The British Car Industry’s Worst Mistake - The Sad Story of The BMC 9X 

I am aware, thanks to about 30 comments I mispronounced a name. I’ve corrected this in my Innocenti video.

Mechanics of the time thought that the Mini's engine bay was cramped. Mechanics of today would long for the clearance and free space of the Mini.

Good old days of human-sized cars, not ego-sized tanks.

The prototype 9X certainly wasn't a looker. If it had gone to market then the styling would have needed improvement, but what a shame that it fell foul of the BLMC mismanagement. It could have been a trailblazer.

The mini was outdated but still had its charm, that is why it still sold. The BMC 9x is an updated version of the mini, while people were looking for cars that looked like a car, with a bonnet and performace. So the 205 and the Fiesta came at the right time; not micro, but a decent car you could transport your grandma in. And with a boot to take her suitcase with you too. People did not want a micro-car with wheels from a wheelbarrow anymore. The time of the mini and the Honda N360 (along with other cars of that size) was history. The Suzuki GX was of that size, it hardly selled.

The BMC 9X looks looks like a scaled down SIMCA 1100 which was the one of the very first hatchback. This was very successful long before a POLO , GOLF or FIESTA was available.

The Metro was a revolutionary car. Its split, non symmetrical rear seats have been adopted by many manufacturers and can still be found on many modern cars, today. I learned to drive in a Metro. That monstrosity that they call a "Mini", today, does not deserve the name.

I'm an American who lived in England in the 1980s. I had an Austin Rover $2,300s. What a fantastic car. What a miserable engine. I'd be glad to find out more about it on your other videos. When I bought the car they put a new engine in it. This did not last long. One day on a BT training course as I was driving back to the bed and breakfast the motor stops. I look the distributor is not turning. Someone in training lent me their RAC card, thankfully and I got the car towed home. It had wiped the bottom of the timing belt. I walked into the parts department handing them the belt he looked at me and said "you need a lot more than that mate". Oh how we laughed. Mine was a sea ridge in like a pearl paint job it was really a gorgeous car.

The 9X had one major problem had it come to market: it was too small. Having seen it in person it's just the wrong size compared to the European cars that came later. If it had been slightly larger than the Metro was at launch it would have had a chance, but being smaller than a Mini would have been a mistake. Even the likes of the R5 and Fiesta struggled to convince some potential customers that they were big enough for a small family.

Imagine how many minis would have been sold in Europe if it had been metric. The same goes for most of the rest.

A tale of British industry generally. Brilliant ideas crushed by dreadful management.

Excellent again Tom! Epic shortsightedness… how to grab defeat from the jaws of victory… frustrating how close they came to launching a game changer.

Excellent presentation again , thank you

Thanks a lot, very interesting, and I learned quite a lot. I turned 18 in 1961 in Australia, and my first car was a VW Beetle. I had a heavy foot, and the VW was unbreakable. What about Austin/Morris? The Mini was reportedly fragile, the Morris 1000 antiquated, the A40 unappealing. I've owned 5 Minis as classic cars, and loved them. But what a disaster the British motor industry became, so many bad decisions and missed opportunities.

Great great work as ever tom. You do an excellent job. Found this channel about 3 months ago. Really enjoying the content. Thankyou .

A very interesting video Tom - thanks! As for BL’s biggest mistake - I think it was allowing the Maxi to production with such odd ball styling, and that dreadful cable gear-change. Given that BL was banking on Maxi taking on the Cortina class, by hampering it with the mid section from the unpopular Landcrab did sales in an image conscious market no favours. A real shame - the engineering (dodgy gear linkage apart) and packaging were ahead of their time. But, BL didn’t learn from its best selling Issigonis car - the 1100/1300, which they handed to Pininfarina to style, and hampered themselves with a cutting edge car in engineering terms, which looked out of date at launch due to the 18-22 central section. The other mistake you mentioned in your video - Allegro and Princess should have been hatchbacks, with Maxi pensioned off.

You have taught me a lot of things that I didn't know about BMC and British Leyland. I love the old clips as well.

Hi Tom, watching your videos and recommendation i went to the British Motor Museum at Gaydon, What a brilliant place but also a place of sadness in what could have been for the British Motor Industry looking at various prototypes, If only they took the risk. Love your videos.

I'm a fan of Gillian Bardsley's Issigonis book. Her interpretation of the situation was that Stokes was furious at Issigonis following the Maxi launch and he was sidelined from then on. There is a sketch of Issigonis's in the book laying out the complete 9x project right the way up to a large saloon of around 3 litres. I think he pulled out the stops to create a range sharing components and body panels to keep the costs as tight as possible. This seemed to be a Man who wanted to make anends for the "expense" of producing his previous designs. You can, looking at the sketch see the making of the Metro, Maestro and Montego some ten years later. Not that he had anything necessarily to do with that. The book also tells how the 9X engine design was actually bench tested against a K Series, which again goes to show the design quality of it.

