Rover SD1 - Why did this Ferrari-inspired Rover fail? 

I was just about to say the same! Thanks for correcting it, ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-N9L7mrUj3mE.html.

Glad about that! I thought I was going Mad?

You werent totally Errata! Same old basic GM 251 cu" block, but typical arguments over some using v8, some "hemi" engines-- the inline v8! Also they did the a series trick of taking the 2600 and shortening piston rods, and a bit of boring out to give a 3500 inline unit. It was stupidity on spending money on this instead of fixing the rolling holey umbrella fit and trim more important problems.

@@rsmit2797 I thought........... hang on

@Gappie Al Kebabi Eh??? I don't know what links your preference leads you to have on your computer, I linked to the time where Big car confuses a V6 with a straight 6. I guess you prefer them bent where I prefer them straight.

Who?

@@markfox1545 why don't you Google instead of ignorant comment?

@@markfox1545 you obviously never actually listened to this video at all

I’m wondering how disappointed Bache, Spen King and others were when their designs and engineering were butchered by shoddy quality and reliability.

I agree with your idea that evil leftists should be slaughtered as soon as they come out/identify. Has leftism ever created anything but hate and violence and mass murder?

My brother had the V8 , great motor , huge issues with electrics , more Lord Lucas junk , the V8 only came to Australia was quite popular till the word got around about build quality.

And lazy

Thats a bit unfair! Yes there were plenty of planks. Even bashing metal needs training. But sollihull ( along with cowley, and most bl factories) had gone straight from wartime aircraft production to simple panel shaped pressings and pre war systems, using worn out victorian lines, presses, tooling, and a century of dirty conditions. Europe and japan had modern, clean factories, modern presses and tooling and lines. Its a huge part of modern car quality and employee harmony. We were stuck in literally wartime conditions with the make do and mend attitude, topped with a dislocated and disinterested senior management based out of gentlemans clubs or whitehall departments in london. Oddly writing that with brexit round the corner reminds you of parrallels! Lol

@@mk1cortinatony395 bud, if you had to work in a dirty, greasy shithole all day, using worse kit than you had in your home toolbox, with zero health and safety then your keeness to work would suffer. Some were lazy true. But funny isnt it that nissan could come in to sunderland, complete with full unionisation, worse wages, and facing an extremely zenophobic and bigoted uk car industry from industry to owners, yet in 2yrs we are all driving datsuns/nissans and production and efficiency there unheard of!

@Alec Brown: Well said. Top class workers/craftsmen let down by greedy and disinterested management, same old story here..

That tradition is being upheld at all the JLR plants now. Robots help to maintain a decent level of production quality, but the human intervention screws things up, and the management are generally too incompetent to either notice or do something about it.

shame thou , if it wasn't for the unions we could have had a car industry to be proud of.

@@Dec38105 It wasn't just the unions though, management issues also had a large part in it. All those different brands and management styles lumped together into BL made for, as the Chinese would say, an interesting management. Besides favouring one brand over the other because they came with that brand, management didn't give a toss about quality, production and sales as long as they got their nice paychecks. With that style of management it wasn't any wonder workers and sales staff didn't give a toss as well.

@@tjroelsma Nice work for stratospheric irony factor - an "interesting management" assessment from the Chinese . . . brilliant, a total moon shot, nec lev, and lost for words

@@tjroelsma nah, they didn’t like the fact that they had to compete on an open market after we joined the EEC and Japanese car imports that were better made and had a habit of being able to start every morning. The unions figured it was best to go on strike or half-arse the job, to spite management, because it was a surefire way to bully more money out of the bosses. The problem is that the companies were having their closed market ripped away from them and customers voted with their wallets. Instead of adapting and accepting that they might have to work a bit harder or take a pay cut to keep companies afloat and people in work, they torpedoed an industry and blamed everyone else for the result. 🤷‍♂️

