British Leyland

Most of us here probably, at minimum, dislike the idea of the recent government intervention in the auto companies, some of us more deeply than others. It has made me consider British Leyland and the chain of events that led to the decline of the domestic British auto industry.

Do we have anybody here who had any in-depth involvement in Britain and any cautionary tales we should know? Thanks, Todd C

Do not use Lucas as your electrical parts vendor....

Sorry, all I have on this one, but I think quality woes were a bit of an issue there. Great thread idea though, Poci - I always thought the TR-7 single handedly killed BL!

(Bitter ex-TR-6 owner that still wonders what they were thinking...)

Yes, Lucas, the Prince of Darkness as the stereotype goes.

Well, I have studied automotive history forever and am familiar with the merger into BL and the legendary labor (labour?) problems. Also the reports of poor quality, badge engineering, too many models, too many dealers, government socialism, import market share and more that are disturbingly familiar to us who have watched the last year's actions here. I would really like to hear from someone who was in Britain or involved enough to tell us things like:

What was the attitude of the British buyer toward buying domestic vs import?

What about patriotism toward the domestics and their place in the economy and society?

What about the economy and lifestyle of the midlands cities that depended on the auto industry? What has happened in the ensuing 20 years?

Was badge engineering or over-dealering a marketing or expense issue?

Would love to hear from someone who knows, Todd

The Brits used to build beautiful planes (Supermarine Spitfire, de Haviland Mosquito), motorcycles (BSA, Vincent), race cars (Lotus-Cosworth, Tyrell Ford-Cosworth) and automobiles (Healys, MG's) - there was no shortage of creativity and innovation. Sadly, it's all but a memory with few exceptions.

Most of us here probably, at minimum, dislike the idea of the recent government intervention in the auto companies, some of us more deeply than others. It has made me consider British Leyland and the chain of events that led to the decline of the domestic British auto industry.

Do we have anybody here who had any in-depth involvement in Britain and any cautionary tales we should know? Thanks, Todd C

The best condensation of what went wrong I've ever seen:

Part 1,

Part 2,

Part 3,

BTW, Top Gear here uses the Triumph Stag, not the later TR7, as the main spike through BL's heart. I heartily agree. The late 1970s labor and management issues laid out towards the end of Part 3 are sadly the nails in the coffin. But the coffin was already built by then.

In 1969 BL was the 5th largest car company on earth. Within 15 years it was a minor player in it's own market (U.K.), and no one cared that it was being sold off a piece at a time to mainly foreign investors. The last remnants were gone by 2000.

Hi Dave, I watched those already and that is where I got some of the basics, they are indeed a great condensed version. I started watching Top Gear on BBC America a year or two ago and really enjoy their stuff.

They did a feature on the show a while ago with BL cars and had a Rover, an Austin Princess, and a Triumph Dolomite Sprint which really intrigued me. This month's Automobile Magazine had a feature on the Dolomite Sprint compared to a BMW 2002 and posed the thought that it should have become the sport sedan of choice but that did not happen. I think they said there are only thought to be about 11 in the US.

They did a feature on the show a while ago with BL cars and had a Rover, an Austin Princess, and a Triumph Dolomite Sprint which really intrigued me. This month's Automobile Magazine had a feature on the Dolomite Sprint compared to a BMW 2002 and posed the thought that it should have become the sport sedan of choice but that did not happen. I think they said there are only thought to be about 11 in the US.

The Dolomite Sprint was an amazing car for the money. If it had been able to pass EPA like the 2002 it would have done well here. However this (mid-1970s) was the nadir of BL labor relations and (therefore) quality, and given the quality of the TR7s being produced at the time it was probably a good thing the Dolomite never made it here.

One year at the British Car Day show I ran in Pittsburgh one of the 25 TR7 "Sprint" models (pre-production for a TR7 model with the Sprint engine that was never made) came. That would have been a great car! We had 2 of the Dolomite Sprints here in Cincy 2 years ago for the Dayton British Car Day. I'm hoping at least one of them will be running in the Mitty @ Road Atlanta later this month.:cool:

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One thing, you can't be too quick to criticize either the government takeover of GM or BL. In both cases, if a purely libertarian approach were taken and the government had left well enough alone, both companies would have ceased to exist. In BL's case it was at least kept alive a bit longer. Hopefully GM will fare better.

