Death of the UK Car Industry - Part 2: British Leyland

Hello, and welcome to Part 2 of my 4 part series on the death of the British Car Industry, focusing on the politics, society, economics and decisions made over the course of a 70 year period that led from Britain being one of the largest car-making countries in the world to having no home-based indigenous car brands left.

Part 2 focusses on the first half decade following the merger of British Motor Holdings with the Leyland Group to form British Leyland, a manufacturer envisaged to be the British equivalent of General Motors, but inherited far too many bad habits and rotten foundations upon its formation that the entire enterprise was doomed from the start, with no mixture of cars or compromises possibly being able to stave off the firm's inevitable slide into financial ruin by the middle of the 1970s.

Chapters:

0:00 - Preamble
1:17 - The Leyland Merger
4:48 - An Unhappy Marriage
8:12 - The Cracks Appear
13:46 - Boardroom Battles
16:45 - The Oil Crisis
20:06 - Bankruptcy
23:16 - The Ryder Report
29:09 - The Government Steps In

The views and opinions expressed in this video are my personal appraisal and are not the views and opinions of any of these individuals or bodies who have kindly supplied me with footage and images.

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Thanks again, everyone, and enjoy! :D

References:
- AROnline (and their respective sources)
- Wikipedia (and its respective references)

[fanman]

A couple of unsubstantiated stories about the Morris Marina. After several brake failures it was discovered that a drum of brake fluid used at the factory had been placed under a roof leak which contaminated the fluid. Another classic brake story concerned a customer returning his new Marina to the dealer complaining of the brakes pulling to one side. To placate the customer, they put two of their best mechanics on the job to sort it quickly. Everything Was inspected, cleaned, bled and adjusted. No faults were found. Next day the customer is back complaining of the same fault, especially under prolonged and heavy braking. As it was busy at the dealer only one mechanic was tasked with fault-finding. The face-palm moment occurred when the guy found it had disc brakes on one side and drum on the other. The basic 1.3 version had drums and the more up market 1.8 had discs, and both versions were built on a mixed line. Just a couple of stories among many about lack of quality control at the factory.

[Negito-bu]

The end of the motorcycle industry should have warned them. But they didn't learn.
My late uncle complained when he bought his first Datsun, that they were better value for money and less troublesome than the UK products.
A shame the executives weren't as astute

[original_yosemitesam]

I heard a story about a customer taking thier new Allegro back to the dealer complaining a rattlling sound. The mechanics identified that the problem was coming from a door, and upon removing the door skin they found a coke can inside.

[stewy]

As a child growing up into a teenager in the period covered by this video it seemed that BL was forever in the news due to strikes. Looking back it amazes me that BL held on to market shares of 30+ % for so long perhaps showing how loyal many customers were to the different marques produced under the BL banner despite everything 🇬🇧

[michaelturner]

I'm reminded of a line from Fawlty Towers... "The British Leyland Concerto - in four movements, all of them slow, with a four-hour tea-break in between." :D

[darkredvan]

In Germany British Leyland was always called „Britisch Elend“, Elend rhyming to Leyland. Translated it means British Misery. The only car sold in any number (in Germany) was the Mini, some Triumph Spitfires and Jaguars. Everything else made by BL did not see any numbers in sales. Though some other makes (Alfa Romeo with their Alfasud) had a bad reputation, BL had the worst. You had to be very lucky to see any BL car at all. Several BL dealers went bancrupt, some changed to sell Japanese cars.

[maxlife]

George Turnbull was a VP for Hyundai Motor at its start and his half dozen engineers created Hyudai's first car, Pony. One of the Turnbull's engineers remarked how insanely quick Korean engineers were at producing prototypes. "What would typically take a month in UK would be finished and produced the next morning." - Edward Chapman. I am sure the Korean engineers were eager, hungry, and had something to prove, resulting in them working extra hard. However, the fact remains that what would get done in a day in Korea was taking a month in the UK. That fact alone is reason enough why the UK car industry failed.

[markpirateuk]

Back in the early 80's I used to pick up cheap cars to tart up & sell on, the good thing about most BL cars were that they were pretty simple to work on, the Marina being the easiest.
Parts were cheap & the scrap yards were full of the things!
As for quality, I bought an Allegro with less than 15k on the clock, because it had been hit lightly in the rear, the boot & rear lights needed replacement.
On removing the boot lid, I noticed a cigarette packet had been wedged in the structure, then painted over during production 🤣

[sonr]

I grew up with these cars and the idea that Morris made basic cars and Austin more advanced cars is only something I've ever heard in retrospect - I don't think most people really knew that at the time. I just remember that looks and reliability were everything - nobody really cared what went on underneath the bonnet as long as the car looked nice and was reliable. And therein lay the problem.

