Tell me about British Leyland
Discussion
They started to rust long before they hit the showrooms. I remember thousands of BL vehicles lying in fields for months or even years and having to go for a respray before they were sent out for sale. Most cars of that ere succumbed to rust though. My first Golf (1975) had rotted to death by 1982.
I'm 37 and tbh it was all done and dusted by the time I remember being properly into cars.
My dad had a Meastro, Montego and a few Triumphs but don't remember them being that bad?
Have a read of Confessions From Quality Control there's plenty of BL bits in there (and it's a great read anyway!)
My dad had a Meastro, Montego and a few Triumphs but don't remember them being that bad?
Have a read of Confessions From Quality Control there's plenty of BL bits in there (and it's a great read anyway!)
Buff Mchugelarge said:
I'm 37 and tbh it was all done and dusted by the time I remember being properly into cars.
My dad had a Meastro, Montego and a few Triumphs but don't remember them being that bad?
Have a read of Confessions From Quality Control there's plenty of BL bits in there (and it's a great read anyway!)
On a slight tangent, I had forgotten about that book - just ordered from Amazon - thanks for the reminder!My dad had a Meastro, Montego and a few Triumphs but don't remember them being that bad?
Have a read of Confessions From Quality Control there's plenty of BL bits in there (and it's a great read anyway!)
A relative of mine set off on a tour of Europe in their brand new Rover. When they returned to the dealer to check why the ride was so chaotic the dealer discovered it had no shock absorbers in the rear.
We had an SD1 which was pretty solid and cool. Overall though it fully deserved to die and no one should mourn such a wretched operation.
We had an SD1 which was pretty solid and cool. Overall though it fully deserved to die and no one should mourn such a wretched operation.
rockin said:
Jeremy Clarkson neatly summed up the workforce, shocking build quality and constant strikes,
"If they don't like building cars why don't they get another job?"
They stuck it because the pay was decent, they'd never find another job where they could skive all day, sleep all night, and they had the union supporting all that in the fight against capitalism."If they don't like building cars why don't they get another job?"
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.
aaron_2000 said:
I'm obviously too young to remember BL, however I've spent years watching films and reading pieces on them, I was interested in hearing your stories and experiences with BL cars, is it true that they'd start to rust in the showrooms? I'm interested
My family were BL (and related) buyers from 1947 (when Dad's dad bought an old Morris 8E when he was de-mobbed from the Navy) to 1995 when my Dad replaced his Rover 800 Sterling with a Mercedes W124. He's still got several BL products as classics, as do I. In something like 30 cars bought over nearly 50 years there was only one 'dog', which was my grandfather's very early Austin Metro. It was absolutely riddled with problems and spent most of its first year back at the dealer having something like three different gearboxes fitted, as well as endless carburettor trouble, duff Hydragas units, electrical niggles and flaky trim (the latches on the front seats were particularly troublesome, IIRC) fixed. My Dad's second Rover Sterling (the one that was replaced by the Merc) blew out a big-end bearing and came to an oily, steamy halt in the middle of Yeovil. But that was a Honda V6 and Dad repaired the engine himself and kept the car, which was otherwise completely trouble-free.
My family had Minis almost continuously from 1960 to 1994, so that's Mk1s, Mk2s, Mk3s and Mk4s, a couple of Travellers and a 1275GT. There were a couple of ADO16s (a Morris 1100 and a Wolseley 1300), a Princess 2200, some chrome-bumper MGB (roadster, GT and GT V8), a Triumph Stag, an Austin Allegro 1300, three Maestros (Austin 1300 City, 1600 Vdp and MG 2.0 Efi), two Montegos (VdP and 2.0GTI estate). None of which gave any trouble - some had snags which were fixed under warranty but none were chronically unreliable or badly-made as the legend would have it.
BUT - that's still a sample of only 30 cars out of the tens of millions that British Leyland managed to push out the doors when their wasn't a strike on.
