James May's Cars of the People

[Halmyre]

British Leyland was supposed to be this big car engineering flagship. Look what we got:

Austin/Morris: Innovation (Mini, 1100, Maxi) versus Tradition (Minor, lived on long past its sell-by date; Marina/Ital, Minor in a new frock) with added compromise (1800) and sheer folly (3-litre). Short arms and deep (or empty) pockets, so they hung on to the pig-iron A and B series engines for far too long.

Riley, Wolseley, Princess: famous old names dying on their arse and living on only as badges because nobody wanted to be the one to pull the trigger, fearful of stern letters from Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.

MG: over-reliant on tradition, but any innovation stifled by Jaguar or Triumph in any case.

Rover/Triumph: at each other’s throats when they weren't being bullied into line by Jaguar.

Jaguar/Daimler: Jaguar suppressed the V8 engine as used in the Dart and the 250 saloon and killed off Rover's mid-engined coupe concept. They also weren't too happy with the Triumph Stag, but that sowed the seeds of its own destruction.

Good luck getting that shotgun marriage to work out amicably.

[ClockworkCupcake]

Halmyre said:

Rover/Triumph: at each other’s throats when they weren't being bullied into line by Jaguar.

And the reason why the Stag didn't just use the Rover V8 but tried to design their own engine.

[ClockworkCupcake]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

It'll be filed with all the rest of the "worthy" documentary / factual stuff that the BBC likes to make "due to the unique way it is funded". Not all BBC programmes are money-makers, thank goodness.

I'm not disagreeing with you, mind, but fortunately the BBC isn't a completely commercial enterprise due to the aforementioned License Fee, so we may see more series. I hope we do.

[PZR]

Kitchski said:

nicanary said:

Agreed about the Japanese segment. When they found out it hadn't worked they should have re-filmed - I thought it was a bit disrespectful towards the Japanese engineers. As a post said earlier, an in-depth translated interview with these guys could have been very interesting.

To be fair, they didn't come across all that charismatic and it felt a bit awkward with them, not helped by the language barrier. But even if they had got over that, I still think what they were basically saying would have been very engineery; i.e. to the point, blunt and pretty much lacking any engagement to anyone unless they were a Toyota fan. That's just the nature of their ethic, and it's the way they go about their business. It's probably the reason they made the best cars (in an overall sense of the word) in the world back then (and probably still do). They're the sort of clean shaven, short-back and sides kind of..........

That seems to be a very pre-conceived and stilted idea of what the Japanese guys were like. I had great sympathy for them. They had just been put into a car with - presumably - little idea of what was expected of them and a stupid situation where the guy driving and asking the questions didn't understand a single word that they were saying, and they probably understood little of what he was saying (which was May's problem, not theirs...). The walkie-talkie 'translation' idea was rubbish and - as has been said - it should have been re-shot or reformatted.

My bet is that the Japanese guys were at least a generation older than the American guys, and what's more they were certainly more relevant to the theme than the American guys as they all worked for Toyota in the period concerned, and all had different jobs at different levels in the company. It could have been a really interesting segment (especially if the production crew took them for a beer) but - as usual - the crew didn't really do any 'when in Rome' and it fell pretty much flat. It was like a 'Top Gear in Japan' segment of old.

Yes the American guys were interesting, but it was all a bit anecdotal and the 'steel supplier' guy in particular seemed a bit of a 'he'll do'...

[PurpleTurtle]

I really enjoyed it, then started looking at the price of Series 1 E Types

[s m]

MartG said:

ta22gt said:

Escort3500 said:

I enjoyed it as I did the last series. The bit with the Japanese and American guys being driven around was a bit too long but otherwise it was well put together. The S3 E Type was a sorry successor to the earlier versions, it never worked for me. Also, I seem to remember that the twin cam Celica was an altogether better car than the 2-litre GT that featured, though I might be wrong on this.

The 2000 GT is also a twin-cam. Both have very similar performance, (sub 9 second 0-60 - in the mid 1970's) and equipment; twin-cam, 5-speed, LSD, live axle, terrible steering box etc In the end which is the better car seems to be decided by which look you prefer....

In the UK the Mk1 Celicas were available in ST or GT form - the 1.6 ST Coupes used the 2T-B dual downdraught carb pushrod engine while the GT had the DOHC 2T-G with dual Mikuni-Solex sidedraught carbs. Power figures are a grey area as they were originally quoted in JIS BHP - some sources seem to take that as being the same as DIN but in reality they are different - 2T-B JIS figure of 100bhp is roughly equivalent to 86bhp DIN.

The Liftbacks sold in the UK had the 18R 2.0 pushrod engine in the ST model while the GT got the 18R-G DOHC. Other markets got other engines like the 2.2 cars sold in the US.

The Celicas, as said, had terrible steering - shame really as the rest was pretty good
Back in the mid 80s, friend owned one for a few months in between Mk2 Escorts

Shame they never put a decent r&p system on them

[Morningside]

FourWheelDrift said:

Every stylised drawing of a 70s concept car looks like that Allegro, too long and stretched out. To me that drawing looks like the same Allegro they ended up with after real world engineering had been applied.

