British Leyland Cars | British Car Manufacturing | TV Eye | 1980 

Thank you for sharing! It's always great to hear from people who actually lived through these events.

Well in GDR it was not much different but they still made good Wartburg and Trabant cars there and great trucks and tractors.

Good, old engines work better and are more fun.

Down here in India, we still have the Leyland brand that has been kept alive through their joint-venture with a local truck maker. The enterprise is called Ashok-Leyland and they only make trucks and buses. They have the exact same logo of Leyland motors (the blue fan).

" Diversification ".Right there, is the key.

@@ronvbbaatjes he was a business owner. How does an auto-worker "diversify?'

@@mattharvey4770 quite simple really.Workers need to create their own business-generating capacity, through pooling resources and skills.I concede that that in itself presents numerous challenges.But bear in mind: capitalist bosses generally to not incude in their agenda( nor mindset) the upscaling of " mere" workers.And heaven forbid,do not try to persuade them to " share" a portion of the business with said " mere " workers.

I just did a search on your parents' firm out of curiosity, and was very happy to see that they were able to weather the storm. Cheers from Canada!

Thanks for the update on a good news story

What was she doing in the mean time? Seriously, man, unless she had to put a new carburetor in every morning thats just a tall tale.

@@mattharvey4770 Face it, Leyland built absolute rubbish vehicles.

@@karlos543 who built better though, vw? I think not.

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 So funny

@@bigteddy66 err every Japanese car . Oh and every Beetle that hit our roads was better built than anything we brits could knock out!

Who kept buying them for all those years?

Fascinating insight. To be fair I always doubted the quality. Very shoddy indeed.

@@user-xg8yy7yl1d My parents had an Allegro for 2 weeks before they took it back to the dealer

The oil leaks were especially shameful in the context of 25 or so years of oiltight designs from the Continent and Japan...even Australian cars had just about got that right by 1978!

*draught

I'd say that you're pretty well spot on there. The mistake he made, though, was to leave too early (although it's been speculated that Margaret Thatcher got rid of him, in effect.) He left in 1982 in the "surefire knowledge" that the upcoming Maestro and Montego would continue the huge success that the Metro had achieved. Of course all three of those cars turned out to be unreliable rotboxes - at least in their early years. If he'd stayed on a little longer he may well have ensured that Quality Control continued. As it was, BL/Austin-Rover lapsed back into its bad old ways. Collectively - the management, shop floor workers, finance team - just never seemed to learn the lessons of the past.

People are quick to blame a militant work force and poor machinery butbi would they where only a small part. Vauxhall motor where using machines from 1900 at ellesmereport right up to mid 1990s yet they produced cars equal in quality to German products and the plants where quicker more efficant than those in Germany. The difference was vauxhalls could cut the dead wood from work force. People had to work better and have pride in the work or they lost there job. BL could not sack people the politicians gave the workers a job for life regardless if they could do the job. Micheal Edwards had his hands tied and investment cut. These mass meeting where you had to public vote where a joke because people where bullied into voting for strike. BL bosses need to be able to sack and invest. State industry failed because it was not allowed to be an industry. It was a dumping ground for un employable people.

@@keithnewton8981 I think you’re right on the money, but one thing I’d change. Vauxhall at the time was losing money like no tomorrow, it didn’t make a profit from the 60’s until PSA got hold of them in 2017. Their tooling was old, that’s true, but GM continued to throw money at them every year regardless. So in a sense, they didn’t do much better than BL, just their owner wasn’t the government and had deeper pockets. One point I’d hang my hat on though, is that the rise and fall of BL had a lot of components, but one key that was most at fault, was the government. They pressured and badgered Leyland and BMH to join together, while a lot of the press at the time said that the government ‘encouraged’ a tie up, they effectively bullied them to do so. BMH was a basket case, even back then. Losing money hand over fist while having no significant vehicles in development for years, it was expected for Leyland to whip them into shape, but the creation of British Leyland created a massive firm which was a juggernaut of problems that no single person could effectively control. Add into it the union issues, the lack of investment, the ossified old plants, decentralised production and so on. In my industry, we call massive conglomerates “BL’s in waiting”, because they always have to shutter/farm off/divest or sell massive amounts of their business to stay afloat, because they have become too big to control. Even big businesses like Lufthansa, P&G and GSK have nearly collapsed on a number of occasions until selling off a big chunk of their holdings to rationalise and stem the flow. BL wasn’t allowed to do this, as they’d been smashed together and rapidly went bankrupt. Then the government took over and told them that sell offs were unacceptable, at least until the dying throes of their last days when the Thatcher administration desperately tried to flog it all. Crap state of affairs all around to be fair. My dad worked for BL from the mid 70’s until it’s rebrand to ARG, then it’s metamorphosis into the Rover Group and then finally into MG Rover. He fortunately took retirement in 2004, so he didn’t lose his pension in the implosion of 05.

