It's easy to look back with hindsight....or scoff ...but fair play to the man...having the vision and the balls to out and give it a go....well done..... if slightly more folk were of a similar mindset and there were less businesses run by penny touching accountants we may have a far better manufacturing base in the uk
Just watched this video for the first time and read some of the comments below . The lose of tractor manufacturers in the U.K. has nothing to do with poor quality , it all came down to industrial agriculture and the destruction of the family farm . When 1 farm with 4 200 hp tractors replaces 20 farms with 2 50hp tractors each , manufacturers disappear . We used British built IH and Case tractors on our farm in Canada and they were as good as any out there . It's a shame the small family farm got killed by big industry .
And by 2008 the whole factory was converted to another retail park. I worked for the main contractor on that job. What a shame it sells retail tat today instead of still making tractors.
My great uncle worked at that plant in Bathgate. Reckons the union used to call dor a strike if there was no tea in canteen. No wonder it shut it doors
I worked at MF in Coventry for 34 years, it closed with full order books, why well the American owners ADCO just assist stripped the factory, now this was a shame!
The real reason was that either Coventry or the MF factory in France had to close, and, AGCO were aggressively persuaded by the French to keep their factory open and us Brits just let these things happen. Of course at the time very little was broadcast about this as usual British manufacturing took a back seat to keeping the EU dream going. Can't upset the EU, but we allowed them to asset strip the UK, and for what?
What happened, exactly? I haven't managed to find anything other than that "the Nickerson Group went bust in 1985". While this segment is a bit of a promotional video, it still actually seemed as they had a sound idea of how to run a factory.
The reason Marshall closed was because at the start the tractors were having issues. when the farmers phoned Marshall to tell them about there problems, Marshall didn’t really want to fix them. So the farmers lost confidence in Marshall so they went and bought foreign crap instead
@KURZcizi04 Well did not buy crap, at the time you had both Massey at Coventry and Ford down south still in ghe UK. Ford became New Holland and still assemble in the UK along with Case tractors which have their origin in Agri Fiat.
I'm interested in where this came from. Have you seen any other footage such as this ? My dad has a Marshall 802 himself so finding these kind of things is great
Marshall tractors were improvement to Leyland tractors but poor business practices n outlook into future markets. Not enough dealership oversea. It’s shame they weren’t pick up by JCB. Just selling tractors is not enough.
Thankey very much for sharing this great exclusive video from Marshall tractors. I'm interested where this video was found? any more videos from this article?
hi I found it on a old video tape , it was on tv in 1983/4 , I have no more videos on marshall/Leyland factories sorry. ive seen nothing else on marshall/Leyland factories anywhere else a shame .......
Nothing scrap about them. In some ways they were ahead of their time. How many other tractors had synchronised gear boxes in that era??? If they were scrap so many wouldnt of survived to this day....
They were OK and the Sekura cab was great but also used by David Brown. IH and DB also had synchro gearboxes and Ford were about to have them too. The problem for Marshall was that the gearbox did only have three ratios in each range and with 40k becoming popular the first gear in high range was far too high a ratio to start with a load. That and the limited budget to develop and market the ZF transmission new higher horsepower models led to a sharp fall in sales even though there were some late developments to the smaller tractors to increase the 9x3 number of ratios available
They were producing this stuff at the same time as the 90 series.. All they had to do was buy one and copy it.. But no, head in the sand and they let the customers decide. They did. They quit buying junk. I was selling an 802 that I gave 2200 for thirty years ago. I had replaced the engine once and the clutch four times in a year. The tractor stood me 5500. After about 100 spent on auto trader to try to get rid of it. I ended up taking 120 a tonne for it. The two nearly new goodyear radials on the back of it were worth more than the tractor.. Pure scrap
Jimmycowman were you affiliated with marshalls ? great video thanks where did you find it ? Do you have any knowledge of any other Leyland/marshall video's
hi no im not connected to marshall tractors, I went around the factory in the early 80's through a dealership called burgesses..... we brought a new marshall 804 in 1986 {still got it} I found this on a old video tape ,don't think ive got anymore... its a shame how british tractors have gone....