@@cybertrophic The problems with the British car industry were there long before the Japanese cars appeared on their market. Jeremy Clarkson has made a brilliant item about that, called "who killed the Britsih car industry." His view on it was that British Motorists, as car owners are called, were used to having unreliable cars and having to work on those cars at least every weekend just to keep them running. Then when the Japanese cars appeared on the Britsih market, they were kind of a revolution. All of a sudden the Brits could buy cars that were better built, more luxurious for the same or even lower price and most important of all: they just kept driving instead of constantly breaking down. The British Car Industry had no answer to that, partly because of bad management, partly because of union issues and partly because it had a tradition of building crappy cars and saw no reason to change. As to your union story: shareholders got paid huge dividends, management got paid very comfortable salaries for doing basically as close to nothing as they could get away with, but the people actually building the cars were paid only pennies. So their was a huge wage discrepancy between management and labourers and unions reasoned that that was unfair. And they had a point there. In a perfect world unions wouldn't be necessary, but as the wrold is far from perfect, unions are a necessary evil, created as opposition against corporate greed.

And one at the start of video for Message in a Bottle by The Police

Lovely to hear! I have had 4 P6's and one SD1. The P6 was a very well made car in my opinion! To this day the best car I have had!

We did'nt stike so much in Australia, but we lost our car industry too. Its called competition!

@@lundsweden No, it is called corporate greed.

Any 18 year old bl striker in the later 70’s must think why ? They literally ruined the British motor industry 🤣

@@chiefrocka8604 18 year old strikers, don't think so.

@@Behyelzebub I do they had jobs and striked

I'm happy for you that you were able to do t that.

IIRC it also had a successful racing career.

@@nightdriver7216 and was the preferred motorway patrol car for the Police.

Never had a problem with my SDI, committed daily 120 miles from Kent Coast to Central London. Also owned 2 x P6s - loved them all

They didn't fail selling them in the UK but outside the UK British cars were already notorious because of quality and rust problems. How many of these 303.000 ar e left now?

@@DiscoforU No offence but the question has no relevance to success. Sales numbers do. To judge a car built from 1976 to 1985 by how many are left 36 years later is a fools folly. The question even though it has no relevance has a lot of variables. 1) Rust was a major issue with all cars until about 20 years later. 2) With big expensive cars it is normally found that the 3rd owners are dreamers and cannot really afford to run them, so when they go wrong down the breakers they go like a lot of Jaguar saloons etc. How many Citroen CX or SM cars are left. Talbot Tagora's, Ford Granadas, Renault 20's and 30's, Vauxhall Senators, BMW 5 and 7 series from this era etc etc. You are just a typical Rover basher, if you had stopped and thought for 10 minutes before you typed you would have realised the points I have made.

Yes - the outfit that came out with the Morris Mariner and the Leyland P76. I was given a Mariner as a company car - god it was awful. No build quality, everything sounded bad (even the starter motor), pedals misaligned with the driver's seat. It seemed to be made of mismatched leftovers. Fortunately the company decided to get rid of all Mariners within a year - way too many faults.

@@keithammleter3824 Yes Marina's did have misaligned peddles, I had two of them both series 2 (1.7 'O' series engine), excellent cars, easy to work on and maintain. Build quality had improved, but was still let down by the design of the day single skin type wings, always rotted out above the headlights.

In short, the trade unions. Strike...Strike...Strike...Strike *^%*! Strike!

@@hionmaiden663 : Trade unions and laborinthine management in too many layers - occupied by generic management types who were indifferent as to whether they were making cars or candy or corkscrews. You look at any really good product - the company is staffed right to the top with chaps who love whatever the product is, and they know what a good product is, are proud of it, and are not just about how they can order some underling to cut costs.

@@hionmaiden663 yes done by design just like all our Industry. The nation's has been collapsed from within.

You're correct!

Julian Richards - it was. The 365 GTB/4 was recently launched. Spen King, amongst others, mentioned this at the time. From this and the obvious front indicator/headlamp design, Ferrari Daytona was often mentioned when the styling of the SD1 was reviewed and discussed.