@@davidkmatthews You’re right, him leaving was a massive blow that I think sealed their fate in the end. In Edwarde’s book, he made it clear that he was told it was leave or be pushed, he didn’t get much of a choice in the matter. That point was confirmed by others at the time. If he had stayed, I think the momentum he build could have continued over time. He spearheaded the joint venture with Honda with the Acclaim, and had a very uncompromising view of product quality, which was lost once he left. A shame all around.

Best chance they had, shame he couldn't have continued on for longer

All part of the continuing big plan 😮😮😮

and accurate. There was no symmetry to the Metro on any level and it was outclassed before the first one was born :(

@@simonlovett151 It was not worse compared to an Opel Corsa MK1

I think it was more to do with the Japanese being the enemy in WW2:than anything else Or maybe her husband was captured & tortured by the Japanese in WW2? My grans brother was captured in 1942,by the Japanese (In Singapore:-) & mistreated & tortured by them:for 4 years. He was freed from Changi Jail at the end of WW2:leaving as a matchstick man. He came home like one & until 1975,my gran would never,ever touch,any Japanese goods. She reluctantly bought a brand-new,(remote-controlled:-) Hitatchi-tv:in 1975,as its electrics were far superior to Ferguson tellies,of that time.

​BB-xx3dvthese days there are no real "imports" in the car market (exotic cars being the exception of course). I live in America and we have had Nissans and Subarus built here for years.

BB-xx3dv fair point. I remember when GM shut down Holden.

I don't blame anyone for buying foreign cars in the 70s because they were more reliable than BL. When I buy a car I being the buyer wants something reliable.

Classic

LOL!

hahahaha that's EXACTLY!! Was I was thinking to write... love that Benny Hill Girls when I was a teen ; )

@Tomasz Klisz Ahh... Eastern Europe in the 70's and early 80's (However, I think Poland is considered Central Europe today, correct??)

Class..same🤣🤣🤣🤣👍

There is still MG on site, but yes most of it has sadly gone.

Thank god!

Hahaha yep I noticed that as well 😂😂😂

apauling

Sabotage caught on film 😀

EXACTLY why I drive Nissans!

I hope that's not how he makes love. BAMM! BAMM! I cant stop watching it's crazy.

No investment, I wonder what happened to the profits, pitiful though they were.

Fiat Estrada. Handbuilt by robots. BL cars? banged together by old men. 1:45

The engines and their plant were indeed outdated, but the welding plant for the Metro was newly purpose-built, and started assembling bodyshells for production cars in 1980. It was state-of the art, with computer measuring devices, which could take a complete shell, and automatically guided (driverless) vehicles to move stuff about. The engines were replaced by a new range in 1989. Things were still not great, but most of the work was done- another few years of nurturing and the firm would have been strong. Much of the bits of it survive to this day, doing sub-contract work for foreign-headquartered multinationals.

@@agfagaevart Strada, not Estrada. Regardless of your comment it's far easier to find a BL car from that era for sale on eBay and you still see the odd couple pottering around. There's a tidy little Allegro in that funny purplish colour near me still in use as what appears as a daily driver. The last time I saw a Strada I had a lift in it (Italian guy I bought my house off traded in budget classics, this was a D reg mk2, cool car) and that was in 2004. I'd love a Mirafiori but they're all but extinct. Super cool and best in that pale blue or bright orange.

