Tell me about British Leyland
Discussion
One thing I will never forget about the Princess HLS was that the power steering hissed gently when you turned the steering wheel.
It was really quite soothing.
I think the Princess and Allegro failed more through lack of a hatchback. Even the Alfasud and Citroen GSA grew a hatch around 1980 but by the time they launched the cavernous Ambassador, in 1982, it was a bit late to the party as the Sierra moved the game on from wedge to fashionable blobbiness.
The Cavalier got rounder but BL remained resolutely straight.
It was really quite soothing.
I think the Princess and Allegro failed more through lack of a hatchback. Even the Alfasud and Citroen GSA grew a hatch around 1980 but by the time they launched the cavernous Ambassador, in 1982, it was a bit late to the party as the Sierra moved the game on from wedge to fashionable blobbiness.
The Cavalier got rounder but BL remained resolutely straight.
In the Crown household we were very much Ford or BL in the 70s and 80s... I seem to remember anything foreign was outrageously expensive at the time e.g. BMW or 'tinny' French/ Italian.
I think it was generally accepted you had to actively maintain your car... even down to rustproofing... Dad was very proud of his 'Ziebart'ed XJ6. We had a few which never rusted very much if you kept them garaged.. Mini Clubman Estate, MGB, TR6 , Range Rover (Underside) all pretty reliable... though the XJ6 was damp all the time..
My second BL car was a Black 1979 Dolomite 1500SE ...(Pictured below) bought when 17... it was 8 years old and I had to change the engine twice... could never get the SU carbs to balance... I learnt an awful lot about mechanics.. and kept it going through monthly scrapyard visits...
Obligatory halford spotlights.... I thought I was so cool...
I think it was generally accepted you had to actively maintain your car... even down to rustproofing... Dad was very proud of his 'Ziebart'ed XJ6. We had a few which never rusted very much if you kept them garaged.. Mini Clubman Estate, MGB, TR6 , Range Rover (Underside) all pretty reliable... though the XJ6 was damp all the time..
My second BL car was a Black 1979 Dolomite 1500SE ...(Pictured below) bought when 17... it was 8 years old and I had to change the engine twice... could never get the SU carbs to balance... I learnt an awful lot about mechanics.. and kept it going through monthly scrapyard visits...
Obligatory halford spotlights.... I thought I was so cool...
Ali G said:
16 valve head in the dolly - a first.
Apart from the 1970 Escort RS1600 and 1971 Jensen Healey......BL was an odd company; the cheapest stuff (Mini, 1100, Marina) provided the best actual transport, Triumphs were mechanical disasters and Jaguars were plain abysmal - the worst BL cars for body rot as well. Beautiful and beguiling, but absolute rubbish as well. I loved mine but couldn't believe how shoddy they were under the skin.
I started my working life at a BL dealership in 1983 as a 16yo parts apprentice. We had the whole raft of BL marques which also included Land Rover and Leyland Trucks at the time.
It was only a medium size place in a rural town but the parts operation was massive.The parts dept had probably more staff than the rest of the dealership put together.
A huge warehouse with stocks of every darn thing you could think of. Everything seemed to arrive in multiples of 10 and sold like hot cakes. Stuff like engine mounts, handbrake cables, wheel cylinders, brake master cylinders etc, things that now, rarely fail. Stuff took weeks to arrive as, laughable now, stock orders were sent out weekly in the mail.
The biggest part of this was the trade operation, a phone office with 4 full timers and a fleet of maybe 12 or 15 Marina vans that spent their entire life delivering to the local garage trade. I recall loading these vans literally to the roof sometimes with parts for one delivery for just one local garage. One van was designated to only deliver engines and gearboxes, all day, every day.
The retail shop was an interesting place to be, always busy with all manner of people coming in to buy stuff for MGs, Jags, Austins, Triumphs, Rileys, Rovers, Land Rovers, endless makes and models from the 50s onwards.
I vividly remember the launch of the Metro, it was a massive national event, all over the TV news and they sold in their thousands. The weekend at my dealership was utterly bonkers, as if the whole town had turned up.