You only have to look at a Daytona to see the similarities with the SD1, particularly the front end.

yes,now that i think of that the front part as some similarities, one day i´m going to own a ferrari daytona(one can dream big),i think there was an european version that was smaller or not?regards(i´ve edited this coment for the fact that i meant to say a diferent thing)

Close! Even back with austin in the 60's, the company sent out to Italian designers who worked up to point of production with the inhouse design teams! Guigaro and issigonis ( he knocked about with guigaro as kids) to give us our classic british family cars of the 50's and 60's. It went all inhouse with the disaterous 70's tin cans. But the SD1 was partly influenced by Ital and Guigaro, but a huge part was for once the designers and marketting men saw, and drove the hire cars on their foriegn holidays, of what the SD1 was up against in its most important market in europe. The Renault 20's, the big 5 door citroens, the car show stand merc ideas, and Fiats. Plus they saw accords, bluebirds, etc on uk roads and eating their entire market! A big 5 door hatch with enough oomph but a higher luxury than usual BL offerings. Everyone else was doing it. Strip away the headlights and nose, and the clever but pòorly made dash and interiour, and you have nothing special. Or worse once you owned and drove an SD1 on the M1 in a rain storm! Remember it was a mid 70's car! But if Open Uni engineering students hadnt been given 3 to 5 years ( yes years!) To discover, and play with its suspension, before bl had to quickly shove standard kit in or kill the project, it would have been the very early 1970's luxury replacement for the p5,p6,rangerover and even mopped up sognificant allegro, marina, cortina, and dying big vauxhall markets. And been a poor families usable ferrari!

Did he do in flight refueling, they barely do 25 to the gallon.

Did you ever try the famous Citroens - like the GSA ?

you finally stopped floging a dead horse..took a while..

Where did u put your knees in the door gaps, and I'm guessing even iff the seat went back far enough you might get a piece of paper between the back seat and yours, there is no way in hell you fitted, as I don't and I'm 6 ft 1,and if you even try to say you had an 800 I kno your a bit cis I need the sunroof open to see out.

Stuart Young, pair the WORST OEM IN HISTORY with probably THE WORST MANAGEMENT IN HISTORY and you have FECES FLYING ALL OVER THE PLACE...

Pressuring Lucas to cut corners? Is that even possible?! 😉

J. Clark, well... The way Lucas cut corners on their own, anything's possible.

possibly a close second to Magneti Marelli

Most people forget that Lucas was originally a maker of quality components, trouble is the BL-era cheapening has led people to ignore this. Classic Lucas stuff was certainly a cut above the standards of the 50's and 60's, not reliable by modern standards, but better than average for the time...until BL buggered things.

Ig Ja Like a porche panamera but actually pretty. Are you kidding?! This has to be one of the ugliest bloated monsters ive ever seen

@Prakrit Biswas. Cayenne are still way More Beautiful compared to Urus, X6, Q8, and Stelvio

Actually like a ferrari daytona with extra doors

Both cars are unpretty. And Rover is worse, I would say.

@@MoskusMoskiferus1611 the cayennnnne is an suv joke

He should have pressed the 'reset' button conveniently placed in the footwell. I had a similar experience after winding down all 4 windows at the same time, presumably overloading the circuit. When it started raining I looked for possible electrical faults and found the button by accident.

XJ6 ? Out of the frying pan into the fire.

the 1 in vid is straight 6 did he even look at it

Are we including the Honda powered 825i?;) sorry - had to be a smart ass;)

@@martyn_g i i believe its the 827 :( sorry had to be a smart ass;) dumm ass lol just joking :P

@@davidmccarron4832 both are correct. The 800 started with a 2.5 V6 then it was expanded to a 2.7 basically it was a Honda engine

@@martyn_g Martyn I sold those and had a Stirling demo loved it, friend had the Turbo as a company did 65k never missed a beat Unbelievable ! but true.

I know!! This car is one of the prettiest sedans of the 70s but with crappy build quality and reliability, the exact opposite of German luxury sedans.

@@mrdaykurutakuchannel - British talent all went into Motorsport to lead the world

When I saw Cowley driving one in the Professionals back in the 80’s I fell in love with the car

I recall looking at a second hand SD1 with a view to buying one but it was already rusting away. Gave up after that.

I actually traded in my 1980 granada 2.8 ghia for a 1983 rover V8 vitesse. A decision I regretted almost instantly. I couldn't believe that there could be such a massive difference in build quality between two prestige cars in direct competition. I only had that rover for about 3 months then I traded it in..........for a granada 2.8 ghia.

I always wondered if the inline 6 was any good. Yes they should have let it out perform the V8 and see where the market took it.

SD stood for Specialist Division. Solihull was a factory, not a design office. They called the unproduced Triumph Dolomite replacement the SD2, while the 1984 Rover 200 was codenamed the SD3. Solihull had long since closed by then.