Taken as the bigger picture BL products (let's keep it to the 'proper' BL years of 1968-1982) were woeful, and that's at a time when all cars were much worse and standards were much lower across the board, and in era which included the likes of Chrysler Europe, not to mention 1970s Italian products, 1970s Detroit and 1970s Eastern Bloc. Probably only the latter really managed to be consistently as bad as BL when it came to quality control. The Italians and the Japanese had BL beaten in the rust stakes, but their cars generally worked for the five years it took for them to fizz into nothing. BL products tended to last (a bit) longer but could be endless trouble from the moment they left the factory to the moment they went to the scrapyard. *
It's not just a case of poor build quality and quality control by indifferent workers and a production chain disrupted by strikes and shortages, although that never helped. For instance in the 1970s the Mini production line at Longbridge spent 10% of its time working at its planned speed. For 90% of the time it was either stopped or it was working over-speed to make up for lost production from the stoppages. So when the workers weren't hanging around Q Gate with placards they were slapping the cars together as quickly as possible. And it didn't have to be a BL strike. If one of the big suppliers (Lucas or Pilkington, say) went on strike then BL could either stop its own line when the supplies ran out (which lost the company production and revenue, and sending the workforce home could often precipitate a strike of your own!) or send cars to dealers without their lamp units or windows. These parts would be sent on when they were available. So much of your new car could in fact not have been built at the factory, but by untrained, under-resourced and frustrated dealer mechanics.
Beyond the labour relation problems (which were endemic throughout British industry and were as much as symptom of the underlying problems as they were a cause), BL was massively under-resourced, which led to corner-cutting in design and engineering, a lack of proper testing and development and a complete inability to keep pace with the changes in the industry even if they wanted to (which they generally did - BL's problem wasn't that it didn't know what to do, but that it couldn't do it). When it was formed BL made 21 distinct car models, but had only half the capital of Renault, which made four models. On a turnover of something tlike £950 million in 1969 BL only made a profit of £20 million, which wouldn't even fund the development of the Morris Marina (a deliberately basic, conventional to the point of old-fashioned, parts-bin special car).
[*]One of my Dad's rare divergences from the BL stable was to buy a brand new Alfa Romeo Alfasud 1.5Ti QV. It needed welding for its first MoT. It needed welding for its second MoT. It needed new front wings for its third MoT. It needed welding for its fourth MoT. So he sold it. Even the worst of his 1970s-BL-in-full-crisis-Mk3 Minis weren't that bad!
Austin Morris 1100s were very popular - a hatch version would have been more so but they didnt like one model of BL car to compete with another
Triumph Dolomite had BMW firmly in its sights but you couldnt have leather because they didnt like one model of BL car to compete with another
Now what was it with the Austin Princess, great spacious car, looked like a hatch but wasnt because hey didnt like one model of BL car to compete with another
The competition just gave people what they wanted
Triumph Dolomite had BMW firmly in its sights but you couldnt have leather because they didnt like one model of BL car to compete with another
Now what was it with the Austin Princess, great spacious car, looked like a hatch but wasnt because hey didnt like one model of BL car to compete with another
The competition just gave people what they wanted
Aaron
Pop here https://www.aronline.co.uk/
Lots of history on British Leyland and all the various marques... It is an absolutely enormous website and you can immerse yourself in facts and figures...
Latterly they have been including other brands to keep it current....
Pop here https://www.aronline.co.uk/
Lots of history on British Leyland and all the various marques... It is an absolutely enormous website and you can immerse yourself in facts and figures...
Latterly they have been including other brands to keep it current....
2xChevrons said:
My family were BL (and related) buyers from 1947 (when Dad's dad bought an old Morris 8E when he was de-mobbed from the Navy) to 1995 when my Dad replaced his Rover 800 Sterling with a Mercedes W124. He's still got several BL products as classics, as do I.