There is a story to be taken away from the BL experience that will be brought to bear on GM if it's not remembered. In BL case, the "Thatcher's hard nuts" (as Top Gear described them) in the government took their displeasure at the government holding a car company to be more important than the welfare of the company and the economy that depended on it. British Leyland was pieced out and sold off at the fastest rate possible, with consequences that were and/or became dire. It didn't matter if there was a viable business plan that kept people working and the economy benefited, i.e. pragmatism. What mattered was ideology.

Years from now, when some other government has been elected and put in effective charge of GM, let's hope they see things more clearly than the Thatcher government did.

Years from now, when some other government has been elected and put in effective charge of GM

I'd hope and expect they'll have IPO'd the new GM by then. So far it's looking promising.

I've worked on a few Leyland tractors. They are not much better than the cars. With the Leyland line, Job security for an old tractor mechanic is number one. Dandy Dave!

Not exactly answering your original question, but an Australian perspective none the less.

As an apprentice mechanic in the early 70's, we got to see all makes come through the yard. The worst cars we ever saw were made in the UK and USSR. All the UK cars were pretty bad, TC Cortinas, Holden (Vauxhall) Vivas but none as badly assembled or appointed as the BL group. Constant electrical problems, fit and finish and oil leaks (found on anything British) saw these cars traded early and re-sale was terrible. Kimberly's, Tasman's and Marina's being the worst ever to work on and repair.

There was one shining light however. Only locally designed and made as far as I know. We had a big, really big, BL car called the P76. The boot (trunk) was capable of holding a 44 imp. gallon drum and still close the lid. The wipers were the first I ever saw that hid below the bonnet (hood). It came with a choice of 2 engines, OHC 6cyl from the Kimberly, total crap, or the 4.4L alloy engine from the Rover range. This one wasn't too bad. The downside was that the car was really ugly and didn't sell well. It came too late anyway as the company was pretty well buggered by the release of the P76 so it never had a chance. They did make a few specials. A Targa Floria sports model. 3 station wagons and 7 coupes. As legend has it, these last ones were not supposed to be released but when they were looking for stuff to sell of at the end, they sold everything they could. Anyway, these specials are very sought after and tightly held by owners.

That's my take on BL products in OZ. I hated them!

Regards from Down Under

One thing, you can't be too quick to criticize either the government takeover of GM or BL. In both cases, if a purely libertarian approach were taken and the government had left well enough alone, both companies would have ceased to exist. In BL's case it was at least kept alive a bit longer. Hopefully GM will fare better.

It didn't matter if there was a viable business plan that kept people working and the economy benefited, i.e. pragmatism. What mattered was ideology.

Years from now, when some other government has been elected and put in effective charge of GM, let's hope they see things more clearly than the Thatcher government did.

Well, last point first, as Rawja points out I would hope that GM will not remain tied to the government forever as BL did. It sounds like both sides would like the marriage to end ASAP, so there may be more motivation there than in Britain.

Second, I totally agree that in the case of GM we had to look at pragmatism over ideology, as you well stated. The same could be said of the Chrysler loan guarantees (NOT bailout) of 1980. That was controversial then, but cost the government nothing and everyone benefitted when the company went on to record prosperity just a few years later.

Back to comparing the two, I still wonder about the following:

1. GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT did BL have any motivation to try to get out from under the government, or did they not see that as an issue? I think here in the US the motivation is there.

2. LABOR INVOLVEMENT I have to think the classic labor vs management battle is lessened now as both sides see they must work together to survive. But I do not know that for sure. Certainly the BL management and workforce must have been aware of their impending decline (after all, weren't they car owners themselves?) but did they fight to the bitter end or was there ever any improvement? And I still wonder about the attitude of dealers and customers at the time, if anyone from Great Britain is out there with any input. Thanks to 38plymouth too, Todd C

Not exactly answering your original question, but an Australian perspective none the less.

As an apprentice mechanic in the early 70's, we got to see all makes come through the yard. The worst cars we ever saw were made in the UK and USSR. All the UK cars were pretty bad, TC Cortinas, Holden (Vauxhall) Vivas but none as badly assembled or appointed as the BL group. Constant electrical problems, fit and finish and oil leaks (found on anything British) saw these cars traded early and re-sale was terrible. Kimberly's, Tasman's and Marina's being the worst ever to work on and repair.