Designer's mind.


Reality




I prefer Paul Hughes design sketch - http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/cars/austin/allegr...

Cover the rear wheels in and you have got yourself a Citroen.

[Kitchski]

PZR said:

That seems to be a very pre-conceived and stilted idea of what the Japanese guys were like. I had great sympathy for them. They had just been put into a car with - presumably - little idea of what was expected of them and a stupid situation where the guy driving and asking the questions didn't understand a single word that they were saying, and they probably understood little of what he was saying (which was May's problem, not theirs...). The walkie-talkie 'translation' idea was rubbish and - as has been said - it should have been re-shot or reformatted.

My bet is that the Japanese guys were at least a generation older than the American guys, and what's more they were certainly more relevant to the theme than the American guys as they all worked for Toyota in the period concerned, and all had different jobs at different levels in the company. It could have been a really interesting segment (especially if the production crew took them for a beer) but - as usual - the crew didn't really do any 'when in Rome' and it fell pretty much flat. It was like a 'Top Gear in Japan' segment of old.

Yes the American guys were interesting, but it was all a bit anecdotal and the 'steel supplier' guy in particular seemed a bit of a 'he'll do'...

That's probably a fair counter-point.

[Kitchski]

Morningside said:

Cover the rear wheels in and you have got yourself a Citroen.

Wouldn't be the first time BL tried to mimic Citroen!

[Kitchski]

FourWheelDrift said:

The birth of the Ital.

British Leyland Exec: Let's get an established Italian Design house to restyle the Marina, it will be magnificent and rebuild our place as a producer of fine cars.
British Leyland board: Yay!
[Ring ring]
Ital design: 'ello
British Leyland: Hello Mr Ital, British Leyland here. We would like you to redesign the Marina, make it a modern cool car, a car fit for 80s Britain and world exports.
Ital boss: [shrugs] Ok. [puts phone down]
Ital boss: [looks at Marina] Change the lights
Ital designers: Ok.

You're right though!

Again, compare it to other products.

In 1982, you could buy one of these:



Or one of these:



Or one of these:



Or if you stomach LHD (until 1983), one of these:



And BL are trying to peddle this!:



I'd have bought one of these over the Ital:



And it seems to be a common theme with BL, but why did they have two models, in this case the Ambassador and the Ital, fighting for the same market??

[ajprice]

Away from the Allegro, one thing mentioned on the programme was that the Morris Minor was built as a front wheel drive transverse engined car. I didn't know that, and neither did my dad, who had a moggy and always has a look around them when there is one at a classic car show.

[Morningside]

Kitchski said:

FourWheelDrift said:

The birth of the Ital.

British Leyland Exec: Let's get an established Italian Design house to restyle the Marina, it will be magnificent and rebuild our place as a producer of fine cars.
British Leyland board: Yay!
[Ring ring]
Ital design: 'ello
British Leyland: Hello Mr Ital, British Leyland here. We would like you to redesign the Marina, make it a modern cool car, a car fit for 80s Britain and world exports.
Ital boss: [shrugs] Ok. [puts phone down]
Ital boss: [looks at Marina] Change the lights
Ital designers: Ok.

You're right though!

Again, compare it to other products.

In 1982, you could buy one of these:



Or one of these:



Or one of these:



Or if you stomach LHD (until 1983), one of these:



And BL are trying to peddle this!:



I'd have bought one of these over the Ital:



And it seems to be a common theme with BL, but why did they have two models, in this case the Ambassador and the Ital, fighting for the same market??

You forgot. Although to be fair it is a 1970s car.

[Iva Barchetta]

He also didn't pronounce Van den Plas properly.

It's not plar,it's plass.....because Belgian.

[Kitchski]

Morningside said:

You forgot. Although to be fair it is a 1970s car.

Different category of car though, the SD1. And in fairness, the looks on the SD1 were one thing BL got bang on!

I know the Ital is based on a much older design, and all the others there are all new for the early 80's, but the fact remains they tried to peddle something old hat (leaf springs, for god's sake!) against something like a Sierra, with the game-changing curves, or the BX, with all alloy engines and probably the most advanced bodyshell package available at the time. They should have killed the Marina off and ploughed funds into the replacement, instead of faffing about with old stuff. And, when the replacement came, the Montego, it still wasn't as good as most of the cars above!

[MartG]

s m said:

MartG said:

ta22gt said:

Escort3500 said:

I enjoyed it as I did the last series. The bit with the Japanese and American guys being driven around was a bit too long but otherwise it was well put together. The S3 E Type was a sorry successor to the earlier versions, it never worked for me. Also, I seem to remember that the twin cam Celica was an altogether better car than the 2-litre GT that featured, though I might be wrong on this.

The 2000 GT is also a twin-cam. Both have very similar performance, (sub 9 second 0-60 - in the mid 1970's) and equipment; twin-cam, 5-speed, LSD, live axle, terrible steering box etc In the end which is the better car seems to be decided by which look you prefer....