In something like 30 cars bought over nearly 50 years there was only one 'dog', which was my grandfather's very early Austin Metro. It was absolutely riddled with problems and spent most of its first year back at the dealer having something like three different gearboxes fitted, as well as endless carburettor trouble, duff Hydragas units, electrical niggles and flaky trim (the latches on the front seats were particularly troublesome, IIRC) fixed. My Dad's second Rover Sterling (the one that was replaced by the Merc) blew out a big-end bearing and came to an oily, steamy halt in the middle of Yeovil. But that was a Honda V6 and Dad repaired the engine himself and kept the car, which was otherwise completely trouble-free.
My family had Minis almost continuously from 1960 to 1994, so that's Mk1s, Mk2s, Mk3s and Mk4s, a couple of Travellers and a 1275GT. There were a couple of ADO16s (a Morris 1100 and a Wolseley 1300), a Princess 2200, some chrome-bumper MGB (roadster, GT and GT V8), a Triumph Stag, an Austin Allegro 1300, three Maestros (Austin 1300 City, 1600 Vdp and MG 2.0 Efi), two Montegos (VdP and 2.0GTI estate). None of which gave any trouble - some had snags which were fixed under warranty but none were chronically unreliable or badly-made as the legend would have it.
BUT - that's still a sample of only 30 cars out of the tens of millions that British Leyland managed to push out the doors when their wasn't a strike on.
Taken as the bigger picture BL products (let's keep it to the 'proper' BL years of 1968-1982) were woeful, and that's at a time when all cars were much worse and standards were much lower across the board, and in era which included the likes of Chrysler Europe, not to mention 1970s Italian products, 1970s Detroit and 1970s Eastern Bloc. Probably only the latter really managed to be consistently as bad as BL when it came to quality control. The Italians and the Japanese had BL beaten in the rust stakes, but their cars generally worked for the five years it took for them to fizz into nothing. BL products tended to last (a bit) longer but could be endless trouble from the moment they left the factory to the moment they went to the scrapyard. *
It's not just a case of poor build quality and quality control by indifferent workers and a production chain disrupted by strikes and shortages, although that never helped. For instance in the 1970s the Mini production line at Longbridge spent 10% of its time working at its planned speed. For 90% of the time it was either stopped or it was working over-speed to make up for lost production from the stoppages. So when the workers weren't hanging around Q Gate with placards they were slapping the cars together as quickly as possible. And it didn't have to be a BL strike. If one of the big suppliers (Lucas or Pilkington, say) went on strike then BL could either stop its own line when the supplies ran out (which lost the company production and revenue, and sending the workforce home could often precipitate a strike of your own!) or send cars to dealers without their lamp units or windows. These parts would be sent on when they were available. So much of your new car could in fact not have been built at the factory, but by untrained, under-resourced and frustrated dealer mechanics.
Beyond the labour relation problems (which were endemic throughout British industry and were as much as symptom of the underlying problems as they were a cause), BL was massively under-resourced, which led to corner-cutting in design and engineering, a lack of proper testing and development and a complete inability to keep pace with the changes in the industry even if they wanted to (which they generally did - BL's problem wasn't that it didn't know what to do, but that it couldn't do it). When it was formed BL made 21 distinct car models, but had only half the capital of Renault, which made four models. On a turnover of something tlike £950 million in 1969 BL only made a profit of £20 million, which wouldn't even fund the development of the Morris Marina (a deliberately basic, conventional to the point of old-fashioned, parts-bin special car).
[*]One of my Dad's rare divergences from the BL stable was to buy a brand new Alfa Romeo Alfasud 1.5Ti QV. It needed welding for its first MoT. It needed welding for its second MoT. It needed new front wings for its third MoT. It needed welding for its fourth MoT. So he sold it. Even the worst of his 1970s-BL-in-full-crisis-Mk3 Minis weren't that bad!