Went bust by the late 80s I think. Sold Austrian rebadge Steyrs briefly until it all but disappeared completely. Not a shocker really when you see the set up and products they had. Completely outdated production and products
hey they werent all bad we have a a marshall 602 and a john deere 6210 we use the marshall more, well thats only because its so manoeuvrable and is our loader tractor
They were working on 60s technology for too long , synchro gearboxes came too late ,100 hp 6 cyl engins matched to 65 hp Nuffield gearboxes etc ,dry brakes etc and horrific union probs in the 70s with BL too many chiefs and not enough Indians
Yeah. They should have made some drastic changes to the design in early 70s especially in rear part of the tractor like 3 point linkage and position of the PTO axle. I quess the 4/98 and 6/98 engines were pretty good?
I had four of them. Pure junk. Dropped liners, and clutch breaking fingers.. Can't split them, so you have to pull the dash and the steering and the floor outta the cab.. Torture..
Completely disagree, to replace the clutch you simply cut a hole in the floor for access, then it's a relatively easy job. Didn't need to remove steering or dashboard. I Have a 804 on a loader and looked at swapping it for a new JD, but after a week the Marshall proved much better dynamically. The engine is also very good and easy to work on.
We had a 804 I used to use it for wrapping mainly great tidy tractor for it fast enough on the pump for the wrapper and a good lock too, great traction in soft ground and great underneath clearance off the ground, well they didn’t come without there problems we did pistons and liners in the engine all right, and the clutch was soft in them we put a.m. not sure maybe a few but the last clutch we fitted it it was a heavy duty clutch bigger diameter I think but never had a problem with it after, and we had a problem with the crown wheel in it it broke up on us and locked the tractor up in the back wheels so we got one from a dealer here years ago that was closing down and gave it to us for basically free, so got her back working again and unfortunately one day she was outside the shed with the mower on from the day before and I was out working and my dad rang me to say the tractor went up on fire and that was the end of her, well burnt the whole cab on it, so sold her on to a farmer an hour away, since then we fit an isolation switch to every machine we buy, the wiring in them wasent great, but talk about a misery on fuel for a 4 cylinder turbo tractor, and some serious speed on the road, well high reverse in them was just stupid fast alright, but like any tractor they all give there trouble no matter what make, but acourse a shame they did stopped making them, with a few more changes in them would ave put pressure on some of the other competitors of that time if they kept going
@@davel6780 lovely tractor to Plough with.. Great gripper with the kleibers. For a light tractor they were really sweet.. Again the clutch let them down.. The explorer cab on them still compares well with any modern cab
Yes unfortunately everything is just imported, used to have Leyland 282s brilliant tractors what balls everything up was the union's on strike nothing could be manufactured.
Pure scrap. The plain and simple truth. Look at the opposition at the time. Fiat 90 series. Renault German built with mwm engines.. Poor Marshall put putting along with the rubbish bmc engine.. Nightmare
Funny you should say that because amongst people who really know engines the bmc and Leyland engines are legendary for reliability and ruggedness and for a LONG time jcb used them before they moved over to perkins.
In fairness the 90 series fiat is legendary and we still own and does all our pulling for us. Now I’m not saying British made machine are scrap. I love they are great. We’ve had over 60 tractors in my time so far. But I can feel now, some weren’t liked because some were know to be hard started and so on. International didn’t take off at all here.
Well said John, the claim that the BMC engine was rubbish is total rubbish, an ultra reliable engine in my experience. We had a JCB mk 2c, ( wheeled back acter) on the farm, never missed a beat. I used to do a multitude of work around the farm and often many hours of heavy constant work. I don’t think you’ll meet an operator who has many negative memories, the smell from the hot hydraulics and the characteristic sound from the BMC engine, I can still smell & hear it now. Great memories.
Unfortunately completely outdated by this time. Compare with the likes of Fendt or Renault Agro (now Claas) these tractors were Stone Age technology. The factory itself looks like an old workshop