Not really. And who buys cars? Robots or people? People buy cars

Yes, they had pneumatic screwdrivers, the BL guy was using a manual screwdriver ffs 🤷🏼‍♂

The timestamp of this is 22:03. The footage comparison is spectacular.

Yes, a lack of investment.

But compared a new Golf with a Mini that’s already old…no disputing the problems in BL but not a fair comparison.

True english cars from the late 50's through the 80's were CRAP.

@@paulthesquid3595 I beg to differ. They had great ideas but operational problems.

@@adampowell5376 Well'l just the odd few exceptions i think in all honesty there.

yup, noticed that too.

Very interesting and obvious indictment of the state of manufacturing (ancient) still happening at that time. When Rover was competing against Triumph and others (pre BL) there was competition and forward looking designs. After BL there was nothing in design or racing development. A terrible decade of decline that VW and Toyota took full advantage of...

@@roberthayden1527 BL was just ahead of its time. Even today, Land Rover languish towards the bottom of JD power reliability surveys. People don't care. They just want the badge, even if it does break down.

@@roberthayden1527 While everything else you said is correct, there was still racing development in the UK after BL. Cosworth, Judd, Jaguar, McLaren, Lola, Lotus, TVR and TWR were all still going at the time and are still renown names in racing today.

The Mini was an old design from the 50s u couldn't update its manufacture to compete with say the Fiesta. The problem was created in the 60s. In the 60s Leyland should have invested in a new Mini with a new engine and body but they only half heartedly did this as a result in the 80s the Metro arrived with A series engines and gearboxes from the Mini and bodies still using too many out of date ideas (if u sit in a Metro the wheel is at a similar angle to a Mini giving away its origins). Out of date ideas that meant old slow expensive manufacturing methods.

bluegtturbo and being interviewed by Shakespeare

Oh Stan.....Olive?...Ooooh Arthur.

😀He did look like Reg Varney ! But I think Reg Varney was more talented !

2:46 Or being interviewed by William Shakespeare.

I remember Private Eye had a tiny cartoon of him from around this time which exaggerated his oddly asian looks. In the caption someone was commenting " have you seen his eyes lately?" It was a clever dig at the state of the Japanese car industry compared to BL and the inroads Japanese manufacturers were making into the British market.

Mercs, BMWs and anything Italian rotted like hell too!

To be fair most cars from that era had that issue. Ford's defenatley!

@@cambs0181 defenatley?

Chin up kings the datson rusted much much quicker

Every manufacturer rusted until they galvanised the body’s and added top clear coat to the paint,the Japanese motors in the 70s and 80s were the most reliable

I remember a summer job in the 1970s, subcontract engineering work on a German made machine dated 1897. A failure of imagination and foresight on a monumental scale.

@@borderlands6606 What machine?

@@zeeteavathepipe3184 A lathe. Don't remember anything else about it apart from its age.

No other broadcaster in the world has produced innovated,thought provoking & quality programmes as Thames and its subsidiary Euston Films.

airscrew1 an absolute disgrace what happened to Thames. I remember the decision day too, shocking!

Truly a wonderful video archive. Great historical importance.

@airscrew1 sadly the same is probably true of most of the businesses in this film. Oh and don't get me started on "lidls / Costa opens on flattened factory site 'creating ' xx jobs" what blinkered bullshit

@airscrew1 blame Thatcher for its demise...

It required a level of investment that British management and its get rich quick mentality will not commit to

I consider myself lucky for my first car to be an old Spitfire, actually. She of course does not come without her issues, and was indeed built more than a decade before the filming of this video when their quality was less shoddy. But as a young fella, I love to keep her on the road because the Spitfire is a design worth preserving :)

And that guy endlessly rubbing that Rover SD1 bonnet on the assembly line. 😂 What the hell was he doing? “You can polish it as much as you like, Mate. It’ll still be a sow’s arse!”

The epitome of British build quality. Shody made crap. No wonder foreign cars took over as most peoples purchase choice.

Eric Morecombe's side line job. The Beeb should have paid him more.

You obviously never drove an Allegro!

They're very proud of British cars in Kovintroi don't ye know.