Issigonis' own bmc9x is at the Atwell Wilson museum in Wiltshire, the guys there are restoring it, quite a story how they came by it too.

The BMC 9x looks very much like the innocenti mini from Italy in the 80s.

Good video on the 9X Tom, I used to work for a guy (Ray Rajan RIP) who was one of the enginneers that worked on the 9X project with Issigonis and was very involved with the dx engine development as you say that engine was to have been a modular design based on a 250 cc cylinder architecture (though it did incoporate allowance for the cylinders to be "stretched" to 300 cc) but some of the other elements they were also looking at were pretty wild such as having built up crank/conrod assemblies (conrods would be one piece (like a 2 stroke) with plain bearing metal applied direct into the big end "eye", the cranks would comprise of machined pins (effectively very thick walled tubes) and crank throws/webs (sheared from plate or bar and machined for a heavy interference fit of the pins/conrod assembly) with the various parts loaded into an automatic alignment and assembly machine which when the crankshaft/conrod assembly was built would electron beam weld the pins to the throws/rods so the crank wouln't twist it was estimated with an automatic process that they would be so cheap to produce that if the bottom end of your engine "went" the assembly would be cheaper than having a crank "ground" and new shell bearings, they were proposing a similar idea for camshafts (a tube shaft with pressed on and beam welded cam lobes) an idea recently seen on modern cars such as Audi, there was plenty more ideas (like the starter/generator being built into the flywheel bellhousing) but they were the radical ones that come to mind.

It’s always great comedy to hear about how BL could or should have got ahead with great ideas that they just shelved for various reasons. I know it’s easy to see where they failed, using hindsight, but they must have held their heads in their hands when all those euro-minis were launched and sold which used all the ideas and styling of the 9X.

Always sad to know of all these failed projects, ideas and plans. Quality content as always. Stating the obvious: "LOVE the MINI"

Nice to see a RU-vid video featuring a real person instead of absurd AI. Keep up the good work!

More good stuff Tom, and that Pininfarina 1800 makes me want to cry, it was damn fab. But hold on, the Auto-b-what-now? Baneechee? No Autobianchi is auto-bee-an-ki. For next time :)

I have seen similar looking quite modern east german Trabant protoypes from the 1960s and 70s!

Starting off my brother and I shared a little mini - in some respects, it was the coolest car I've ever owned.

Had friends who worked at BL in the late 70's. They would literally put a spanner in the line to sabotage production and sleep all night when on night shifts.

Hi new to this channel and was hooked by its content , me been driving since 1972 , the number of comments is amazing against the number of views I find ! Good luck with this , I’ll be watching the next for sure!

The great British car industry suffered from the same problem time and time again, Hellishly poor management regardless of the company! Every where you looked there was in-house fighting for little empire builders who did not realize they were hurting the company rather than all having the same goals and working to that goal of producing profitable vehicles that the public wanted to buy! The 9X was the classic example, a brilliant design at a price that was profitable and what the public would love! once established they could then introduce the 10X as a more luxurious version with possibly electric windows etc. BMC/Leyland were not the only ones Rootes too made the unfortunate decision to sell out to Chrysler who just did not understand the UK market or the people and made the wrong decision time and time again until they ran out of money and patience then sold to the PSA group in France!

Innovation and engineering nous was never the problem in the UK. We could have made the Golf GTI, Ford Escort XR3I or even the Renault Espace, and BL and the Unions would STILL have found a way to make them fail....

Excellent as always, reminds me of an early pioneer hatchback, the simca 1100- which in itself would have made an interesting hot hatch with the 1501 engine tweeked somewhat...

Watched from Old Harbour Jamaica 🇯🇲 and I remember Motor magazine covered this car and I too wondered why it was not produced. If the British was diligent with their car industry we in Jamaica would be buying British cars as we use to swear by them.