Think he put the wrong Ferrari photo in the video.

But the Design was disliked by its intended audience, Senior Managers. They hated Hatchbacks. Why do you think the sales of BMW 5 Series & Mercedes-Benz C & E Classes took off so much in the UK ? (Later Audi). Those companies that had a buy British policy, bought the Ford Granada Mk2 & Vauxhall Carlton & Royale (Opel Rekord & Senator). Both actually built in Germany.

@@madsteve9 Much more to do with the appalling quality and reliability record of Solihull products at the time, not helped by the endless strikes and determination to do as little work as possible, with no pride in the product.

@@originalkk882 I knew managers who had the SD1 2600 and were appalled at it being a Hatchback.

The P6 was a very advanced car... the SD1 wasn't

Let's be thankful that Q never used Lucas electricals or 007 would have been on a slab in the morgue before he ever met Mr Goldfinger

Many comments about how good the SDI looks today. This is 50 year old design yet still looks so good today and the impact these had when they launched unless you were around at the time, when the roads were full of Marina’s and old Vauxhalls and Fords is hard to explain. As the video says, these were fantastic to drive compared to the cars of the time, and say a 1600 Cortina or Marina 1800 of the time would struggle to do 30 mpg, unless driven slowly, and the Rover SDI V8 would better those on fuel if driven at the same speeds because of the gearing and low drag. If you bought one new you would have been disappointed, but I bought a series 1 manual V8 around 8 years old for £350 with the clutch gone, and some minor rust. I cleaned the rust up and waxoiled the car and ran it for a few weeks, and it seemed fine, then changed jobs which was 55 miles away and decided to run it for a while to commute until we decided to move jobs or house. It just ran, and ran, and I thought I would run it until it wouldn’t pass an MOT or something major went and I ended up putting another 200,000 miles on it with nothing more than brakes, tyres, and a few minor parts, such as a water pump, ball joints etc, (But changed engine oil very regularly every couple of months) It got a bit tatty, the waxoil stopped the rust and it kept goind. The most significant failure from the huge milage was eventually the bulkhead fatigued where the clutch master cylinder bolts to the bulkhead which I found flexes slightly each time to the clutch is pressed down and eventually it cracked and the whole clutch master cylinder broke out still bolted to some of the bulkhead! I cut around another bulkhead pressing out of a scrapyard car and sandwiched it underneath and tack welded it. The car wasn’t cheap on fuel, but it wasn’t over expensive either, and so relaxing to drive. And quick too when you needed to overtake. I run a 5 series BMW today, clearly a much better made car, but still not as nice to drive. If these had been built properly think what could have been.

Must've been a Monday car.

The Rover SD1 came to the US in 1980.. I bought one.

@@jeffhildreth9244 A salesman at Grand Prix Motor Imports in Denver offered to let me have one for a day. He said I'd be in Vail in one hour. That may be true, but I also may have ended up in jail in less than an hour.

Thank you, Raymond....my point exactly...(Kindly see my comments above.) The archaic "Old-Boy" management system did more damage to British industry after WW2 than the Germans ever managed! Imagine...all those cushy overseas colonial posts...fast disappearing....I say! What could one do?... but "See Uncle Henry at BL.. he'll find something for you." And the world looked on in amusement.

Raymond Williams

I got the same impression from people I knew who worked at the former Pressed Steel panels plant in Swindon that became Rover-managed. Presumably things got better after the place became part of BMW's MINI operation....

As a teen in the 1970s all I heard about Britain is IRA attacks or union having nation wide strike

The Unions and Red Robbo ensured the destruction of the UK car industry. An integrated manufacturing process was held to ransom and the end result predictable. No manufacturing plant could operate or be profitable under the union controilled conditions. Sadly, thousands of families in the midlands paid a heavy price when the British car industry collapsed.

me too, on the shoulder of our local Autobahn, in a big cloud of steam... but i was more impressed by the huge cloud and not by the car itself... and my opinion nerver changed...

They should and could have sold between half a million and a million of them if they had the supply and quality/reliability right. They were potentially a superb vehicle but the video explains where it all fell apart as was usual and caused the decimation of the UK car industry at the time. Just look at the example of Hyundai which started off building a near copy of the Morris Marina and look where they are now and where Leyland is. Compare and contrast. Look at the massively prosperous and successful highly technological South Korean economy compared to the basket-case UK.

