Machines | British Motor Corporation Story
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BMC was the largest British car company of its day, with (in 1952) 39 percent of British output, producing a wide range of cars under brand names including Austin, Morris, MG, Austin-Healey and Wolseley as well as commercial vehicles and agricultural tractors. The first chairman was Lord Nuffield (William Morris) but he was replaced in August 1952 by Austin's Leonard Lord who continued in that role until his 65th birthday in 1961 but handing over, in theory at least, the managing director responsibilities to his deputy George Harriman in 1956. BMC's headquarters were at the Austin plant at Longbridge, near Birmingham and Austin was the dominant partner in the group mainly because of the chairman. The use of Morris engine designs was dropped within 3 years and all new car designs were coded ADO from "Amalgamated Drawing Office". The Longbridge plant was up to date, having been thoroughly modernised in 1951, and compared very favourably with Nuffield's 16 different and often old fashioned factories scattered over the English Midlands. Austin's management systems however, especially cost control and marketing, were not as good as Nuffield's and as the market changed from a shortage of cars to competition this was to tell. The biggest-selling car, the Mini, was famously analysed by Ford Motor Company who concluded that BMC must be losing £30 on every one sold. The result was that although volumes held up well throughout the BMC era, market share fell as did profitability and hence investment in new models, triggering the 1966 merger with Jaguar Cars to form British Motor Holdings (BMH), and three years later leading to the government sponsored merger of BMH with Leyland Motor Corporation. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Motor_Corporation S062
Comments
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Wow, nearly £12 a week average wage? Where do I apply? Or is this some unattainable utopia? :P
Sadly, the British aerospace industry was following a parallel path at the same time. -
so why did they all go on strike in the 70s
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Just like Scammel Trucks. The best in the world, full order books, profitable and the major supplier to the M.O.D......then the M.O.D were forced to buy the cheapest under EU tender legislation, which ended up coming from state subsidised Renault/DAF, undercutting Scammel. Forced into bankruptcy, bought for a pittance by Leyland Trucks and closed down within 5 years. A tragedy that got a lot of pen pushers and foreign manufacturers very wealthy and destroyed a powerhouse.
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Britains car industry mismanaged into the ground.
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Notice a crate destined for "BOOTH DUBLIN" at 12:56. The full name of the location was "Booth & Poole", I believe was located in Chapelizod. This was an assembly works for the Herald.
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'' Great Britain at best'', sad it is'ant like that today ?????
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BMC had some really great products (I own two Morris Majors) - to have had such an advantage and to squander it in such spectacular fashion shows a steely dedication to arrogance from all involved.
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Are any of these men and women still alive I wonder? The stories that could tell.
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awesum vid thanks for posting
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Not a real fan of anything to do with Limey's, but will admit, the architecture of old England is beautiful....
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a pity that in fact just about every british made car was axiomatic to failure the moment it left the damn factory though. No mention of that, of course. Reliability was always right to the very bitter end a dreadful saga. The result? The UK has no own car manufacturing of it's own at all. Jaguar/LandRover are TATA of India (a place where we use to like to kick people around, now they dictate how jags and rovers are made). Rolls Royce belongs to BMW, Bentley to VW and the other cars made in the UK are japanese. The UK produces some 1.2 million of these few foreign cars PA, made in the UK, VW alone produces and exports more than 8 million (despite the Diesel story that will blow over) PA.
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No factories in Scotland...why was it called B.M.C?
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As an American, I was quite shocked and saddened to see the British auto industry practically disappear. But the few that are made in England today have something that British Leyland cars never did---quality. There's no bits falling off of today's cars, no shorted electrical systems or poor fit and finish....they simply work, and work brilliantly.
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Luckily the Germans and Japanese came over and showed us how to build cards properly ..now we have high quality MINIs , Rolls Royces and Bentleys...so a happy ending after all...strange how those who lost the war won the peace...
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The biggest mistake Britain I think made, was to continue to allow the 'them & us' attitude, well into the late 80s which helped kill it off, both from the management & worker perspectives. Even in Labour-run councils, it's still the same to some degree today. Germany however worked with their unions & the union & the management work side by side each other as industry partners, which sadly isn't understood by many in the UK. That's why they're successful & we aren't today. Also a lot of nepotism occurs in councils & in other industries which annoys workers with aspirations of promotion ( who've sacrificed time, effort & expense on correspondence courses, degrees, etc) & causes lower quality of products or services. I've worked for some complete & utter pricks in my time & I can understand the frustrations of ' we're management we know best & who do you think you're talking to?' When In fact they don't know everything or anything at all about the job & or industry-as they're complete dodos, as they're fucking daddy or uncle got them a management job & they are less qualified than the rival candidates at the interview. These sorts usually also look down their noses upon lower ranking managers & the workers too- which doesn't help industrial relations or make them effective operational, managers.
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I seen a ad years ago a load of leylands driving in the sand ye and two days later their in a scrappers yard rusting like f..k anything union run is like a smack head minding a bag off crack theirs going to be a large fuck up along the way we will never see craftsman ship like in the 50.60.70s now people just don't give a hoot my god people wake up get rid of unions and spinless people start standing up for what u belive in a gud work standard get rid of lazy and gud for nothings to many in Europe
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This was the golden era for BMC, can't blame the decline on any one reason, there were several issues.
Leyland motors were a very successful truck and bus maker who merged with government encouragement with Austin-Morris Nuffield (BMC) and Standard-Triumph (with whom they had already took over) it went downhill after that with government, management, unions and in many cases..lazy workers.
I thank the Japanese (Honda, Toyota) and the Germans (Mercedes) for showing the rest of the world how to assemble a quality car.
The British (and Americans) made crappy cars, plain and simple. Meanwhile the Japanese and Germans were investing heavily in robotics and lean manufacturing. No wonder, Japanese also destroyed the British motorbike industry.