKER CREDITORS busy with their double ledger book keeping entries - they want to know
where THEIR income is coming from --
Those parasites steal the wealth/money from the honest hard working people --
The agents of those parasites are hiding in the House of LORDS wearing wigs made from the
hair of a horses ass -
The un-elected Black robed devils in the SUPREME COURT scribble the doctrines (Statutes)
of the GOVERNMENT religion by which they rule and control the disciples - obedient voters
who are the Masses of Slaves -
I saw a similar problem while working on a G.M. assembly line in Baltimore, MD. The U.A.W. was reflexively antagonistic to the company, shielding employees who performed poorly or whose attendance was unreliable. That hurt quality and drove up prices. Union dues come from employee wages which come from company profits. Shortsighted union leaders destroyed jobs.
At the end of the seventies Fiat was in great difficulty with the Unions, but in 1980, 40,000 FIAT employees and executives paraded through the streets of Turin in protest against the picketing that had prevented them from entering the factory for 35 days and was called "Marcia dei 40.000". The demonstration had the direct effect of pushing the Unions to close the dispute with an agreement in favor of FIAT. It is conventionally referred to as the beginning of a radical change in relations between large company and trade unions in the country. This probably saved Fiat from ending up like British Leyland
I worked at a large printing plant in the 1990's. The pres supervisor (one of the most important positions in a large plant) was about 45 and very English working class in accent and mannerisms. I asked him if he ever went back to England and the answer was one time, never again. I asked, "Why?". He said that when he visited that one time that all his friends and colleagues who had anything on the ball had emigrated. Only the losers had stayed in England and he had no sympathy or interest in those left.
You OZ, please?
Another great article Jack, keep it up. I used to feel offended by foreign ownership but in essence it’s more important that we make components and build cars in the UK rather than worrying about which country owns the shares
Decentralisation was a much bigger issue than Jack makes out. It led to higher costs and lower quality and was the six-inch nail in the coffin. Successive Labour governments from 1944 on energetically promoted "Up the Workers" and set the workforce against the owners. There was a sense of entitlement and the feeling that if the unions didn't get their way, Big Brother would step in and punish the managers.
@@shadeburst Oh! Dear!
You really have no idea about human behaviours, have you.
I knew a lot of owners who would skin their Grannies for the price of their skins.
They expected a workforce to produce shiny new goods in dirty, draughty workshops without decent tools or efficient production methods.
Just recall the distain with which the owners treated their workers before the days of unionisation, and how they bitterly opposed any suggestion to provide decent wages, healthcare or even protective working clothes.
My goodness, workers' cottages with proper heating, internal plumbing and lighting? Whatever next? Livable wages??
You really have taken on board the right-wing propaganda.
I don't think internal competition being destructive to Leyland while not being so to Volkswagen is necessarily a good comparison. Like you point out Volkswagen has a lot of options, but they are based on a lot of same parts. British Leyland had similar cars competing with each other that didn't have such commonalities, they were just different cars thus there was no cost benefits in production. The big problem as you said was the captive market they enjoyed in the early decades after WW2, they lacked innovation and investment that their competitors had to make since all of mainland Europe was bombed to bits and pieces. It's also hard to blame the workers, the anecdotes can be a bit misleading as it's not necessarily the result of such simple event that a strike was called, it might be something that had built up over time with one of the big things being the trash state of the factories (something investment would've corrected, instead they paid with the losses from strikes which was not beneficial to either party). I think workers in the 90s or these days would get at least as militant as in 70s if they had to endure the kind of conditions and (mis)management that the workers back then had.
It's an absolute tragedy that so many of those great names are no longer with us, especially since in so many cases it was simple human pig-headedness that caused all the issues! Classic example is of course the Triumph Stag, was originally envisaged to use the 3.5l Rover V8 but very early on in the design process Rover said no (allegedly because of the old rivalry between the two companies), so Triumph had to design their own engine from scratch in a fraction of the time they needed - and we know how that went. Could have been one of the all-time great cars, could have been a V8 MX-5 years before Mazda had the idea, but the crap engine let it down.
