Tell me about British Leyland
Discussion
I bought a new TR7 in 1977 and it was a complete disaster. List of faults would take an age to post here. Ignition key did not fit the door locks, wipers not working, pop up headlights didn't parts of the wiring loom missing, rattles from all over and paint blistering. This is just a few of the immediate faults. Back to the dealer time and time again. Actually went back to BL in the end to try and sort it out. Seven weeks later had a call to say car was ready for collection. Went to collect on a Saturday morning and it was outside ready to go. As I walked over to it a mechanic reversed out of the workshop in a mini and ran into my car!
Eventually got it back and within a week it actually caught fire. Caused by an electrical fault. I was actually quite pleased!
Bought a Lancia Monte Carlo after that which was great.
Eventually got it back and within a week it actually caught fire. Caused by an electrical fault. I was actually quite pleased!
Bought a Lancia Monte Carlo after that which was great.
Whenever someone is trying to slate BL it's normally a brown Marina or Maxi that gets mentioned. BL had a lot of desirable models under it's wing including Triumph Stags,TR6, Dolomite,GT6, Jag V12 E-types, XJ6,Rover P5,P6,SD1 models that still look good today and still be seen en masse at most car shows.
Another of my interest is British motorcycles especially of the 70s era. A great read is a book called 'Triumph Motorcycles In America' the country that kept Triumph afloat, one passage in the book describes how some of the T160's sent to America found to have 'dog ends'(cigerette filters) left in the oil ways with the intention of f
king the engine up on start up, such was the animosity between workers and management at NVT in this case, the T160 was a gorgeous machine, it wasn't the product that was at fault all the time more like the workers and management at each others throat.
Another of my interest is British motorcycles especially of the 70s era. A great read is a book called 'Triumph Motorcycles In America' the country that kept Triumph afloat, one passage in the book describes how some of the T160's sent to America found to have 'dog ends'(cigerette filters) left in the oil ways with the intention of f
king the engine up on start up, such was the animosity between workers and management at NVT in this case, the T160 was a gorgeous machine, it wasn't the product that was at fault all the time more like the workers and management at each others throat.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.
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.
This thread is highly informative. My personal recollection having been a teenager in the 70s and getting holiday jobs in local factories is what depressing and unambitious places they were. The combination of work shy militant work forces with weak complacent management was a recipe for decline. During this period I also lived in the US for a while and had equivalent manual jobs and their workplace attitude was very different. Slacking just wasn't tolerated. If you didn't put a proper shift in you'd be fired. The flip side is that people were pretty well paid. Their auto industry had its own problems but in my opinion more to do with being too slow to change and adapt.
mikal83 said:
Rust buckets, zero spec, ie no radio/mirrors/speakers unless it was a Rover. Engine would be knackered after 70k. When Jap cars starting coming over they were called japcrap...........guess who had the last laugh
"Engine would be knackered after 70k."Not in my experience.
I had a new Mark 1 Sprite in 1960 and that engine ran happily to 88,000 miles, at which point it suffered a burned exhaust valve. Up to that point the engine was fine, having received nothing more than routine servicing. I replaced the exhaust valve, piston rings, and connecting rod bearings, and the car then went to 120,000 miles without any further engine trouble.
It was a corroded underframe that finally killed the car, but it was an extremely enjoyable car to drive around in and it had given very good service.
Up to the 88,000 mile point I had always used Castrol engine oil, until a friend in the garage trade pointed out how dirty the valve gear had become. He suggested changing to BP Energol Visco-Static engine oil as this would keep the engine internals much cleaner, so I did this, and he was right. Obviously the Castrol had been perfectly satisfactory in terms of lubricating qualities, but it was nicer to have an engine that stayed clean internally.
The Visco-Static was strange stuff though; it was like red wine in colour and had a strangely sweet smell. It didn't really seem like engine oil but it certainly did a good job.
monthefish said:
brrapp said:
Most cars of that ere succumbed to rust though. My first Golf (1975) had rotted to death by 1982.
Ahhh yes, that famous British Leyland model. 
Raygun said:
mikal83 said:
Rust buckets, zero spec, ie no radio/mirrors/speakers unless it was a Rover. Engine would be knackered after 70k. When Jap cars starting coming over they were called japcrap...........guess who had the last laugh
I think you'll find Jap cars had a worse problem for rust than BL cars from that era but what I would say about Jap cars their radios always worked without the need for suppressors all over the engine bay.Just sold my 1972 Triumph Stag, would of drove that anywhere and the amount of Triumph Stags still surviving is proof BL products didn't all rot away within a decade.