The launch parts stock for the Metro issued to us filled 2 artic trailers and when they all got recalled to fit a fuel cap that wouldn't leak we had a van turn up from BL quite literally full of nothing but Metro fuel caps.
Because everything was looked up in scabby old parts books and on unreadable microfiche cock ups were every day occurrences. I was once tasked with part numbering up a list of stuff for an XJS that had an interior fire, got a part number arse about face and instead of a bag of 10 trim clips, 10 electric leather seats arrived.
Virtually nothing could be sent back to BL for credit unless it arrived damaged. So,very often, stuff that wasn't needed/wrong etc would suffer sudden mysterious damage and get shipped back. An XJS bonnet being used as an emergency trampoline springs to mind.
Another time I recall, BL came across a huge stock of, obviously genuine, surplus Dolomite front wings and shipped em out at £1 each. This would have been around 1986 and within a few months they'd gone NLA and suddenly those still in circulation became hot property. Now one would probably command several hundred quid.
Was all only 30 odd years ago but now seems like 100.
It was only a medium size place in a rural town but the parts operation was massive.The parts dept had probably more staff than the rest of the dealership put together.
A huge warehouse with stocks of every darn thing you could think of. Everything seemed to arrive in multiples of 10 and sold like hot cakes. Stuff like engine mounts, handbrake cables, wheel cylinders, brake master cylinders etc, things that now, rarely fail. Stuff took weeks to arrive as, laughable now, stock orders were sent out weekly in the mail.
The biggest part of this was the trade operation, a phone office with 4 full timers and a fleet of maybe 12 or 15 Marina vans that spent their entire life delivering to the local garage trade. I recall loading these vans literally to the roof sometimes with parts for one delivery for just one local garage. One van was designated to only deliver engines and gearboxes, all day, every day.
The retail shop was an interesting place to be, always busy with all manner of people coming in to buy stuff for MGs, Jags, Austins, Triumphs, Rileys, Rovers, Land Rovers, endless makes and models from the 50s onwards.
I vividly remember the launch of the Metro, it was a massive national event, all over the TV news and they sold in their thousands. The weekend at my dealership was utterly bonkers, as if the whole town had turned up.
The launch parts stock for the Metro issued to us filled 2 artic trailers and when they all got recalled to fit a fuel cap that wouldn't leak we had a van turn up from BL quite literally full of nothing but Metro fuel caps.
Because everything was looked up in scabby old parts books and on unreadable microfiche cock ups were every day occurrences. I was once tasked with part numbering up a list of stuff for an XJS that had an interior fire, got a part number arse about face and instead of a bag of 10 trim clips, 10 electric leather seats arrived.
Virtually nothing could be sent back to BL for credit unless it arrived damaged. So,very often, stuff that wasn't needed/wrong etc would suffer sudden mysterious damage and get shipped back. An XJS bonnet being used as an emergency trampoline springs to mind.
Another time I recall, BL came across a huge stock of, obviously genuine, surplus Dolomite front wings and shipped em out at £1 each. This would have been around 1986 and within a few months they'd gone NLA and suddenly those still in circulation became hot property. Now one would probably command several hundred quid.
Was all only 30 odd years ago but now seems like 100.
Not sure if my family were ardent nationalists, genuinely loved BL product or were just skint - the roll of (dis)honour, over 40-odd years has included:
Austin 1100
Mini Traveller (not half-timbered)
Allegro (2 door)
Allegro (4 door)
Allegro (estate)
Allegro (late model, the least embarrassing of the four but it's all relative)
Triumph 2000 (lovely, just lovely)
Marina
Mini
Another Mini
Maxi (1500, utterly gutless)
Ambassador (you are spoiling us with your extensive rear leg room)
Maestro (world's heaviest unassisted steering)
My dad did all the spannering, and I can remember lots of filler being mixed and applied, many, many Saturday morning trips to Allparts or to the breakers yard, but apart from the brakes failing on one of the Minis and on the Ambassador I can't remember any of them actually breaking down at the roadside.