That was a really interesting read In something like 30 cars bought over nearly 50 years there was only one 'dog', which was my grandfather's very early Austin Metro. It was absolutely riddled with problems and spent most of its first year back at the dealer having something like three different gearboxes fitted, as well as endless carburettor trouble, duff Hydragas units, electrical niggles and flaky trim (the latches on the front seats were particularly troublesome, IIRC) fixed. My Dad's second Rover Sterling (the one that was replaced by the Merc) blew out a big-end bearing and came to an oily, steamy halt in the middle of Yeovil. But that was a Honda V6 and Dad repaired the engine himself and kept the car, which was otherwise completely trouble-free.
My family had Minis almost continuously from 1960 to 1994, so that's Mk1s, Mk2s, Mk3s and Mk4s, a couple of Travellers and a 1275GT. There were a couple of ADO16s (a Morris 1100 and a Wolseley 1300), a Princess 2200, some chrome-bumper MGB (roadster, GT and GT V8), a Triumph Stag, an Austin Allegro 1300, three Maestros (Austin 1300 City, 1600 Vdp and MG 2.0 Efi), two Montegos (VdP and 2.0GTI estate). None of which gave any trouble - some had snags which were fixed under warranty but none were chronically unreliable or badly-made as the legend would have it.
BUT - that's still a sample of only 30 cars out of the tens of millions that British Leyland managed to push out the doors when their wasn't a strike on.
Taken as the bigger picture BL products (let's keep it to the 'proper' BL years of 1968-1982) were woeful, and that's at a time when all cars were much worse and standards were much lower across the board, and in era which included the likes of Chrysler Europe, not to mention 1970s Italian products, 1970s Detroit and 1970s Eastern Bloc. Probably only the latter really managed to be consistently as bad as BL when it came to quality control. The Italians and the Japanese had BL beaten in the rust stakes, but their cars generally worked for the five years it took for them to fizz into nothing. BL products tended to last (a bit) longer but could be endless trouble from the moment they left the factory to the moment they went to the scrapyard. *
It's not just a case of poor build quality and quality control by indifferent workers and a production chain disrupted by strikes and shortages, although that never helped. For instance in the 1970s the Mini production line at Longbridge spent 10% of its time working at its planned speed. For 90% of the time it was either stopped or it was working over-speed to make up for lost production from the stoppages. So when the workers weren't hanging around Q Gate with placards they were slapping the cars together as quickly as possible. And it didn't have to be a BL strike. If one of the big suppliers (Lucas or Pilkington, say) went on strike then BL could either stop its own line when the supplies ran out (which lost the company production and revenue, and sending the workforce home could often precipitate a strike of your own!) or send cars to dealers without their lamp units or windows. These parts would be sent on when they were available. So much of your new car could in fact not have been built at the factory, but by untrained, under-resourced and frustrated dealer mechanics.
Beyond the labour relation problems (which were endemic throughout British industry and were as much as symptom of the underlying problems as they were a cause), BL was massively under-resourced, which led to corner-cutting in design and engineering, a lack of proper testing and development and a complete inability to keep pace with the changes in the industry even if they wanted to (which they generally did - BL's problem wasn't that it didn't know what to do, but that it couldn't do it). When it was formed BL made 21 distinct car models, but had only half the capital of Renault, which made four models. On a turnover of something tlike £950 million in 1969 BL only made a profit of £20 million, which wouldn't even fund the development of the Morris Marina (a deliberately basic, conventional to the point of old-fashioned, parts-bin special car).
[*]One of my Dad's rare divergences from the BL stable was to buy a brand new Alfa Romeo Alfasud 1.5Ti QV. It needed welding for its first MoT. It needed welding for its second MoT. It needed new front wings for its third MoT. It needed welding for its fourth MoT. So he sold it. Even the worst of his 1970s-BL-in-full-crisis-Mk3 Minis weren't that bad!
Probably best summarised as occasional flashes of brilliance utterly drowned by a combination of labour issues and the sheer bureaucratic inertia of a big inefficient company made up of lots of smaller inefficient companies run by people who had real idea how to navigate a toy duck in a bath - much less a car company.