Rememebr a guy on my paper round bodging up a turquoise 120Y, must have spent his entire wages on filler and paint, every night after work for weeks, bogging, sanding, primering and painting and to be fair he did it quite well, it went from holed and rusty to a presentable looking example, even as a 13 year old I saw the problem, as he finished one area, then moved on the rust would start appearing again. Anyway, it ceased to be his problem as a neighbor, returning from the pub after a few too many (was the eighties, rife then) and shunted it with a MK2 Granada at some pace, which shortened it to more Micra Size and left huge clods of Turquoise Isopon on the floor, the Granada shrugged it off but the 120Y was very dead.
Perseverant said:
For a middling size company they thus had a bewildering range of vehicles, engines and plants, a ghastly mess made worse by dreadful industrial relations and equally poor management systems. For example, there were two V8 engines on the go, two different sized 6 cylinder Triumph engines, the Rover 4 cylinder, a host of smaller 4 cylinder engines for Austin/Morris/Triumph in front and rear wheel drive versions and so on. They also held on to antiques like the last of the Morris 1000 series for far too long, and Landrover still made the big 6 cylinder petrol engine based on the last engine from the Rover P4 and P5. Jaguar still made the XK engine but then went for a V12 in time for the oil crisis in the early 70s.
Why didn't BL slim down/re-engineer the engines to create a common range of powerplants:PETROL
S4
1.3L 16v > Austin-Morris, Mini-Riley, Triumph
1.7L 16v > Austin-Morris, Land Rover, Triumph
2.0L 16v > MG, Triumph
S6
2.0L 24v > Rover, Triumph
2.5L 24v > Land Rover, MG, Rover, Triumph
3.0L 24v > Jaguar, Land Rover, Rover, Triumph
V8
3.5L 32v > Land Rover, MG, Rover, Triumph
4.5L 32v > Jaguar, Land Rover, Rover
V12
6.0L 48v > Jaguar
DIESEL
S4
2.0L 8v > Land Rover
S6
2.5L 12v > Rover
3.0L 12v > Jaguar, Land Rover
V8
4.0L 16v > Jaguar, Land Rover, Rover
...and trim down the number of brands:
Austin-Morris > cheap
Mini-Riley > supermini (FWD)
MG > sporting coupés and roasters (RWD) | MGC 1700/2000 (S4)/3500
Triumph > sporting saloons based on common underpinnings with Rover (RWD) | Dolomite 1300/1700/Sprint (2.0 S4), 2000/2500/3000/3500, Stag
Rover > wafty executive saloons and estates (RWD) | 2000/2500/3000/3500 S/4500 Vitesse/2500 D Turbo/3000 D Turbo/4000 SD Turbo
Land Rover > 4x4s (AWD) | Series III, Range Rover/V8/TD6/TDV8
Jaguar > luxury saloons sharing underpinnings with Daimler (RWD) | XJ6/8/12/6D/8D
Daimler > state limousines etc (RWD) | DS300/450/600
Edited by AppleJuice on Tuesday 20th February 12:49
Glad to see the criticism of Issigonis. After he finished the Mini he should probably have been let go, not promoted.
I read a story (on AROnline maybe?) that Pressed Steel told him about all the terrible rust traps on the ADO16 and suggested how they could be fixed, and he told them to bugger off as he was the car designer, not them.
I formed a theory some time ago that Austin should just have been closed down some time during the late 60s. If you take Longbridge out of the equation - the weak management, fragile engineering, incompetent product planners, blind designers, militant workforce, terrible labour relations, the hoovering up of all the cash to feed the out-of-control Longbridge beast, etc, then the rest of the BL organisation was probably good enough to survive.
You'd have got rid of a whole bunch of the people who would go on to destroy BL in the 70s. You'd be rid of the overcapacity, and the overmanning. The other design offices could have been free to design cars that people actually wanted. Rover could have launched the P6BS and the P8 if William Lyons was a lone voice, without the backing of the BMC mob. If you look into the 80s and 90s it was Longbridge management that turned Rover from a maker of world-beating cars into a badge engineering firm slapping walnut and chrome on other peoples porridge. And it was Cowley that BMW wanted to keep, not Longbridge. The phoenix Rover co was the Austin co really, with a new name. All because Longbridge was, unfathomably, the sacred cow.