There was one shining light however. Only locally designed and made as far as I know. We had a big, really big, BL car called the P76. The boot (trunk) was capable of holding a 44 imp. gallon drum and still close the lid. The wipers were the first I ever saw that hid below the bonnet (hood). It came with a choice of 2 engines, OHC 6cyl from the Kimberly, total crap, or the 4.4L alloy engine from the Rover range. This one wasn't too bad. The downside was that the car was really ugly and didn't sell well. It came too late anyway as the company was pretty well buggered by the release of the P76 so it never had a chance. They did make a few specials. A Targa Floria sports model. 3 station wagons and 7 coupes. As legend has it, these last ones were not supposed to be released but when they were looking for stuff to sell of at the end, they sold everything they could. Anyway, these specials are very sought after and tightly held by owners.

That's my take on BL products in OZ. I hated them!

Regards from Down Under

From an English car magazine, I learned years ago that BL Australia was put out of business by a strike, that took place about the time they brought out the P76.

As you point out the P76 was designed in Australia for Australian conditions and was a chance for BL to compete on equal terms with Ford and Holden.

When a reporter asked the head of the union how it could possibly be in the interest of his membership to bankrupt 1/3 of the Australian auto industry, he replied "can you imagine the power it will give us over Ford and Holden?"

When it came to destroying the British auto industry you never saw such teamwork. Government, unions, and management all working together to run the whole industry into the ground.

England had some great cars in the fifties. If they had continued to progress along the same lines, I can easily see Standard Vanguard in the position Volvo occupies now. Austin invented the modern front drive subcompact and had a full line of models from 800cc to 1800cc on the market before Honda sold their first car. Jaguar, Rolls Royce and Bentley were once the envy of the luxury car world. And so on.

As a VW beetle fan my eyes were opened by a 1949 Austin A40. This was a small car selling in the same class as the VW beetle but what a difference! How about this comparison.

VW Beetle ---------------------------------Austin A40

1200cc engine, 30HP-air cooled...................1200cc engine, 40HP water cooled

4 speed trans, floor shift............................4 speed trans, floor shift

2 doors...................................................4 doors

buslike vinyl seats.....................................leather seats

rubber floor mats.......................................carpet

cloth sunroof, optional at extra cost.............steel sliding sunroof, standard

joke trunk................................................adequate trunk, with lid that folded .............................................................down to form a luggage rack for large .............................................................loads

joke heater run by smog.............................adequate heater, hot water type

If there was a VW dealer and an Austin dealer side by side the VW dealer would have starved to death...

PROVIDED Austin HAD the dealers and the company SUPPORTED them with good products, and insisted on superior repair service.

VW did this and prospered IN SPITE of their product's faults, and in spite of the anti Nazi prejudice of the forties and fifties.

The British had 90% of the import car market in the US and Canada in the early fifties but they never followed it up. If they had committed long term to their export markets and plowed the profits back into better factories and products they could be as big as the Germans, Swedes, and Japanese rolled into one.

As a VW beetle fan my eyes were opened by a 1949 Austin A40. This was a small car selling in the same class as the VW beetle but what a difference! How about this comparison.

VW Beetle ---------------------------------Austin A40

1200cc engine, 30HP-air cooled...................1200cc engine, 40HP water cooled

Rusty, the Metropolitan I just bought has that same A40 engine in it. When I contacted the fellow who was selling it, he said he was in the process of changing the engine because it had a knock. He had taken some of the motor apart, starter, intake/exhaust manifold and then had a small stroke and left the car sitting for years. After I got the car home I decided to put that motor together again and check out for myself what the problem was. I got the car running and I was in shock how nice it runs. I don't have a clue what he was hearing but I let it run for quite a while and it is fine. It runs smoother than my 60. Oh, BTW, that A40 has 42 horsepower. That 2 might make a difference.........;)

I had an Austin with a mysterious knock that came and went. The bearings and oil pressure were fine. It turned out to be a worn timing chain slapping against the housing.