In the UK the Mk1 Celicas were available in ST or GT form - the 1.6 ST Coupes used the 2T-B dual downdraught carb pushrod engine while the GT had the DOHC 2T-G with dual Mikuni-Solex sidedraught carbs. Power figures are a grey area as they were originally quoted in JIS BHP - some sources seem to take that as being the same as DIN but in reality they are different - 2T-B JIS figure of 100bhp is roughly equivalent to 86bhp DIN.

The Liftbacks sold in the UK had the 18R 2.0 pushrod engine in the ST model while the GT got the 18R-G DOHC. Other markets got other engines like the 2.2 cars sold in the US.

The Celicas, as said, had terrible steering - shame really as the rest was pretty good
Back in the mid 80s, friend owned one for a few months in between Mk2 Escorts

Shame they never put a decent r&p system on them

Steering wasn't actually as bad as made out in motoring mags of the time - I think it was the fashion amongst journalists back then to bash anything not r&p - I certainly didn't have an issue with it on mine ( and the gearchange was a real 'knife through butter' joy )

[Halmyre]

Kitchski said:

You're right though!

Again, compare it to other products.

In 1982, you could buy one of these:



Or one of these:



Or one of these:



Or if you stomach LHD (until 1983), one of these:



And BL are trying to peddle this!:



I'd have bought one of these over the Ital:



And it seems to be a common theme with BL, but why did they have two models, in this case the Ambassador and the Ital, fighting for the same market??

Lord knows.

Anyone with a few hours to spare should check out the AR Online web site:

http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/cars/morris/marina...

[Beati Dogu]

Iva Barchetta said:

He also didn't pronounce Van den Plas properly.

It's not plar,it's plass.....because Belgian.

We're not Belgian, so everyone pronounced it "plar".

[Scuffers]

Kitchski said:

You're right though!

Again, compare it to other products.

In 1982, you could buy one of these:



Or one of these:



Or one of these:



Or if you stomach LHD (until 1983), one of these:



And BL are trying to peddle this!:



I'd have bought one of these over the Ital:



And it seems to be a common theme with BL, but why did they have two models, in this case the Ambassador and the Ital, fighting for the same market??

ford sierra is not a good example, another case of new shape on archaic mechanics.

Vauxhall were the only (UK) ones to actually design new stuff, the first of the FWD cavaliers and Astra's were lightyears ahead of ford and BL.

ford's first real 'modern' car was the Mk3 Escort, although it was saddled with the CVH (mind you, at least even that was a new engine compared to the Pinto, A/O series etc)

[s m]

MartG said:

s m said:

MartG said:

ta22gt said:

Escort3500 said:

I enjoyed it as I did the last series. The bit with the Japanese and American guys being driven around was a bit too long but otherwise it was well put together. The S3 E Type was a sorry successor to the earlier versions, it never worked for me. Also, I seem to remember that the twin cam Celica was an altogether better car than the 2-litre GT that featured, though I might be wrong on this.

The 2000 GT is also a twin-cam. Both have very similar performance, (sub 9 second 0-60 - in the mid 1970's) and equipment; twin-cam, 5-speed, LSD, live axle, terrible steering box etc In the end which is the better car seems to be decided by which look you prefer....

In the UK the Mk1 Celicas were available in ST or GT form - the 1.6 ST Coupes used the 2T-B dual downdraught carb pushrod engine while the GT had the DOHC 2T-G with dual Mikuni-Solex sidedraught carbs. Power figures are a grey area as they were originally quoted in JIS BHP - some sources seem to take that as being the same as DIN but in reality they are different - 2T-B JIS figure of 100bhp is roughly equivalent to 86bhp DIN.

The Liftbacks sold in the UK had the 18R 2.0 pushrod engine in the ST model while the GT got the 18R-G DOHC. Other markets got other engines like the 2.2 cars sold in the US.

The Celicas, as said, had terrible steering - shame really as the rest was pretty good
Back in the mid 80s, friend owned one for a few months in between Mk2 Escorts

Shame they never put a decent r&p system on them

Steering wasn't actually as bad as made out in motoring mags of the time - I think it was the fashion amongst journalists back then to bash anything not r&p - I certainly didn't have an issue with it on mine ( and the gearchange was a real 'knife through butter' joy )

We were comparing it against our cars of the time though, Mk1/Mk2 Escort steering was much better in comparison. I guess it's what you're used to
I'm trying to find my old pics of it next to my RS2000 - we did have an entertaining convoy drive back up through Wales after he bought it

The one on Top Gear looked in great nick

[strummerville]

I enjoyed this, watched it on iPlayer last night. It says a lot for the quality of May's presentation style (presume he wrote it, too) that despite the fact its a story that's been played out many, many times, it was still told in an entertaining way.

Let's not forget too, that post war, when the Morris Minor was introduced, we still had years of rationing and the British Empire was crumbling around our feet. Oh, and don't mention the financial debt to be paid back to the USA for their help with the Allied war effort.

At least they told the truth about the current 'great British car industry' - we make loads of cars for everyone else. I cringed at the flag waving TG episode where three F Types were driven with much flag waving down the Mall. They are more Indian than your evening takeway!

(Still like the Dolly Sprint, though...)