What really annoys me about the whole process is that Austin basically kick-started the Japanese car industry after WW2, with their agreements with Datsun/Nissan (the US did the same with Toyota, and they're not much better off). Austin engineers went to Japan, saw the way they did things there, came home and CHANGED NOTHING. The same thing happened with the motorbike industry, when Triumph, Norton, BSA etc started getting kicked by Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki... maddening that no one thought to do anything about it. (Incidentally, Triumph Motorcycles is entirely British owned. To my knowledge, they're all that's left. 😭)
Even worse is that Rover MG could have been amazing, the Rover 75 was an absolutely fantastic car that could eat its German rivals for breakfast - and it failed because Rover had a reputation for unreliability. Which the 75 absolutely was not, but how do you convince people of that? The damage had been done.
you like the vw and Porsche air cooled engines in the back then?
In the early 1960th I worked for a Ford dealer in the Netherlands as a 16 year old. My task was to prepare new cars for delivery most either English Cortinas and Germans Taurus' in more or less equal numbers. Th e cars needed a check of all bolts, clamps and completeness of parts . No Cortina was ever without defects or surplus part such as screws or bolts lloose, missing or left over. Floor mats missing, trunks not fully outfitted etc. A clear indication of workers care and pride being insufficient. Never were such incidents encountered in the German Fords. The two cars were identical in size, power and price but incomparable in quality and up to date technology. I always liked the English Fords but after that I would never buy one.
I don’t know anyone who has so succinctly put together the facts for this demise before this. Well researched , easily digestible, factual. Well done.
Pish...
My dad worked in engineering all his life (CNC not for the car industry but did do precision work for F1 for Bennett and Arrows). As an apprentice in the early 70's a place he worked at went on strike one day because the WRONG BISCUITS were put out in the tea room. The manager even apologised and promised the correct biscuits would be delivered for the next day, but no dice. Everyone (except my dad) downed tools. The foreman told my dad to stop work, to which my dad asked: Do you pay my wages? When the guy said 'no', my dad said: Then F off! Dad always hated unions.
Good man, your dad.
Hating unions? Unions are great, ask the unprotected American workers or the zero contract working poor. In Germany, the unions are part of the management in all enterprises. You should hate idiots, be they in unions or the management.
Stavros K. Exactly.
But theres a major problem.
democracy.
If a bunch of idiots are the workforce of a big industry, you can't pretend that the voted union representatives can be better than them.
I was an union representative, working in a small mechanical industry (30employee) , but they voted me because I have the balls to fight for having our rights, not for bullshits.
There are (were...) many cases here in which unions are committed to save the job of people who deserved to be fired rather than work to let the company run with better rights for the employee.
I'll bet your dad enjoyed his weekends.
Weekends, brought to you by unions.
@@nkelly.9 Henry Ford created the weekend with christian values in mind. Unions only spread them faster in certain areas. Weekends was something that would be as worldwide regarless of unions.
An interesting analysis. The militance of the workforce , a sure contributor to the demise, was crushed by Thatcher during the eighties. The major blame though imho lies with the management of the factories. As long as the founder of a brand was still in full control eg. Sir Lions of Jaguar, he was able to produce cars the likes of the Jaguar E-type after an amazingly short development time. All this for a very competitive market price, meaning that the production proces was very efficient. Management was by common sense and down to earth with a detailed knowledge of all aspects of car design, production, marketing etc. Knowledge acquired by learning on the job and not in a fancy business school. Only when the financial professionals started having the top positions in management instead of the engineers, things started to go down. When the politicians started to meddle with affairs the demise was accelerated. After my recent visit to a Volkswagen plant, I was astonished about the level of engineering involved designing the cars but also the production facilities with ease of assembly in mind. Very little specialised labour force is required for work on the production line. For instance, random students looking for part time jobs are trained very briefly to execute a few simple things and a permanent local quality control ensures that no mistakes are passed on down the line. In the German car industry the engineers are calling the shots. It iseems no coincidence that Bentley and Rolls Royce are German owned nowadays I believe. The British skills of the workers are among the best in the world and the Japanese and Germans are profiting of it, it is the management to blame.