As always, great stories, Tom. I am American, but always had a very positive attitude toward BL cars, and not just the traditional and rather novel "small" (by US standards) cars with bold and innovative features (Hydrogas, Quartic Steering wheel, etc.), but the Harris Mann cars like the TR7 and Rover SD1 3500 were models that really looked like nothing else on the road anywhere. Before Mercedes and BMW were "a dime a dozen", and rather uncommon (there was a neighbor with a /8 Benz which seemed an unconventional choice), British cars were more common and I walked by a TR7 on my street owned by someone working at a local office or shop. That freshness in styling was like something akin to someone seeing Scandanavian modern furniture for the first time after living among Victorian-style settees and whatnot. It was really beautiful, but just in a different way. Heck, I love the look of the Princess, Allegro, etc, but of course mismanagement and poor timing squandered that amazing design and engineering talent by an antagonized workforce, as well as poor marketing decisions. I only learned in the last few years that the Range Rover was destined for the USA long before it reached our shores in 1987....BL could not keep up with demand, so had to delay any USA sales. I have no idea if that even mattered except for having another product in showrooms. I say this because the "SUV" market was in its infancy rather than dominating the US market today. Jeep Cherokees and Chevy Blazers were rather common then, but not like today. Who knows what Range Rover sales would have been like in the USA if officially imported. I had to savor the cars in episodes of British TV shows like "The New Avengers", or models such as Corgi Juniors. I only saw the briefly-sold-in-North-America once here, in 1982 on a road in Canada. Still, the Corgi model I had resonated with me as being a modern, forward-thinking Britain rather than a retro-backwards nostalgic type look that some Jaguars began to take on after the XJ40.

Very informative video Tom. I really enjoy your output, although it makes me sad to think what BL could have become with the right Management.

Its a pity the UK never saw the likes of the autobianchi a112 or the innocenti mini 90...I had both and they were good.

Ford's Fiesta only happened because of the FIAT 127. Ford bought 5 or more 127's to strip them down and get a handle on small FWD transverse engine configuration with an end on gearbox.

At the same time the British Motorcycle industry was being decimated,and it was all written about at the time.Simply the Japanese could see the flaws in engineering that gave them a bad reputation for oil leaks,breaking down and short life span between rebuilds.And they simply went about producing what the public wanted.Britain also lost the truck industry,shipbuilding....

All fascinating and to add my perspective... In 1982 the Sierra hatchback was shunned by the public- Ford dealers desperate to get Cortinas on their forecourts. Certainly by the mid 80s the B&Qs of the world were making big load spaces really useful but prior to the 1980s people didn't visit recycling centres or DIY stores -hard to believe today. It all seems obvious today but I think the reality is that cars that were not taken forward always seem like the saviour but I'm not convinced. It is worth noting the situation with Citroen. The C6 was one of Citroen's biggest flops (nice video on BigCar on this) - no one wanted their avant-garde offering: times had changed. We are about to have access to cheaper Chinese cars (think MG who are now everywhere) - will we see the German and French car industry hit like ours was? VW are already scaling back their electric car production. Great informative video though and endlessly interesting area.

The Stag V8 engine was considered a major disaster from the start!

Excellent video the cancellation of the 9X was just another step in their downfall, it's really surprising that this got canned but the Allegro got the go ahead

That could have been a versatile design with vans and small estates like the Reliant Kitten.

Great video! A couple of comments. The Mini was not "one of the greatest small cars the world has ever known". It was, and still is, simply the greatest car the world has ever known. I think it was the right decision not to produce the 9X just because it was too small. All those European superminis were bigger than the Mini and that's what the market wanted at that time. But yes it was an innovative car, and much as I love Moulton suspensions, I think it's right that the cost was not really justified.

When you look at the Fiat, VW and Peugeot superminis, it’s almost impossible to believe that there wasn’t either some blatant copying of any published BLMC design ideas, or blatant industrial espionage involved. However, that wouldn’t explain why BLMC dropped the idea of a hatchback replacement for the Mini. I strongly suspect that the decision was a legacy of the post WW2 investment favouritism that helped rebuild and protect the economies of Germany, France and Italy, and of course feed the mighty Dollar Machine. A great deal of innovation that took place in Britain, was either squandered, or simply gifted to the USA. Bletchley developed the electronic computer Colossus. But instead of building a computer industry in the UK, Colossus was smashed up, whilst the ones sent to the USA were gifted to IBM - which went on to dominate the mainframe computer market, and later (with the help of the smelly geek from Redmond), the desktop market too. These were not accidents - none of them. Meanwhile, in a dress rehearsal for the eventual fate of the British car insurance, the British motorcycle industry - which had been saved in 1945 by the BSA Bantam (stolen from DKW), was being decimated by similar decisions, whilst Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha were also benefiting from World Bank post WW2 reinvestment. Whilst we’re always fed takes of wasted opportunities, lack of foresight, poor management and troublesome workforces lead by bolshy union leaders, the truth is that nothing gets made without investment. So, as always, follow the money.

Had never heard of it, thanks for the video Tom

I own my innocenti Mini Cooper 1300 for 38 years now. I love the iconic design of the mini which the 9x does not have. Butfor sure many mini drivers would have appreciated the more modern engine and continuous technical improvements and improvement in quality as better precautions against corrosion and better reliability. For more than 30 years BMC or BL did not solve the problem of engine failure when the distributor got in contact with rainwater.