We just don't get this level of quality in programme making anymore, everything is just skimmed over and soundbites.

Sadly regular current affairs programming seems to have gone from ITV in favour of more episodes of soaps. This Week/TV Eye and World in Action were top quality programmes that could easily stand with the best the BBC produced.

After 3 Morris or Austin 1100's / 1300's, my mother bought a Marina in 1977. It had self-tapping screws holding the tail-lights in, and the pointed ends would snag and rip things put in the boot. The writing was on the wall. In 1979 she finally bough foreign, a VW Polo, and never bought British again to the end of her life, when she was on her second Prius.

Hmm, Austin 3 litre comes to mind, Austin or Wolseley 2200, MG 1300, Riley Hornet, Allegro Equipe were gems in amongst the stuff, the Austin 3 litre was close to coming into Rover P5b turf but like its predecessor the Princess 4R just failed to sell. The Princess 4R, prob the most luxurious Austin-Morris car ever built failed to sell even a handful and were mostly given to dealers and works managers but they never lingered long in people's ownership as they were very problematic and Rolls Royce refused to give its engines to A-M from that point.

It's crazy my grandfather used to work at the Ford plant in Leamington and almost all the cars in the staff car park were Fords, probably helped that in the 90s Ford were very generous with staff discounts my grandfather could afford a brand new Mondeo Ghia every 4 years.

@@tarikwildman Hahahaha I guess she must have got one built on a Monday or Friday then 🤭🤭. I actually had a 1.8TC Marina which I had to replace the back axle on after trying to pull away in a race against my mates 1600E Mk2 Ford Cortina 😂🤣 I would have won if it wasn't for the axle and gearbox which a few weeks later destroyed 3rd gear due to the engine being way to powerful for the drive train. I also owned many Ford's,Vauxhalls and Triumphs. I bought a Toyota Auris Diesel and have never looked back. At least it was built in the UK. I highly recommend Toyota,s to anyone who doesn't want to be left stranded at the side of the road.

And that is why you no longer have any british owned mass produced cars is because people would not support the home team.

@@matt8787fat It wasn’t the “home team” for us, we lived in Belgium at the time.

@@matt8787fat Why support a home made product if it’s inferior to what they producing elsewhere?

"He chopped them all in for Toyota's." Was your Dad a Pakistani then? Couldn't resist that one ;)

Couldn't agree more I had a ford fiesta mk2 and that was a complete rotbox.

It breaks my heart a little bit because so many innocent people were just trying to earn a living. It however gorgeous the SD1 was and however well received the Metro was, they just weren’t good enough cars. When Rover went bust in the early 2000’s people played hell about British people not buying British. But even then the cars were old hat, poor quality and completely out classed by cars such as the Ford Focus. The successful 200 range in the ‘80s and early ‘90s were replaced by an average car that was too small for the sector it had established itself in and was overpriced. It all went very badly. The sensible money simply had to go on either a Toyota or a Honda. Citroen et all weren’t particular reliable but were at least more contemporary!!

you must have spent 500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 pounds on it over the years

😍

Fortunately Jaguar were a little more isolated from the mayhem (except the labour disputes) but they were dragged into the mire eventually. Keep the cat purring!!

In reality I don't think a Jaguar XJ6 is any less reliable than many other classic cars. Any car still on the road and running after 35 years can't be that bad. Plenty of cars achieve a bad reputation which they unfairly hold onto long after all the issues are ironed out.

I have owned and run 3 series jaguars through the late 80's and 90's they were great when they worked but I have spent plenty of time waiting for breakdown recovery, I am a real Jag fan and still have a couple of 60's cars but they were a love hate relationship in the past

I can relate to that. My family went from unreliable junk Ford's, Vauxhalls and Rovers to Toyota and Honda. And NEVER looked back 🎉

Indeed. It seems the Germans and Japanese, for good reasons, wanted to put the war behind them and rebuild their societies..... The British on the other hand seemed to go backwards and never stopped talking about the war!