Also I think they made some funny-duddy car designs that once we were out of the 50s and 60s couldn't compete with Italian designs, German and Japanese efficiencies.
The only UK cars that stood out were the high end cars.
Having said that, had management allowed the designers to do their thing British car designs would have been way ahead of the competition. The Austin Allegro was meant to be a hot hatch. Its design was a good 15 years ahead of its time but management said no and instead, they produced that grandpa design .
Management always had a thing about costs. Everything had to cost nothing but look like a million pounds. That's why British cars always ended up looking a bit strange.
Quality, quality quality. I am a Canadian born in1950 and we had lost of British car in Canada at that time but their quality was poor, poor, poor.
There is your answer
Thanks for the history lesson and I've watched the slow decay from 20,000 km from the action. I hope the UK can keep making cars. Australia on the other hand does right hand drive conversions of American SUVs, has a nice line of field machinery and long haul trucks. Keep up the great work Jack.
Good video and well balanced. The story about the trim shop is telling, but to me it reflects more on unprofessional senior management largely composed of old school tie types to whom the notion of including the work force in management decisions, sharing responsibility and the benefits with staff was anathema. They did not innovate or invest in modern production plant. I remember working at a large manufacturing company in the mid 70s which had a machine made in 1916 stamping out steel parts.
That Typifies our current POLITICIANS it appears
I left belfast to work in England in the early seventys in the major construction industry and several times I had to return to Belfast to get workers because the English men were so lazy all they wanted to do was sit down drinking tea
Excellent summary - I don't think it matters too much who owns the brands - so long as the cars are being built here. Rolls and Bentley are making far more cars (and money) than ever before and the cars are really well built.
I know nothing about cars and car manufacturing. But I love your speaking style. You seem perpetually on the edge of delivering a punch line to a joke. And yet you are not telling a joke at all. You just seem very pleased to share your knowledge and thoughts. You also leave the ending conclusions open to the audience in a nice way. I think if you spoke on any topic, it would be similarly charged with the joy of sharing ideas.
Back when I was a mechanic, I had a boss who told me: "the problem with the British car industry was the British class system, the people who designed cars wouldn't talk to the people who built and worked on them; they had great designs but they never fixed any of the problems".
“We’re British don’t you know! The world can’t teach US!!!!!!! Nor can you lower classes. Know your place!”
sounds like monty python again
im above him and he below me i know my place
Very interesting video 🙏🏻
The recovering car industry as well as many other industries in the UK will deeply suffer from the worst decision ever, the Brexit. Ordering goods in the UK has become a living nightmare with never ending extra costs, shipping delays and customs hassles. Honestly I try to avoid ordering in the UK as often as possible... 😩
There were multiple factors, I am sure. The British bike industry had obsolete engineering, massive QA issues, poor production techniques and adherence to Whitworth and SAE fasteners , instead of Metric. As mentioned in this article, the British unions had an impact also. The 1969 Honda CB750 was the first inexpensive superbike, and it immediately outclassed and outsold all British bike designs-John in Texas
Yup - In SoCal there were many Triumph 650s. They were quickly replaced by CB750s.
Your picture of the red E-type woke me up! I had a '67 4.2 E-Type coupe in Nassau Cream. Still the prettiest car I ever owned. It was 4 years old when I got it, sure of many years service. Got "Jagged-out" fast and traded it for a 914 in a year.
The Car Companies you listed in the opening of the video only just covers the tip of the Companies that we once had. It is really sad that we have lost so many Manufactures.
One thing you seem to have not mentioned is the designs and quality of the cars we were producing. I don't recall any of the Leyland brood of cars having a lot of success in terms of quality and design. Apart from the mini of course. My Father was a mechanic and he and mum bought a Datsun when they first started becoming available in the UK. He was very impressed with the quality of the engine and the better and more modern design. He said unless Britain pulled it socks up real quick, our car industry would disappear. So Japanese cars started to become more popular of course. Ford , Peugeot, Audi and BMW pretty much replaced the British car market over the decade.
