If Benn had not saved the company when he was at Trade & Industry in the 1974-1979 Labour government, there would have been no company to "save" (by the Bliar government) in the late 90s/00s. After all, even in the seventies, BMC was suffering from lack of investment in new machinery and tooling, and their quality control was diabolical. Who else remembers the Allegro and the recommendation to stick one of the rear suspension rubber mounts back together with superglue? These items were failing on vehicles less than a year old, it is believed due to a manufacturing/design fault and upgraded replacements were in very short supply.
British Leyland
- Thread starter Seafarer1966
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Back in the 90's, people used to tell jokes about how much better Japanese industry was at quality control and on-schedule delivery.
It left British practice in the dust. We went through generations of incompetent home-grown mangement, lacking skills in business and engineering. Even today, we have a Prime Minister with a second-class degree in Classics. No education in Economics, Law, Accounting, Engineering, Politics etc. An amateur.
Joke 1:
British company orders 5,000 electronic parts from Japanese manufacturer. They consider 5% faulty parts to be normal and specify that limit in the order. Three weeks later, one large packing case arrives, with a small cardboard box. Delivery note says "We don't know why you wanted 5% faulty parts, but, for your convenience, we have packed them separately."
Joke 2:
BP orders an oil tanker from Japan. Standard BP contract specifies "Liquidated Damages for late delivery" at £10,000 per week. Japanese shipyard telexes back "What do you mean, late delivery? If it's late you can have it for nothing. It isn't going to be late."
It left British practice in the dust. We went through generations of incompetent home-grown mangement, lacking skills in business and engineering. Even today, we have a Prime Minister with a second-class degree in Classics. No education in Economics, Law, Accounting, Engineering, Politics etc. An amateur.
Joke 1:
British company orders 5,000 electronic parts from Japanese manufacturer. They consider 5% faulty parts to be normal and specify that limit in the order. Three weeks later, one large packing case arrives, with a small cardboard box. Delivery note says "We don't know why you wanted 5% faulty parts, but, for your convenience, we have packed them separately."
Joke 2:
BP orders an oil tanker from Japan. Standard BP contract specifies "Liquidated Damages for late delivery" at £10,000 per week. Japanese shipyard telexes back "What do you mean, late delivery? If it's late you can have it for nothing. It isn't going to be late."
Until the K-Series Rover Metro, it was basically the 1950s Mini design, and in 30 years they did little or nothing to rectify the known shortcomings of that setup (poor protection of the HT electrics from water, high mileage failure of the drop gears, oil leaks, etc). This seems to be a common British failing. We have brilliant ideas, naturally, with the odd shortcoming, but we don't fix the problems. We seem to have the "yes, they all do that, sir" mentality. If we'd been Japanese, some engineer would probably have committed hari-kari over it! Early Japanese cars rusted pretty badly, but they soon got on top of that one!
My dad had a few company Itals....
I remember him getting his first Triumph Acclaim (re-badged Honda). It was like a spaceship compared to the Itals!
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Just for balance though, I think it's only fair to say that Mrs Avocet's late Nissan Trail was a huge disappointment. Our first Japanese car, and it myth-busted Japanese durability for us quite spectacularly. In fact, I ended up throwing more time and money at that car than both her previous Alfas put together! (Yes... Alfas)!
D
dontbelieveawordofit
even with present knowledge i’m not sure anyone could go back to the 50 60 or 70’s and make any better a job of ‘protecting’ ht circuits from the elements given the same technology available.
BL ignition technology was always decades out of date, transistorised ignition was around in the early 60s and by the late 60s capacitor discharge ignition was introduced.
I even have electronics magazines from the time with CDi projects.
That would have transformed starting a A series with its hopeless wet weather starting.
Many a time our family would be out there spending 10 minutes with the WD40 and pulling the plugs once fouled from too much choke....we had a lot of Minis & 1100s.
I even have electronics magazines from the time with CDi projects.
That would have transformed starting a A series with its hopeless wet weather starting.
Many a time our family would be out there spending 10 minutes with the WD40 and pulling the plugs once fouled from too much choke....we had a lot of Minis & 1100s.
Same here. As students, one of the lads in our house had a Mini, another an 1100. Cold, damp mornings would see both of them putting their distributor caps and plug leas under the grill for a bit before we set off for lectures!
Me? I had a Citroen DS....
Bet you wish you still had the DS now...it's in my virtual garage
LOL yes! Paid £75 for it in about 1985 - FROM A DEALER!!! A D Super 5. Back then, they were just old rotboxes and virtually worthless.... After that one, I was given a DS21 Pallas - bloke said I could have it if I could get it off his drive. Can't believe what they're worth now!
Rover?
In the market for another car and being a bit of a gadget freak, in the distant past - I looked at a AM DB5 and a DS. Both were silly cheap, the DB5 because it was a rot box, the DS looked quite tidy, but one look under the bonnet at all of the pipework, scarred the hell out of me as a DIY mechanic. I ended up with a Granada.
I bought a Piranha kit back then, which I transferred from car to car for several years, botching the distributor beam interruptor disc to fit the point cams of various 4 and 6 cylinder engines. Ignition problems never brought me to stop, once that was fitted. Back then, breakdowns were almost always ignition issues or carburettor related. I always drove round with a boot full of tools and spares to fix problems. You always passed a lot of cars broken down at the roadside. It is quite rare now to see a car broken down, rare to see an owner busy fettling a car on a Sunday morning.
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Good link Gasguru....I listened to it the other day.This was on a few weeks ago... https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000lz6n ....fight
Even before the BL days it was a joke, has he read about Issigonis?
Some of the madness is extraodinary eg. his total obsession with maximising interior space meant that wind up windows were not featured until later
in the Minis production...after countless sales were lost in hot climates due to the poor ventilation of the earlier sliding windows.
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