British arrogance emerging as victors from the war - we ended up broke but without the mass destruction of infrastructure that allowed us to start over. This mindset put paid to our general competitiveness in a wide array of industries (compounded by militant trade unions hindering productivity increases). Instead of investment, successive governments offered tax cuts; a classic victim being our railways, which are largely Victorian. Consequently we have an under skilled work force and an appalling track record of making or building anything. This cycles has meant virtually anything is up for sale to foreign buyers; our businesses, our housing stock, our money laundering financial sector.

You also lost the colonies. Germany had overtaken mainland Britain before WWI already in terms of industrial capacity. Japan has even more ppl with a good attitude so thats not surprising. How britain messed it up this well and thorough however is quite astonishing. After all the brands are good… Entitlement is probably right. If i only hear: "we cant let leyland fail bcs one million will be jobless" In other words… continue to waist ressources especially man power producing a bad product nobody really wants or is happy with and then prevent the import of better quality

Germany in particular had money thrown at it to rebuild its society. The Marshal plan didn’t include Britain.

@@tonysquirrell I lament the fact that we failed on two occasions to establish long-term sovereign wealth funds: i) North Sea oil revenues and ii) the privatisation dividend. Both windfalls were squandered on tax cuts.

Yes now called Qutec. Funny how the smallest company survived and prospered and is now quite big.

No surprises there, Brian Cunningham is a Mason! suite.endole.co.uk/insight/people/327566-mr-brian-william-cunningham?page=companies

I bet instagated a few of the strikes. This machine work is getting in the way of my pipe smoking, Cant have that now!

To this day I don't buy Dunlop tires because my uncle; a former BL-dealer; told me they were not round.

Dunlop at Liverpool was at the old Mustang aircraft factory on the airport. They were still using equipment from Mustang manufacture in WW2 in the late 1970s. Crap company, crap products.

The British auto industry sounds like the Romanian ones in the bad days.

@Random Biker it's why they are known as Dunslop. Sloppy, truly sloppy.

@Random Fisher 2021. I have had dunlops on motorbikes and remove at the first oppertunity. I would rather take the bus for a week than to waste my money on Dunlop rubbish.

So true , Leyton Thomas . We spent our North Sea oil profits on the en-employed when perhaps a little dealing in Gold ; investment in production and some foresight could have saved all of those skilled jobs. Once again these good people were Lions led by Donkeys .

Even worse move going ford

Ya you guys gave it all away buy buying foreign cars and you left your own to die! Pretty sad have some national pride.

No argument with the points you make.But it will be good to mention the part extreme and overly-aggressive unionism played in the demise of a once solid industry.

@@ronvbbaatjes British car brands were collapsing en masse long before union involvement. British cars were innovative, over engineered and under financed, or mass produced and built down to a price using life expired designs. Workers became cynical at the incompetence of management who were selling old tat in a new hat. Shop floor politics thrive when the writing is on the wall.

British Leyland was on the road to failure the day they were created due to the government forced "shotgun marriage" between Leyland and British Motor Holdings in 1968. British Motor Holdings was the successor company to British Motor Corp, after the Labour government of the day coerced them into buying Pressed Steel Ltd. in 1966, based on the erroneous idea that General Motors wanted to buy P.S, and that it should be prevented from falling into American hands. B.M.C was already in financial trouble prior to this thanks in part to the larger Isogonis designed front wheel drive models, in which B.M.C had invested heavily, and whose sales were dropping thanks to ugly styling, and premature rust issues. Leyland Cars was making a profit in 1967-68, B.M.H was not, and forcing a marriage between an almost insolvent company and a profitable one usually results in a larger unprofitable company not a profitable one, unless extreme measures are taken.

Just imagine if they had ruthlessly cut down the number of marques in 1952, beefed up the MINOR and built it like VW built their Typ 1 (laser focus, beautiful quality, incremental improvement) - they could have launched that car in the US via Canada and cleaned up!

That was a lot of the problem, although BL was one company the different brands competed with each other, MG v. Triumph etc. A good example was the Triumph Stag which should have had the Rover 3.5 V8, but Triumph wanted their own engine which was unreliable, and led to poor sales. Also the Allegro and Marina, two second rate cars that competed for the same market. Why not develop one decent car instead of two crap ones. The workers and management never worked together, it was always a 'them' and 'us' situation. I am not against BL, I've owned many BMC, BL and Rover cars over the years, its a shame they couldn't of done more to stay competitive.