In 1961, I bought my 1st new car. I really liked the way it looked. It was so fun to drive. It was an MG1100, black,
with nice, brick red, soft nuagahyde upholstery. It stopped working with only 6700 miles. It was still under warranty.
The dealer couldn't fix it. It sat in the shop for over four months. That engine oiled transmission had burned out.
I managed to get the dealer to give me a partial refund. It could have been such a great car.
The problem with internal competition at BL was the duplication of parts design. All the VW group cars use the same engines and platforms. At BL they developed, for instance, the Rover V8 and the Triumph stag V8. This was not the only example that lead to inefficiency. You are correct about the complacency of the management and the them and us attitude which lead to the absurdity of the smelly cat dispute.
My dream is a Stag, with a Rover V8..😁
That is a much talked about myth. The reality was that when Leyland bought Rover in 1967 both Rover and Triumph were already well down the road with their V8 designs including in tooling up for production. Canceling one would have meant big delays and expense as you retooled one of the production facilities for greater volume (Rover could not build enough V8s as it was for Range Rover and P5/6 let alone supply Triumph). Basically the money had already been spent.
@@grahamariss2111 The Stag V8 was an atrocious piece of work, underpowered and unreliable, which was left to the customer to develop. If the money had been spent, obviously nothing was left over for testing purposes. This was supposed to be a premium car, remember..... in their dreams BL saw the Stag as a competitor for Mercedes SL!
Even as a teenager, I couldn´t see where the market could be for the Stag. For all the investment, the Stag V8 died quickly and was not used in any other vehicle, so the entire investment was wasted.
On the other hand, I´ve never heard anybody say anything bad about the Buick V8 engine which Rover had simply bought the rights to. Rover designed nothing of that engine but did adapt it to SU carbs and developed it somewhat over the years
Actually, Rover bought the V8 from GM--it was one of a batch of early 1960s designs from GM, which included a OHC 4 used in some Pontiacs, a pushrod OHV 6 (Chevy II/ Holden "red" motor), a cast iron V6 (Buick/Holden Commodore), & an aluminium V8, which became the Rover V8/ Leyland P76 V8.
Your observations on BL, and the short piece on the Rootes Group, are pretty accurate. However, you also need to consider other factors. The Rootes brands were absorbed into Chrysler Europe. The 1970's recessions and energy crises killed Chrysler Europe with the remnants going to Peugeot (becoming Talbot). Interesting that the same happened to GM Europe 40 odd years later (including Vauxhall of course) . Merging aircraft companies into BAC started the death throes of Armstrong Siddeley and Bristol, though it took the latter a few decades to give in to their wounds. Fraser Nash gave up building their own vehicles to sell BMW and then Porsche. My favourite is Lea Francis. They were doing OK until they launched the Lynx. Killed the company stone dead. How they sold 3 is a mystery!
Well said. Note, however, that the Japanese manufacturers had a field day selling small cars in the US when OPEC crimped the pipe and gasoline was hard to buy. UK manufacturers were not ready to move in when the occasion presented.
The same could be said for the British aerospace industry. Promising designs like the BAC TSR.2 and Hawker Siddeley P.1154 got axed, while the Vickers VC-10 sold in smaller numbers than anticipated. No wonder the British aerospace industry were forced into pan-European consortiums (Panavia, Airbus, Eurofighter, etc.) to survive.
@@Sacto1654 Totally agree. BOAC (Boeing Only Aircraft Company) didn't help. Specify a plane through it's development cycle and then say you won't buy it.......
Last time I looked the Toyota plant in Burnaston was the 2nd most efficient car plant in Europe. The 1st most efficient was the Nissan plant in Sunderland. As it happens the latter was also the most efficient car plant in the world. This was a few years ago but well after the 70s. Don't blame the fellers on the shop floor for the failings of their management.