[das]

As an ex Longbridge worker and, after all my experience working in loads of other industries and companies, I can only say that the 'Austin' company was the worst company I have ever worked for ever. It was absolutely soul destroying and the dull and totally boring experience left almost everybody brain dead and numb to the core. One didn't care whether we worked or not and had no respect for the product or the company what so ever.
It's management, like its vehicles, was totally dishonest and untrustworthy, no wonder it was only kept solvent by masses of public money injected into it like regular blood transfusions into a dying man.
I sincerely believed that, knowing what corruption in the UK was like, that its close association with the gullible government meant it was being used to pay top price for companies like Triumph motors and the others just so the owners could fill their pockets before the liquidators stepped in to close them down.
Talk about being one of the biggest fraud operations ever. British Leyland was buying up motor companies using tax payers money and the previous owners were loving it.

[originalkk]

I started work for BL Cars as a Finance graduate trainee in 1975, with the intention of staying 3 years to get some experience, and complete my accounting qualification. 3 years in the power train division at Longbridge, with me changing jobs each year.

Very interesting times. Of course there were lots of strikes, inefficient working practices, but also the result of decades of under-investment in in machine tools and equipment. Some of the machines in the toolroom dating back to 1912.

Fascinating going round the ancient forging factory, vs the newly done foundry, the new 'O' series engine line, vs the next door old 'B' series line. Plus the low volume 'E' series and the high volume old 'A' series lines. Gearbox machining and assembly, and small component machining in the automatic lathes factory (if you could see the far end of the building through the oil mist of hundreds of cutting machines). They spent money on a few things, but much, much more was needed.

[thomasmetz]

Owned a 1973 MGB for a while. Very fun car to drive, BUT- Got really proficient at rebuilding brake cylinders, clutch master cylinders, SU carburetors, distributors. Cylinder head was cast iron, and they all had cracks even when new. Grease fittings everywhere. Convertible Top was a PITA to operate, so I just removed it during summer. Lucas (aka The Prince of Darkness) electrical system was so bad it was the subject of many jokes. ( Why do the British dink their beer warm? Because Lucas builds their refrigerators😂).
I still miss driving it, though. And I owe a lot of my mechanical knowledge on owning & maintaining it.

[life_of_riley]

British car industry attempting to claw it's way out of the cottage mindset, all the while mergers and management produce little forward progress. Very tough times for this country indeed.

[jimhallinsn]

As a student, I used to clean the new cars at a BL dealership in South London. Not one of those new cars would have past an MOT. They all needed considerable remedial work, (Pre Delivery Inspection) before the dared let the customer have them.

[robg]

Excellent presentation! My dad always blamed the unions for the demise of British Leyland and the UK car industry in general, but your channel has given me a much clearer view of what actually took place. I am thoroughly enjoying your channel, keep up the good work!

[MS]

I find this very interesting subject. British Leyland seems like perfect example how not to run a company for many reasons. I think the biggest factor was that they were not able change anything or learn from previous mistakes. Thanks for good break up of the events.

[ronaldderooij]

My father quickly abandoned ordinary European cars when the Japanese cars came in the mid seventies. Simple, reliable, nothing special, but well equipped and durable. These cars finally gave up after 10 years because of rust. But in the mean time, you only had to do maintenance and fill the tank. He never looked back.

[alantunbridge]

I worked in the motor industry from 1969 to 1973 for a component manufacturer & consequently saw some of the goings on at most. A fairly succinct summation of the Leyland problem, but I can assure you the others were not much better, however they were generally better organized & did not have government interference.

[street-level]

Excellent video. Although the Austin 3 litre did use the same doors as the 1800 (and Maxi), nothing else was the same as an 1800. The ugly front also was completely different, with a north-south 6 cylinder engine, which was also used in the MGC.

[David-vnqu]

I live 5 mins down the road from Leyland. It’s always fascinated me what a huge industry was once our door step. My uncle was a brick layer and got a few contracts on there sites. He was telling me once about a job he was doing there and a group of the BL staff was watching him work. Then one of them walked over and said “you’ve done more work in the last two hours, than we’ve done in the last two weeks”. Not saying everyone who worked there was like this. But my uncle did say they all seemed very disgruntled and militant. My Dads always said the unions was to blame. But thanks for this video. Very interesting.