I read a story (on AROnline maybe?) that Pressed Steel told him about all the terrible rust traps on the ADO16 and suggested how they could be fixed, and he told them to bugger off as he was the car designer, not them.
I formed a theory some time ago that Austin should just have been closed down some time during the late 60s. If you take Longbridge out of the equation - the weak management, fragile engineering, incompetent product planners, blind designers, militant workforce, terrible labour relations, the hoovering up of all the cash to feed the out-of-control Longbridge beast, etc, then the rest of the BL organisation was probably good enough to survive.
You'd have got rid of a whole bunch of the people who would go on to destroy BL in the 70s. You'd be rid of the overcapacity, and the overmanning. The other design offices could have been free to design cars that people actually wanted. Rover could have launched the P6BS and the P8 if William Lyons was a lone voice, without the backing of the BMC mob. If you look into the 80s and 90s it was Longbridge management that turned Rover from a maker of world-beating cars into a badge engineering firm slapping walnut and chrome on other peoples porridge. And it was Cowley that BMW wanted to keep, not Longbridge. The phoenix Rover co was the Austin co really, with a new name. All because Longbridge was, unfathomably, the sacred cow.
To be honest they did try and define the brands better in the 70s and 80s.
The rough idea was:
Morris. Conventional with RWD. mass market.
Austin. Technically clever FWD mass market.
Triumph. Slightly classier and sportier but still mass market.
Rover. A bit upmarket, 'young exec'.
Jaguar. Luxury.
Riley, Wolseley etc, done away with.
The rough idea was:
Morris. Conventional with RWD. mass market.
Austin. Technically clever FWD mass market.
Triumph. Slightly classier and sportier but still mass market.
Rover. A bit upmarket, 'young exec'.
Jaguar. Luxury.
Riley, Wolseley etc, done away with.
Bladefist said:
Am I the only one who thinks that the Rover SD1 was bloody gorgeous and ahead of its time in terms of styling?
Dunno, I never saw it as particularly attractive, especially the rear end, which i thought looked too bulky: but then I think that about a lot of current models.Incidentally, somebody once told me that the roof panel on the SD1 was fixed to the rest of the bodyshell using pop rivets. Could that be true?
Raygun said:
mikal83 said:
Rust buckets, zero spec, ie no radio/mirrors/speakers unless it was a Rover. Engine would be knackered after 70k. When Jap cars starting coming over they were called japcrap...........guess who had the last laugh
I think you'll find Jap cars had a worse problem for rust than BL cars from that era but what I would say about Jap cars their radios always worked without the need for suppressors all over the engine bay.Just sold my 1972 Triumph Stag, would of drove that anywhere and the amount of Triumph Stags still surviving is proof BL products didn't all rot away within a decade.
Yipper said:
The destruction of the UK car industry between 1950 and 2000 was something to behold and unmatched anywhere in the world before or since. The speed and size of the collapse were quite staggering. Britain went from no.2 carmaker globally by volume to no.10 or worse in just a matter of a few years. Bad management, bad investment, bad education, bad government support, bad training, bad quality and bad unions caused the implosion.
I reckon the US probably equalled or surpassed our decline in the last 20 years.Michigan which used to be the centre of their auto industry went through this:
"When the Great Recession hit the U.S. in December of 2007, state economies buckled.
But in the four years preceding it Michigan was the only state to lose jobs overall. The state lost 148,100 jobs from 2003 through 2007 while the U.S. added 7.6 million jobs.
Over the entire decade, from 2000 to 2009, the state lost 805,900 jobs, or 1 in every 6 – a 17.2 percent reduction in employment. The next closest state to bleed that many jobs was Ohio, which lost 9.9 percent of its jobs in those years.
Nationwide, the U.S. began the decade with modest declines in employment, but then job growth picked up strongly through 2007. It fell off a cliff in 2008 and 2009; overall, the U.S. lost 786,000 jobs from 2000 to 2009. While the Great Recession job loss in the United States was bad, Michigan’s decline began much earlier and was catastrophic. The Wolverine State lost more jobs over the decade than the net job loss for the entire nation"
From here
ETA: some brands have disappeared entirely, and it caused SAAB to go too.
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