I think its more a case of early tiny brands that would have naturally died, as many did, being rolled up into bl as survival handout more on a buddy basis my Lyons ( rover, triumph should never have been saved. Although triumph should have been rolled up into a sports car group under the morris brand, and been ready to pounce when tweaked saloons came in). Austin by rights of sales numbers, brand recog and loyalty along with united styling and even technological innovations) is what BL etc should have been branded. Plus they were profitable! But we had an extreme inward looking management and massive blind upper middle class snobbery towards competitors and blindness in how rubbish niche cars like rover itself were, and how they simply couldnt make enough reliable,rust free, 1 model per Eon, profitably. And while the unions had a point in heavy, dirty, dangerous and badly paid uk industry, they got insane and greedy. Nobody remembers Nissan and Honda came in with full unionisation, but used it to galvanise production. Leyland, bl, rover was passed around to upper class or political class board members from uk firms who understood nothing about the industry, marketing and sneered down with victorian mill owner semiloathing at the Oiks making the products. And had no guts in rationalising bl from start to death. If you think i am wrong, can i draw your attention to how fast nissan, toyota, honda could get moving. And PSA just did a mini version with buying Vauxhall/Opel. There is real blame to be had by all from the boardroom to the junior mechanics in the dealers.

Alec Brown That sounds like a fair assessment to me. From the standpoint of a later observer, the amalgamation of all those disparate marques under BL always looked like a mistake to me. Before, they were making cars. After, it all went bust together. I can't help but feel that a few, smaller brands might (individually) have stood a better chance. The fact that there was no domestic competition and the lure of endless government money always makes everyone fat and lazy.

stephen galley Electric cars are a bad joke.

Leyland/BMC etc, yes, Ford, no. Also smaller vendors like Morgan and TVR seem to have survived OK.

@@davelowe1977 No domestic competition ? Did you miss Ford ?

I worked at BL at the time and bought a Canley built TR7 (thinking the quality might be better than the Speke built ones - it was still awful), then bought a Solihull built TR7 drophead. The quality was also very bad. I was amazed when I left and traded it in for an Escort XR3i to get a new car without a list of problems. The build quality, specially in the Jaguar Rover Triumph side of the business, was frankly terrible.

that looks NOTHING like anything from Japan, or Italy, it was a stunning British car, and still today, out looks virtually everything on the road today.

@@diecast-madness4645 it looks really much like a ferrari daytona

@@elgooghosent7080 Umm, NO, it has the front lights inspired by the Ferrari, but thats it, nothing else on that car looks anything like a Ferrari, plus even with the reliability issues it was still far more reliable than any Ferrari of that era.

George Cowley and John Steed both drove them - enough said. And Barry Prudom stole one from a Bank Manager, and then set fire to it, during his murderous rampage.

Looks like YOY 868S got taken off the road in 1986.

@@NevilleStyke Yes, didn't last too long, I'm guessing rust got it! He looked another new one in a showroom in Finchley in 1979, the paint on the sills was already flaking off!

@@markdavis2475 The second one I had was a 2600 Vanden Plas, which was £350 and only needed a 15 minute fix to fit a needle back into its carrier in one of the SU carbs, as the needle had dropped into the jet. The previous owner had only used it for a few weeks a year when he had it motor-railed down to the south of France, for his holiday, so it was low in mileage and corrosion. He'd had a diagnostics test done and they'd incorrectly told him that it had a blown head gasket. You could see from their printout that there was no power from the three cylinders on one carb. I take the head off as a matter of course, to remove the oil pressure restrictor valve to the camshaft, just to be safe from camshaft bearings seizing. I then ran it for seven years.

@@NevilleStyke Yep, never rely on garages! I think the 2600 and 2300,s had issues with cracking heads at one time, but I think it was mostly down to the wrong coolant/no antifreeze! I think they did a 2000 version once!!!

firs and second at Bathurst in Australia in endurance racing ! Just brilliant 1984 I think

That makes no sense when the XF DID come from the 21st century.

True, but customers in the 70's were comparing the SD1 to the competition and it didn't make the grade. But yes, car manufacturing has come on leaps and bounds since then.

Same story here. I had 3.