Austin 1100
Mini Traveller (not half-timbered)
Allegro (2 door)
Allegro (4 door)
Allegro (estate)
Allegro (late model, the least embarrassing of the four but it's all relative)
Triumph 2000 (lovely, just lovely)
Marina
Mini
Another Mini
Maxi (1500, utterly gutless)
Ambassador (you are spoiling us with your extensive rear leg room)
Maestro (world's heaviest unassisted steering)
My dad did all the spannering, and I can remember lots of filler being mixed and applied, many, many Saturday morning trips to Allparts or to the breakers yard, but apart from the brakes failing on one of the Minis and on the Ambassador I can't remember any of them actually breaking down at the roadside.
Edited by Spumfry on Tuesday 20th February 21:18
We used to get some of these 70's/80's BL dross in from the main dealers as unwanted part ex cars, at 5-10 years old these cars were often very close to scrap.
Even if they did not have terminal rust they'd have oil burning engines or crunchy gearboxes, these BL cars were (mostly) always a pile of junk to drive, dreadful awful soul destroying crap.
Marina
Maxi
Allegro
Princess
Ambassador
Ital
Allegro '3' (good lord it was still an Allegro the 3 could never hide that!)
I am not including the Metro as it was in many ways a good car that was spoiled by rusty wings and archaic engine and gearboxes from the mini (early metro's till they were updated in the late 80's/90's).
They were so out dated in their design, shocking.
Even if they did not have terminal rust they'd have oil burning engines or crunchy gearboxes, these BL cars were (mostly) always a pile of junk to drive, dreadful awful soul destroying crap.
Marina
Maxi
Allegro
Princess
Ambassador
Ital
Allegro '3' (good lord it was still an Allegro the 3 could never hide that!)
I am not including the Metro as it was in many ways a good car that was spoiled by rusty wings and archaic engine and gearboxes from the mini (early metro's till they were updated in the late 80's/90's).
They were so out dated in their design, shocking.
One interesting difference between Triumph and Toyota that I noticed was fasteners.
Toyota seemed to only use about 3 or 4 sizes of bolt for the entire car, whereas in my memory the Herald had a bespoke bolt for each fitting.
It's a minor thing, but makes a difference to both build times and stocking cost.
Toyota seemed to only use about 3 or 4 sizes of bolt for the entire car, whereas in my memory the Herald had a bespoke bolt for each fitting.
It's a minor thing, but makes a difference to both build times and stocking cost.
Some excellent threads here and I now know a lot more about the background to BL. Most of their stuff was thrown together, but once sorted most of their products were quite acceptable My wife had a new Mini and kept it for 9 years and nothing went wrong or fell off after the first service/rebuild. We even had a later owner contact her when it was 22 years old as he was restoring it, it was still in good condition with only new sills and subframes needed, but it had been modified so much we didn't recognise it. It was followed by a couple of Metros because we needed something with a boot (another of Issigonis's design disasters) and again they were perfectly reliable and roomy At the same father in law had an Allegro 1300, which gave no trouble until it was stolen and used for a series of robberies, so he couldn't have been the only one to appreciate its qualities :O
A little earlier I had an Anglia 1200 estate which managed to snap its crankshaft and a silver Escort that all the paint peeled off, so Fords were not exactly the paragon of reliability and the handling was pretty lethal next to the BL equivalents. I also don't think that Dagenham and particularly Halewood were exactly models of good industrial relations at the time, so lets get things in proportion
A little earlier I had an Anglia 1200 estate which managed to snap its crankshaft and a silver Escort that all the paint peeled off, so Fords were not exactly the paragon of reliability and the handling was pretty lethal next to the BL equivalents. I also don't think that Dagenham and particularly Halewood were exactly models of good industrial relations at the time, so lets get things in proportion
Back in the 80's and in my first job, one of the directors bought themselves a new Montego 2.0si in white. When it turned up, it had Austin Rover Badges on the front grill and steering wheel with MG wheel trims and boot lid.