You could be talking about nearly every company I've worked for in the UK, terrible politicians terrible management a recipe for disaster.

@@-DC- Yes, in fact I'm trying to think of a UK company I've worked for that isn't like this. BT? Nope. Safestyle UK? Nope. Mailcom? Nope.

A lot of it is due to the unrealistic views of the workers, IMO, who get led on by bad management. Right at the end, they trusted the 'phoenix four' (or whatever it was) because John Towers promised to return Rover to a volume car maker. In the event, they raped what was left of the company and fled with millions. Meanwhile, Jon Moulton had a fully costed, pragmatic plan to downsize Rover...but that was rejected because it would have meant large scale job losses. In the end, we got total job losses.

Roger Cliftonville-Acton it was sad and frustrating. They went with the Phoenix 4 and it did not seem thought out.

Yeah, bang on,

Yes

Was a worker with class 🤵🔨

That is common even today in having multiple companies supplying parts.

Yes. But the German was not wearing a tie Sir ! Not cricket old chap.

@@johnburns4017 I meant the comparison of how the German car and the Brit car have a door lock installed at 22:01.

Bykermann great looking cars, I would consider buying one

WOW!

I guess at least in Sacramento rust wouldnt be too much of a problem?!

@@rogercliftonville-acton1574 No rust, whatsoever, I'm still driving the 1978 Midget, I bought new from them.

- well said

in high school i had a 61 tr3 triumph

Yes you're rite and Jeremy Corbyn wants us to go back to them black bleak times ... What idiots support's him and his Marxist corbynov party beggars belief

Wasn't the comparison mainly on just how long it took to put the door lock on? I guess the Mini being and older design may have been a factor, but I noticed that the German man was using a powered driver, while the British man was using a manual ratchet driver. So it was probably down to investment again.

@@kvmswitch42 Yep - good point!

They shouldn't have been making the Mini anyway as it had never made a profit.

@@kvmswitch42 The Unions refused any modernisation saying it would cost jobs (and probably the management was happy not to invest) The end result was inevitable-everyone lost their job. The 80's simply underlined how hopeless BL was. As soon as companies such as BT Gas, Electric. Post Office weren't forced to buy BL (and the UK public got more choice) it was the end. Clarkson was right; Government, management and unions all killed BL. The VW Golf and Datsun Cherry made the death complete.

The lock segment was to illustrate how the plant closure would effect other suppliers and businesses. There's a big clue if you listen to the narrative. He tells you this. :)

Sadly yes, eclipsed by Germany with UK decline starting in the early 1900's with continuous UK downgrading of the status of engineering, absence of protective engineer titles, short-term business financial outlook preventing investment etc. British Stanley screwdrivering pipesmoking assembly process summed it up well.

Germany had a taste for qualty and later on inovation. But in '20's and '30's Britain wasn't inovating and modernizing any longer?

300 Million per year in government funding buys alot. Leyland was set up to fail, it was part of the Thatcher "counter-revolution."

old world craftsmanship

@@mattharvey4770 VW isn't owned by the federal government, so the 300m wasn't public money. Besides, Germany was already in tue EU so extensive public help is a no no.

Chris Robin Thank you!!!!

That was my first thought too!

Yours is one of many similar stories here. How much did you lose? The other folks mention about 45% loss.

If your Rover never breaks, it must be defective. 😉

I have read that the later builds were far better than the early ones. I rode a real estate agent's 83 V8 example in 1998 and it was a solid feeling car. No rattles at all.

Mine was one of the first Cowley built ones where quality was upped and they didn't put their half eaten sarnies in door panels out of spite so maybe that helps too!!

I have a 1978 sd1 and it also starts first time and never let me down. Great car

They're a beautiful shape, whatever their year and have aged well.

The Fresh Prince of Dapto let me tell you, it was a fine Peterson pipe too, not a cheapy!

Back in da day!

Yea that is a skill in itself 😃

Dony worry. If it was on a motor for an Allegro the car would have fallen to pieces long before it would have caused a breakdown.