Carguy UK 5 Vitesse`s really?? I couldn`t find one, they became almost Unicorn-like, the 3.9i must have been so much better than the 3500 twin S-U carb!.... Had a V8-S, & two other lower spec V8`s... rot killed 2 & the S caught me out on a country bend & wrapped itself round a tree : ( ........ Straight pipe on the S sounded great!... For some reason I didn`t like the facelifted SD2, too much chrome trim & extra bits that just didn`t look right... still this video brought back memories.

@Oggy - The next generation of European cars beat yours though and you had to ban them from Touring cars. British talent was all in Motorsport

@@brobno9 SD2, that car never progressed past the prototype stage, it was a brilliant car and with fettling would have been a massive seller, but the MK II SD1 was a better looking car, entirely, they threw funds at it to get it right, and it was, so much so, that it sold well right to the end, and considering at the time, there were many cars added to that particular market, it is surprising that sales held up as well as they did, especially with the Grandad and various rusty Vauxhalls.

@@diecast-madness4645 No mystery or surprise there lol.... nobody else offered a V8...simple as that.... Interesting statement seeing as even the old Rover dealership in my town referred to the face-lift SD1 as the SD2. (When visiting for service items) But I guess you know better than Rover........

No, mate. The unions were not a problem. Look at how German managements got along with them... Now the Germans own everything. It was the British management who underestimated the problem and was overconfident in that situation. Another major mistake was the ignorance of the european market, while focussing on the Commonwealth.

Soul Traveller is right, I just about remember those times, and my family certainly does, they all worked in the car industry from sales to production, my uncle was on the production line at BL in Cowley and said all the union stops was starting to actually wear the guys down, they just wanted to get on with a day's work and not get grief at home from the wives when they where sent home early when their pay packs where getting docked by the unions so there was even less to live on. He said it was no fun sitting in the cold and dark for days at home with his wife having a go at him. He was an ardent Labour supporter to the core, he was a member of the Labour party, but after all the strikes he turned to the Conservatives, he voted for Mrs Thatcher in 1979, because he agreed Labour wasn't working, but it really hurt him to say that. He retired from the factory in the early 90s after working over 40 years there and voted Conservative for the rest of his life. The reason German management has to get on with German unions is the size of the unions and the political power they have, but it means cheaper German cars are often getting made outside of Germany, in lower cost economes such as Romania, Hungary, where the German based factory acting as the lead factory or the centre of excellence for that model.

@@GM-ii8gs I dont agree with your last bit, since the unions in Germany are very mighty and even constitutionalized. There are strong laws that are supporting unions and workers rights. Certainly outsourcing has become a thing in the recent years in Germany, but major strikes occured at the same time as the British had to deal with them in the 1970s. That was a time when the Germans had their full scale production within the own country. And German cars were beyond cheap back then. ;) But everybody admired the quality at the time. In fact to this day major manufacturers are outsourcing within the country to sub contractors. The German middle class and decentralized economy plays a major role. The car manufacturers are pressing them into low prices. Also, dont want to argue, but Thatcher did open Pandoras box, didnt she? :)

@@GM-ii8gs Interesting article about the largest workers union in Europe: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Metall