I worked at Hollywood Sport Cars in SoCal during the decline on the British auto industry. The final offerings from BL were absolutely wretched contraptions. The earlier Stag was a massive POS and the TR-7 with half a Stag engine was, somehow, even worse. The TR-8 wasn't too bad by comparison. The Austin America and it's replacement, the Marina were equally horrid. It was almost as if BL told their engineers to take every worst part from the bin and build a car. Voila, the Marina. The first series of Lucas electronic ignitions failed almost immediately. The modules were so deeply backordered that we had to tell the customers to keep a canteen of water in the car to cool off the modules. The single carb MGBs cracked exhaust manifolds in half on virtually every car and the replacements were also backordered for months. The rest of the cars we sold weren't much better. Jags had all of their typical problems with quality control. We also sold Lotus and Jensen. The Lotus Elite was, possibly, the worst car ever built. We began to think that a tow truck was the, preferred, power source. The first Jensen Healeys spit out lower ends and leaked prodigious amounts of oil, even for a Brit car. The Interceptors engine compartments caught on fire at will. It was sad to watch, once great, cars become a laughing stock. The British sports cars were always an enthusiasts car. You were expected to perform regular maintenance and to be able to tinker and fiddle around with then. It was part of the mystique and we were all proud of our skills. I loved working on my Austin Healeys, almost as much as driving them. At the end, there was no more smiling, no more fun. Just regrets if you were unlucky enough to buy one

I had an Austin with a mysterious knock that came and went. The bearings and oil pressure were fine. It turned out to be a worn timing chain slapping against the housing.

Rusty, thanks for that info. I'll keep a close ear...............

Do not use Lucas as your electrical parts vendor....

LMAO!

I still fondly remember the day I sold my Triumph spitfire4 and feel sorry for the chap that bought it.

That being said, I still love the Austin Healey Sprites and should have bought one of those instead of the Spit. I had a line on a great one and didn't buy it because it had been restored non-stock. Little did I know at the time, the less stock, the better!

LMAO!

I still fondly remember the day I sold my Triumph spitfire4 and feel sorry for the chap that bought it.

That being said, I still love the Austin Healey Sprites and should have bought one of those instead of the Spit. I had a line on a great one and didn't buy it because it had been restored non-stock. Little did I know at the time, the less stock, the better!

I've never had problems in any of my Metropolitans. The most important thing with Lucas is the grounds...........they must be clean.

I've never had problems in any of my Metropolitans. The most important thing with Lucas is the grounds...........they must be clean.

Absolutely true. Most of the horror stories involving Lucas are either urban myth or poor grounds. Their methods of wiring a car were a bit primitive by industry standards. The clamping screws and the ill designed "Lucar" connectors needed frequent attention due to loosening and corrosion. For people who reside in such a damp environment as the Brits, you would think that they would make their stuff a little more weatherproof. Lucas was actually a far better product than the "Clear Hooter" crap that Standard Triumph seemed to prefer

Lucas took the blame for a lot of problems caused by putting the battery in backwards. Customers or garages that did not know English cars, would put in the battery back to front then wonder why nothing worked correctly and blame Lucas. English cars were positive ground.

I have seen this more than once on English cars and motorcycles.

Lucas electrics were not up to Bosch or Delco standards (the best in the world) but they were not rubbish either. At least not before the late 70s.

The problems of the British car industry went back to the fifties if not earlier. They simply did not have the profits to reinvest in new tooling and products. This was a result of government policies and union tactics aimed at squeezing every penny out of the industry, starving it of development money.

As Europe, America and Japan moved ahead England found themselves struggling to keep up with outmoded products and obsolete tools.

The Marina was indeed made up out of the parts bins. Engines dated back to the 1947 Austin. Front suspension from the 1950 Morris Minor. Leaf spring rear suspension from the one horse shay. All put into a new body in order to have something cheap to sell against Ford.

You see at that time Austin had all front drive cars and Ford was beating their brains out on fleet sales because Fords were a couple of bob cheaper. So BL decided to bring out a cheap hack to compete.

The American industry has shown similar signs over the last 25 years. When was the last time GM opened a new factory (in the US) or introduced a sensational new product? I think the Saturn plant in the late 80s for the former, and the new VOLT car for the latter. So maybe they are not dead yet. But there are signs of old age.

English cars were positive ground.

Most British cars were positive ground through the early 1960s. By 1966 virtually all British cars had been converted over to negative ground. In fact a positive ground alternator is a very rare item!

Also it wasn't really until the 1970s that British cars gained their poor reputation for reliability. In the 1950s and early 1960s they actually had a pretty decent reputation, particularly in comparison to other European makes.

One of the eerie things I noticed about the comparisons to GM's and BL's plights was the placement of corporate badges on the lower front fenders. BL started doing this in 1971, GM in 2005. The badges were identical in size, shape, location, blue on chrome color (at least the later BL badge, earlier versions were chrome on blue), and purpose. Even then I thought of it as an omen, and stated so on this forum.

I see now that those GM badges are going away. Getting rid of bad ju-ju, no doubt. ( General Motors decides to remove the GM logo from its vehicles )