You sure did. You sure did 😀 I hope that's not how he makes love.

@@edgarbeat275 He likely never 'made love' in all his days...he may have 'shagged' a few times in his twenties until his frigid wife turned off the tap after the kids were born.

@@saxongreen78 😀 you can feel the frustration in his hammer blows.

@@unclekevin5094 hahahahahaha

don't forget the class system was obliterated in germany after the war,while we still had lord this and sir that in charge of everything regardless of what merits they didn't have

But why GB, if it did got some loans under the Marshall Plan didn't started to modernize the production?

@@zeeteavathepipe3184 because UK used this money on army.

Rover Group was a good buy for BAe, so good that it led to the 'sweeteners' scandal with the government who were desperate to privatise it. BAe never made much attempt to integrate Rover with its other operations. BAe left Rover alone, fed it with minimal investment, and waited until it could (under the terms of the purchase agreement) sell. That meant any time after August 1993, which it did and made a princely profit.

Brian Clemens...

K W Whatever didn’t rot is now worth 💵

Scary that my daily drive is older than some of the cars in that scrap yard. But it's not worth a huge amount. It's a tidy Hillman Avenger 1500 Super.

It's more assembly from imported components. I think Vauxhall will die in 2019. @Biggles

Bestline7 Britain is the 7th largest car exporter in the world. At least until Brexit happens.

You'll find its the Western world NOT JUST BRITAIN. Apple makes its phones in China. The British company that designs the chips for those phones make them in China. It's not a British thing its a Western thing.

@@nudisco300 ARM is now owed by Japanese, SoftBank Holding.

And those pencils are made in China

Doesnt GM go bankrupt every 10 years or so?! However, they're unionized, so make big donations to politicians, and get bailouts in return, and so we're never rid of GM or their crappy products.

Roger Cliftonville-Acton That sounds exactly like BL at that time. This could almost be a video for GM in either Australia (Holden) or USA.

@@DiscoFang Aye. Shame how many once great brands BL ran down (Healey, Triumph, Morris etc etc) and GM (Buick, Oldsmobile, Saab, and now Holden is really no more as a seperate designer and producer of cars...just rebadged Opels/Chevrolets)

Like Holden with the Aussie market designs BL Australia also produced some awesome cars for the domestic market eg. the P76. Holden also raped the Aussie population & government by taking the $200 million govt bailout then reneging on promises and sending $150 million back to the parent company GM in USA. Absolutely criminal.

A C 😱😂

When I had my 1984 Austin Metro the RAC wrote to me saying I was using them too much.

While the influence/sabotage of the industry by the unions was clearly the prime cause of all these failures, I have read very little about the fact that this was certainly due to communist elements/infiltration into the government. They tried the same stuff in the USA but failed - miserably, for the most part - but it seemed to work perfectly in Great Britain. The GB government was infested to the top with various Soviet plants or useful idiots and the unions were not even pretending to be patriots, and had numerous avowed communists and sympathizers as leaders. I have always figured that this worked so well because, since GB still cared about "class" and the Soviets were able to exploit this to great affect. This failure was orchestrated from start to finish, as long as people figured they didn't care about making the companies profitable because the government was going to bail them out, you were doomed. Point being that this was not an accident or bad luck, it was a concerted plan that worked perfectly.

The Japanese have very strong unions. The cars were junk x

@@hhuodod2209 But the Japanese were not infested with communists and socialists. The British government was chock full of both, instituting a command economy run by the government, with perfectly predictable results. Same with the current EU is nearly 100% socialists, meaning, they can't compete and have resorted to making up various fines and taxes to steal money from successful US businesses.

You are aware over the last 2 years we have lost more workdays to strikes than we ever did in the 70's

@@darrenwilson8042 I'd be interested to see evidence of that, also the population is much higher now. Also, we're you there at the time and we're you affected or involved? I was.

Ah Lucas, Prince of Darkness as they used to call it.

@@PurpleWhirple Heard that one. Or what is the slogan of Lucas: Get me home before dark.

WEll'l you cannot polish a turd they were JUNK.