Confessions from quality control - The Frontera factory

Confessions from quality control - The Frontera factory

Author
Discussion

chrisga

2,087 posts

186 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
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The Crack Fox said:
chrisga said:
Pledged for a hard copy. Dad served his apprenticeship with Rootes Group and worked in the same group right through until his retirement from Peugeot. Should love it for his Christmas present.
I hope he likes it! Peugeot's (Roote's) Ryton-on-Dunsmore plant was one of the worst I ever visited, there's a chapter on it in the book. Is he French, by any chance? Hope not... hehe
No not French. During apprenticeship I think he used to drive down from Yorkshire on his motorbike come wind rain or snow and then go home at weekends. He was mostly at the Stoke plant iirc. He tells a few stories. They didn't have enough of, I think, a grey and black car that needed a certain number for rally homologation. They were being signed off, counted, driven out the front door and back in the back door....

Edited by chrisga on Thursday 4th August 18:54


Edited by chrisga on Thursday 4th August 19:56

Ray Luxury-Yacht

8,910 posts

215 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
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The Crack Fox said:
You Pistonheaders have been magnificent in your support of my modest typings on what is a fairly peculiar subject....
That's simply because we are all mental anoraks, basically biggrin

I am looking forward to my book!


willisit

2,141 posts

230 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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A great thread - but I completely missed the KS piece; lucky I still had time to pledge!

andycambo

1,077 posts

173 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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Really enjoyed your posts when this thread started so I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it.

Good luck with it all and I hope you get a few more backers before the clock ticks to zero.

Fas1975

1,777 posts

163 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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Pledged, great read so far

Mr. H

985 posts

146 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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Have you done much promotion of the kickstarter campaign outside this thread and motorpunk?

To get over 400 pledges from an ambiguous thread title, where people had to read about 15 pages before a book was even mentioned, is really good going.

P.S. Please send the pdf's out before next Monday as it'll be a good read for my holiday.

BenWRXSEi

2,343 posts

133 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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email said:
Great news!
Thanks to you and 417 others, Confessions from quality control - the book has been successfully funded. Your pledge has been charged, funds will soon be transferred to the creator, and they’ll begin working on their project.
party

dmitry

341 posts

161 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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OP, having signed first couple hundred books



hehe

Edited by dmitry on Friday 5th August 14:14

X5TUU

11,907 posts

186 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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So pleased I got in on this for a pb copy.

My total naiivity of all this but didn't realise Kickstarter would take a % ... Stands to reason obviously but still!

Hope your now thinking about volume 2 wink

hairyben

8,516 posts

182 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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Great, put in for 2 copies of the paperback, in laws should love one, really looking forward to receiving them


Remember working at longbridge briefly while doing my apprenticeship on the electricity board contracting arm, first day on job handed a set of cosh assessments and safety directives that was like a telephone directory, told to "drink your coffee, have a look through that and sign to say you understand/agree and I'll be back in 5 to show you the job." Sums up british industry/management attitude IMO.

Steve Evil

10,653 posts

228 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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Got the survey through and I just added my email address to the delivery address part, hope that's OK, otherwise I'll email a response instead.

marshall100

1,124 posts

200 months

Saturday 6th August 2016
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I'm looking forward to this, I also think it could do rather well in the run up to crimbo....

Anyway, do you know anything of the phoenix 4? Or was that doomed to failure from the start?

ChemicalChaos

10,360 posts

159 months

Sunday 7th August 2016
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Just caught up with this thread again - is it too late to pledge via kickstarter for a personal copy? If so, how do I go about it? What is the book title please?

Glasgowrob

3,232 posts

120 months

Sunday 7th August 2016
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Any chance those with a hard copy order can get a pdf as well

Can't wait

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Sunday 7th August 2016
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I tried to pledge 3 times, but my bank kept thinking it was fraud and blocked it, even after I phoned them to tell them it was OK. frown

f1nn

2,692 posts

191 months

Sunday 7th August 2016
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Now that it is funded, I assume I need to wait for it to be available on Aamazon or similar to get a copy?

Unless I'm being stupid, I can't see an option to pledge now?

marshall100

1,124 posts

200 months

Monday 8th August 2016
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The Crack Fox said:
Thank you!

Phoenix 4? It's a subject that has been done many times on here, I didn't know any of them personally, but knew first hand what a bunch of parasites they were. Rover couldn't get credit with suppliers, we could see the end coming a long time before it happened, insufficient sales to even tread water financially, greater production capacity than they needed, Pheonix 4 taking out huge sums to feather their nest, workforce seemingly oblivious to the fact that a company so well established could ever close. The irony is, as I mention in the book, that the 75 was a really good car. Well made too (no, really).
Thanks for the insight, that it's covered in the book to a degree is a bonus. I've not read that much about it on here tbh but thought if anyone had inside info, it might be you.

The 75 was indeed a very well made car. I used to work for a automotive glazing firm and having removed a few windscreens from a 75, half the top of a dashboard, and some of the aperture as well while trying to get the screen out it was exceptionally well put together.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Monday 8th August 2016
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marshall100 said:
Thanks for the insight, that it's covered in the book to a degree is a bonus. I've not read that much about it on here tbh but thought if anyone had inside info, it might be you.

The 75 was indeed a very well made car. I used to work for a automotive glazing firm and having removed a few windscreens from a 75, half the top of a dashboard, and some of the aperture as well while trying to get the screen out it was exceptionally well put together.
The early ones were really very nice, but they got steadily worse once the Phoenix 4 took over. The final ones are pretty horrible, flimsy feeling things. The list of penny pinching things they took out in "Project Drive" is quite depressing. Build a car where the wood dashboard is a big feature and then replace it with plastic wood 2 years into production. Well done guys. IMHO behaviour like that gives truth to the lie that they ever intended MGR to have a long term future.

They never quite reached the depths of the Rover 25 though, which actually lost it's wheel arch liners by the end.

Edited by dme123 on Monday 8th August 13:03

marshall100

1,124 posts

200 months

Monday 8th August 2016
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It was an early one that we tried to saw off part of the chassis while removing the windscreen, the top of the dash gave out first though biggrin

David87

6,648 posts

211 months

Monday 8th August 2016
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Completely forgot about this great thread, but will be after a couple of copies from Amazon once they're available. So pleased it's proved so successful for you, OP!