@@Gentleman...Driver What I meant was like it says in that article, the German unions have been clever to reinvent themselves into a professional training standards organisation, taking a more holistic approach to improving their members lives both in work and out of work and realised that as their membership was declining due to offshoring and a reduction in industrial capability and rise in automation in Germany that not every low wage job needed to saved, so they have had to work hand in hand with their members, management, and the German public, like that article said they even back down in the face of public/political opinion, shame Arthur Scargill didn't do that! German unions with their position on the board of companies have realised and aided the keeping of German industrial jobs on high value products and have allowed the lower value items to be offshored, this is what I meant before, this allows their members to continue too have a relatively high-income in industrial production work which leads to a wealthy and stronger economy, put simply the unions now don't want 'cheap' jobs, this is exactly the strategies at Mercedes has adopted. Selling more cars across more price points means more tax paid in Germany which is good for the economy and services for citizens, but making lower cost cars means everything has to be lower cost including wages. I was recently having a conversation with the global head buyer of Aldi, he said the unions don't want cheap stuff made in Germany these days, the vast majority of special offer items they sell such as hand tools and homewares are now made in China, where as 25 years ago they were made in Germany, but the unions don't want the pollution (the German unions are getting more involved in green issues and pushing for changes), the low wages - they want high tech, high wages, but the German branding instills confidence in the consumer that it is to German standards and QA procedures, hence this is why even the smallest electrical item or tool gets a 3 year warranty because a Chinese warranty would be 1 year at best. So just like Britain packages Britishness and sells it abroad, the heritage, history, royalty etc so someone will go into a M&S in Paris and buy something which might have actually been produced in France, but they feel they have brought into a small slice of Britishness, the Germans are doing the same with the perceived engineering excellence. They are selling brand Germany. I'm not sure about Germany having lots of strikes in the 70s, I can't find any records of this, at the time, from records most srikes in industrial economies where in the UK or USA. Also German strikes had a tendency to be more focused and localised and to a shorter period, so less damaging, weeks as opposed to many months or even years in the UK. Those strong laws supporting German workers and their rights have be put place by German unions, via political parties, just the same as the UK model, but the German unions see their job as been consultative, not combative as it got to in the UK in the 70s, the them and us approach. Also in Germany trade unions have a specially protected legal status under their constitution as "social policy coalitions" and of course certain German companies have deliberately structured in away that they cannot be by bought up, a classic example is the so-called Volkswagen law or act where the state of Lower Saxony owns a noticeable percentage of Volkswagen to protect it from takeovers, especially foreign ones! So basically all the bodies are working together, the powerful states that make the government, the manufacturers and their management, the unions and the workers, all pulling together to make the German success. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying all the problems were caused by unions in UK in the 1970s, poor management, weak government and lazy companies expecting consumers to be brand loyal for no good reason, all combined together into one mess. But in the 1990s the former head convenor at BL Cowley became one of my parents neighbours in Oxford, I got to know him quite well, after BMW bought Rover, he admitted to me that perhaps the unions had gone too far. Manufacturers will always look to lower production cost, for example China is building industrial estates in sub-saharan East Africa and putting the rail, road and port infrastructure in. The Chinese are the factory managers and locals work over the hot workbenches producing everything from cutlery to low-cost clothing, the next stage of the plan is to start making electronics there, this is all because of rapid wage increases in China and a booming middle class which won't work for the low wages they needed to make these cheap items. The Chinese plan is for Africa to export to Europe and South American factories to export to North America. This is the reason why China is investing so heavily in these regions it's not just about the raw materials, it's finding new sources of cheap labour, some might even argue colonialism is back! Maggie definitely cause some issues, but one thing she did do is get the UK at the time focused on Europe and away from the commonwealth, but I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing, I have to say in last 5 years I have wondered what she would make of brexit and particularly the deal that's been arrived with the EU...

Buster haha. Good story. And what a neighbour. It's the little things that we remember from our childhoods

That wnker red Robbo did his bit for the Kremlin.

@@dougbhorne And no fault on the unions part in any way huh?

@@robv1139 Both are equally to blame.

@@dougbhorne Derek Robinson,was a member of The British,Communist,Party & should never,have been allowed to be a union rep.

@@robv1139 No, have a look at the very strong unions in Germany. The German managements got along with them and together they started expanding. British management was over confindent that they could find some people to work at their factories and totally underestimated the problem. The focus on the Commonwealth and not Europe is another major mistake they have done.

Sadly commies gonna commie.

The unions in Australia are still like that mate!

Same here in the States.

It looks like Joe McCarthy didn't go far enough! Still too many commies around these days for my liking.

British Leyland workers were trying to work on war-time designed assembly lines, designed for tanks!.... until the 1980's.... Who's fault was that? The Leyland Roadrunner was the first truck designed & built on a proper, dedicated, assembly line....and it was immensely successful.... and very, very reliable. Lack of investment was to blame for the ills of BL....for decades. That, and the old-boy network of management, made the disaster inevitable. And the Germans and Japanese rubbed their hands in glee.....They had modern plants constructed within years after the war.....The irony is that the tax deducted from the pay packets of the BL workers.....paid for it all. Tell the kids today.....

So instead of letting your dad drive you to school in the Terry & June Princess, did you walk? Or ride your bike?

@@autobahnproven West Midlands PTE N°366 bus 😁