Exceptions of course did apply to this rule - otherwise the whole thing would have imploded long before it actually did.
See also - British Aerospace Industry
Exceptions of course did apply to this rule - otherwise the whole thing would have imploded long before it actually did.
See also - British Aerospace Industry
Lots of cars in the 60s and 70s had major rust issues and "lace bodywork" was a feature of most used cars, mainly because they didn't really understand rust-proofing, wheelarch liners or ventilation of closed spaces. Road mud accumulated in wheelarches behind headlights and remained damp, causing wings to rust.
Halfords sold tons of filler. Much of it was in my Austin A40 Farina (BMC era).
A lot of rust issues also developed when workers went on strike and cars just sat in compounds and fields for weeks on end.
However, I don't recall BL having any major reputation for rust, as opposed to any other make - that was left to Fiat, Alfa and Lancia which dissolved.
My father had a 1978 Princess 2 2200HLS, from new and it was a great car and replaced a series of two Toyotas and even they rusted.
Halfords sold tons of filler. Much of it was in my Austin A40 Farina (BMC era).
A lot of rust issues also developed when workers went on strike and cars just sat in compounds and fields for weeks on end.
However, I don't recall BL having any major reputation for rust, as opposed to any other make - that was left to Fiat, Alfa and Lancia which dissolved.
My father had a 1978 Princess 2 2200HLS, from new and it was a great car and replaced a series of two Toyotas and even they rusted.
BL was formed by the merger of Leyland with British Motor Holdings. Leyland consisted of Rover and Standard-Triumph, (who at that time were both building excellent cars and building them well) and Leyland trucks. BMH was formed by the merger of BMC and Jaguar. Jaguar were at that time building excellent cars and building them fairly well. They also owned Daimler, Coventry Climax engines and Guy trucks. BMC was the end result of a series of mergers between Austin, Morris, MG, Wolsley, Riley. They also owned Pressed Steel and Vanden Plas. MG were an efficient and reliable factory, but the rest of BMC, especially Austin in Longbridge were for the most part throwing together utterly forgettable dross and doing it badly.
Lots of factories, with too many people building too many models using too many different parts and too many models that were merely badge-engineered versions of existing models. The management were mostly inept and the union shop stewards seemed intent on destroying the industry. The parts suppliers suffered from the same malaise. Some of the cars were great, and some were terrible. They were mostly all badly-made and had terrible electrics. Even the good cars suffered bad reputations as a result. Nationalisation by Tony Benn made things even worse.
I heartily recommend reading "Saving Jaguar" by Sir John Egan for an excellent first-hand account of the BL years, what he found at Jaguar and how he rescued it from almost certain failure.
Lots of factories, with too many people building too many models using too many different parts and too many models that were merely badge-engineered versions of existing models. The management were mostly inept and the union shop stewards seemed intent on destroying the industry. The parts suppliers suffered from the same malaise. Some of the cars were great, and some were terrible. They were mostly all badly-made and had terrible electrics. Even the good cars suffered bad reputations as a result. Nationalisation by Tony Benn made things even worse.
I heartily recommend reading "Saving Jaguar" by Sir John Egan for an excellent first-hand account of the BL years, what he found at Jaguar and how he rescued it from almost certain failure.
You know the top gear where they pitted Leyland cars against each other. Well it really was a documentary.
The Doorcard staying behind when opening the door? That was fact. Rear of fronts seats. Yep that fell off. A lot
Not sure about rust - my dad did not keep them long enough....
He did have a MG Montego 2.0 efi..... That actually was not a bad car in comparison...
The Doorcard staying behind when opening the door? That was fact. Rear of fronts seats. Yep that fell off. A lot
Not sure about rust - my dad did not keep them long enough....
He did have a MG Montego 2.0 efi..... That actually was not a bad car in comparison...
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