Then he bought a Metro for his wife and it didn't have any badges on at all.
On both occasions, I understand that the response from the garage was along the lines of 'oh well'...
Then he bought a Metro for his wife and it didn't have any badges on at all.
On both occasions, I understand that the response from the garage was along the lines of 'oh well'...
The BL 'N-Series' engine-naming nomenclature continued into the Rover Group era with the M-Series, T-Series, & K-Series petrol (carburettor and SPi & MPi) and L-Series (injection pump) & G-Series (common rail) diesel engines.
A 16v BL S-Series engine was under development whilst the 1113cc & 1396cc K-Series were being developed, but dropped when the K-Series was re-designed to allow 1588cc & 1796cc capacities ( it will go up to 1996cc ).
In the late 1970s and early 1980s BL and Perkins worked on developing a diesel-fuelled Rover V8 - codenamed 'Iceberg' - slated for the XJ, Range Rover and 3500 SD Turbo. To save costs at the time, new diesel engines were based upon existing petrol engines (e.g. O-Series diesel which, through time, was developed into the common rail G-Series - not bad for an engine which could be traced back to the B-Series and - via the L-Series development - donated components to the 'Storm' Td5).
Using a Stanadyne rotary mechanincal injection pump, outputs of 100 PS atmospheric and 150 PS turbocharged were recorded, however the cylinder heads couldn't cope with the pressures of compression ignition and the engine had cooling issues. Whilst these issues could have been overcome, Rover and Land Rover were split off into different divisions with Land Rover taking over V8 production; with no capacity to make diesel V8s, no market for large-capacity diesel engines and BL removing all technical support when Perkins tried to continue engine development alone, 'Iceberg' was wrapped up in late 1983.
One prototype is an exhibit at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon:
A 16v BL S-Series engine was under development whilst the 1113cc & 1396cc K-Series were being developed, but dropped when the K-Series was re-designed to allow 1588cc & 1796cc capacities ( it will go up to 1996cc ).
In the late 1970s and early 1980s BL and Perkins worked on developing a diesel-fuelled Rover V8 - codenamed 'Iceberg' - slated for the XJ, Range Rover and 3500 SD Turbo. To save costs at the time, new diesel engines were based upon existing petrol engines (e.g. O-Series diesel which, through time, was developed into the common rail G-Series - not bad for an engine which could be traced back to the B-Series and - via the L-Series development - donated components to the 'Storm' Td5).
Using a Stanadyne rotary mechanincal injection pump, outputs of 100 PS atmospheric and 150 PS turbocharged were recorded, however the cylinder heads couldn't cope with the pressures of compression ignition and the engine had cooling issues. Whilst these issues could have been overcome, Rover and Land Rover were split off into different divisions with Land Rover taking over V8 production; with no capacity to make diesel V8s, no market for large-capacity diesel engines and BL removing all technical support when Perkins tried to continue engine development alone, 'Iceberg' was wrapped up in late 1983.
One prototype is an exhibit at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon:
Edited by AppleJuice on Wednesday 21st February 21:25
mr_fibuli said:
This staff training film from the 70s gives you a great insight into how they worked 
:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRyN4XhJ_ms
Tell you what though just how cool are those sd1s coming off the production line in that video though those things were stunning when they were new. :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRyN4XhJ_ms
AW111 said:
It wasn't just the Japanese either : I compete in a 1968 Fiat - twincam, front disks, etc. etc.
With you on that - my first car was a 1967 MKII Cortina, followed by a 1970 Fiat 125. It was worlds ahead in technology - alloy head and gearbox casing, twin overhead cams instead of OHV push-rods, 4 wheel disc brakes. OK, it had some rust, but no more than the Cortina! I wish Fiat had gone to the effort of making 124 Spyders with RHD - I'm sure there'd be a few less archaic MGBs around if they had!
KillianB4 said:
This is a great read, still remember the stories my dad would tell about the Marina and the Allegro his family had way back when.
His aunt bought a Mini new in the early 80s which he proceeded to roll into a ditch and she never replaced it or drove again. Although that was his fault, not BLs.