"I've spent 30 years going round factories. When you know something's wrong, nine times out of ten it's the management, people aren't being led right. And bad leaders invariably blame the people." ~ Sir John Harvey-Jones R.I.P.
Right. They hire managers from colleges. Not from the assembly lines. Stupid. Japs hire managers from assembly lines instead.
I worked at Austin rover in the 80s, the cars were poor, except for the Honda based ones 213 rovers, I moved to vauxhall and they were totally different, way better, I've got a dealership now and still buy the odd rover 75,mgtf in to retail, just for old times sake.
Pre WW2 it was possible to sell poor quality out of date products to the old colonial countries. No pressure to invest. Post WW2 they never got to grips with the rapidly changing market and thought they could carry on in the outdated factories that were totally inadequate for the task. The militant workforce did not help but probably would not have been influenced by the left wing activists if there had been a better plan in place.
You mean tossers like RED ROBBOW ? winding the imates up
The left wing activists were the government themselves. Being of British descent myself I wonder when the Japanese and Germans started manufacturing in the UK if there wasn't a feeling that these guys don't put up with s**t.
It is an old truism that the only effective recruiter for a union is management.
In the late forties and early fifties English cars and motorcycles were state of the art. I know, I owned examples of both cars and motorcycles. The Austin A40 overhead valve four was a great engine in 1947 but decidedly long in the tooth by 1977. That was the trouble. You are correct about the unions and left wing activists. But the products were all right in their day and time. The trouble was the industry did not move with the times, they did not improve their plant or product, I believe because they did not make enough profit to reinvest thanks to grasping unions and government that saw the industry as an inexhaustible cash cow.
During WWII one of the senior British manufacturing officials came to the US and took a tour of US factories. The one thing he immediately noticed was that he never saw a vise on the floor of a US factory. British factories had a LOT of them as the parts did not fit well and had to be made to fit. The "hand made" reputation of British cars, etc, may have not been to make a better, more custom vehicle, but because they had to be as the parts all had to have a bit of hand work done to make them fit.
I think that there were definitely issues with labour, but that they were secondary to the issues with engineering and manufacturing processes. British cars either were saddled with components held over from twenty or thirty years prior and built on old tooling, or they tried too hard to have one moonshot technology to wow buyers (like hydragas or hydrolastic suspension) while still lacking in the fundamentals. One example is the Mini and Issigonis's odd engineering choices that seem to have propagated through the range. Yes, it was an overall packaging marvel, but it had quite a few flaws too. For one, there is a reason that gearboxes and engines don't share a common oiling system. The lubrication requirements of the two components are very different, and separating them means that a failure of one does not kill the other. It also had a very poor radiator placement (to the side pulling air from the wheelwell where it lacks natural airflow at speed and also can get clogged with mud), and baffling suspension designs with either rubber cones or interconnected hydrolastic (why this was needed on a cheap economy car I don't know). Plus, the tiny wheels were known to kill tyres in very few miles. The car also lacked adequate planning for corrosion protection in it's design with poor drainage of accumulated moisture helping to rot them out in short order. However, at least it was easy on the eyes, unlike some other BL monstrosities like the Allegro! Going back to the engines, BL kept the same engines in production for over 30 years and could never figure out how to keep them from leaking. This wasn't even the fault of the designs either as Datsun produced a variant of the old BMC B series right up through the 70's that managed to be better and more reliable than the original! The thing is, when the Japanese had a design flaw, they would quickly engineer a solution to it whereas the British would just ignore it and pretend it was fine. Also, the Japanese electrical systems were just better. Investing in the little things like good quality electrical components are why Toyota stays a market leader to this day and why companies like GM continue to lose market share. At the end of the day, reliability builds consumer confidence and flashy features only work to get press in the short term. BL, like GM today, just didn't seem to understand how important the unseen parts are.
Our railways suffered the same fate. Bad management underfunded pushed around by the government’s during the postwar period and as they weren’t completely annihilated they stayed out of date and twenty years behind.