He fondly remembers the 3 wheeled Scammell lorry my grandfather used drive for British rail on Jersey in the 60s. We have a Corgi die cast of one in the same colours at home proudly displayed in the living room.
One still nearly aliveHis aunt bought a Mini new in the early 80s which he proceeded to roll into a ditch and she never replaced it or drove again. Although that was his fault, not BLs.
He fondly remembers the 3 wheeled Scammell lorry my grandfather used drive for British rail on Jersey in the 60s. We have a Corgi die cast of one in the same colours at home proudly displayed in the living room.
king disgrace what happenedThis is a great read, and some interesting stuff from people around at the time. I worked for a BL supplier in the 80's, the idea that it was all the fault of the unions is totally misplaced, There were numerous issues, unions, poor management, lack of investment, out of control engineering (e.g XK 40 designed so as not to accept a V8 just incase some one wanted to use the Triumpth or Rover One), poor dealer network, (My Dad bought a Toyota, he wanted a Marina TC, but the BL dealer closed at lunch time when he walked over), the list goes on.
But the poor cars were a symptom of BL demise not a cause, In the 80's I had a new XRi, destroyed first set of tyres as wheel alignment was wrong from factory, GTE Astra, Alternator fell off 150 miles from new, on the seven bridge. Also had a Maestro that never missed a beat.
One thing people forget is that because we drive on the left, we were the easy market for the Japanese car industry to attack when they decided to export, they did not export to the UK first because our cars were worse than Germany or France as is often portrayed.
But the poor cars were a symptom of BL demise not a cause, In the 80's I had a new XRi, destroyed first set of tyres as wheel alignment was wrong from factory, GTE Astra, Alternator fell off 150 miles from new, on the seven bridge. Also had a Maestro that never missed a beat.
One thing people forget is that because we drive on the left, we were the easy market for the Japanese car industry to attack when they decided to export, they did not export to the UK first because our cars were worse than Germany or France as is often portrayed.
For the most part, British cars suffered the same issues as American cars and European cars outside Germany. High cost of labor, poor management and poor quality control. It's very idiotic to blame it all on labor. The guy screwing in the headliner doesn't really have much control over the direction of the company.
The only reason French and Italian cars made it longer was because of government backing.
Quality control is a management responsibility. I remember reading somewhere that a lot of the disputes were caused by forward planning problems, leading to parts not making it to the factory and stopping the assembly line. When the line stopped, people would stop getting paid. Combine this with cars leaving the factory unfinished and you'll have a bad reputation very quickly.
I would be interested in reading what the executives were paying themselves during these industrial disputes. While I was too young to remember the politics of the BL strikes, I do remember the US car bail outs of 2008, and how GM and Chrysler executives took private jets to meet with government officials so that they could request public money to bail them out.
I for one love the British cars that I own. My 73 MGB is probably the most fun car that I've owned. My 75 Jaguar XJ5.3C is in many ways a better car than my Mercedes Benz 450SEL 6.9. Bigger brakes, more sophisticated suspension and the only car available with a V12 at the time which was not an Italian exotic.
The only reason French and Italian cars made it longer was because of government backing.
Quality control is a management responsibility. I remember reading somewhere that a lot of the disputes were caused by forward planning problems, leading to parts not making it to the factory and stopping the assembly line. When the line stopped, people would stop getting paid. Combine this with cars leaving the factory unfinished and you'll have a bad reputation very quickly.
I would be interested in reading what the executives were paying themselves during these industrial disputes. While I was too young to remember the politics of the BL strikes, I do remember the US car bail outs of 2008, and how GM and Chrysler executives took private jets to meet with government officials so that they could request public money to bail them out.
I for one love the British cars that I own. My 73 MGB is probably the most fun car that I've owned. My 75 Jaguar XJ5.3C is in many ways a better car than my Mercedes Benz 450SEL 6.9. Bigger brakes, more sophisticated suspension and the only car available with a V12 at the time which was not an Italian exotic.
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