This is a great vid but fails to mention Issigonis's own 9X had a torque instead of a gearbox which the Daily Mail in 1969 hailed as the next big thing but of course you need more than a torque converter to power a small car. You can see this actual car in Calne at the Atwell Wilson car museum but struggled to maintain speed on hills. If you want to see what a 9X would have been like to drive buy a Mk 1 Polo - it's a straight copy. Whenever I see a Polo I often say "Look - a VW 9X!"

Management incompetence is still wrecking great British institutions including the NHS. It stems from the complacency that came from having blundered through WW11 and beaten Hitler. Meanwhile Germany and Japan were re-industrialising and creating superior products from new. I remember driving one of the first Datsun Cherrys and being amazed at how good it was.

i had a Morris Major series 2 i drove it for 13 years needed a lot of maintaining valve grinding etc but we loved it

Interesting that you focused on the European hatchbacks released after the 9X stating that it would have lead the way, rather than looking at those already there like the Renault 4, or the Citroen Dyane. The Dyane was released the same year that Issigonis started the 9X project, and was incidentally intended to be a more refined, cheaper to manufacture, more conventional, hatchback car to replace the 2CV that directly competed with the mini.

My mother had an 1100 MG, I had an ordinary 1100 and then an allegro. All brilliant cars but the one thing they all died of prematurely - RUST + RUST AND MORE RUST. They all had beautiful engines. My mother's first second hand A30 lasted longer than all three of them!

The 9X DID see the light of day! Only not in the UK. They were running about as the Mini Innocenti in Italy, France and corsica/sardiinia. As late as the late 90's there were plenty of them in good condition that i saw and drove. The only difference was the very Fiat style front grille. Oddly enough, when they died off they tended to be replaced by Axiam and other cycle cars, or a citroen ax as the alternative top of the range vehicle. I dont know who made the innocenti under licence (one of the fiat group, or eastern european comunist countries? The awful Yugo certainly was a frankennstien of innocenti cues)

I think they made the correct decision keeping the Mini and complimenting it with the Metro… which was also a very successful car in sale numbers.

Nice one mate, love these. Honda robbed this shape with their little e. New subscriber ✌🏻

Excellent documentary, I often wonder why BL didn’t push the 9X into production but we shouldn’t be suprised by their lack of investment mismanagement. They canned some pretty decent designs, and were happy just to churn out the cars they already had with facelifts to keep them in the market. The engine in the 9X I think was somewhere between the A series and the K series, great design, I just wonder if it would have had the cooling issues that the K series had? Thanks again for a very interesting video.👍

I had no knowledge of this before this video. What an utter shame this Golden opportunity was left for the competition to gain from.

The original Fiat 127 actually started out with a boot, a hatch was added a year later as they realised this was the future of small cars.

I think their worst mistake was not to update and develop the BMC 1100/1300. They were good cars, superb ride and roadholding (compared to Escort/Viva etc.) and only let down by limitations and age of A Series engines and rust problem on bodywork. An overhead cam engine, designing water and rust traps out of body, and adding a hatchback could have been a winner. The Allegro was the answer to none of the problems.

In Australia their biggest mistake was the P76.

If only British Leyland had better management it may well still be around today Great video Tom 👍👍🇦🇺

Great video 👍 looks like pinniferinor sold the design to Citroen creating the GSA, issigoness knew he needed to replace the aging mini 😊

I lived and worked in the motor trade all through these eras. A very impressive video with great research effort and presentation .👌🙏 ⭐️

The mechanics then would go completely bonkers today if they thought the mini was cramped

I’m afraid the 9x, innovative as it was, lacked the product planning to be right sized. The market was moving to superminis like the Fiat 127, Renault 5, Ford Fiesta, etc and Issigonis’ obsession with keeping the car as small as the original Mini sadly pushed the project in the wrong direction. The eventual Metro was the right size, but hampered by dated mechanicals. The money for 9x should have been spent on an up to date range of oversquare OHC motors - the E-series had been hampered by wanting to squeeze in a straight 6 transversely, resulting in an undersquare and therefore tall and not future proof configuration. So yes, 9x is interesting, but probably wouldn’t have generated the necessary profits….

They already had a good OHC engine in the Maxi 1500 and 1700. The 1500 Allegro was a great car!

That 154kg weight stated for the original Mini's A series engine sounded way too much, so I just googled it. Apparently that little unit really was that heavy, and takes 3 people to life one safely !!! I had no idea. Back in my youth I once fitted a replacement engine into my 1050 Fiat 127 on my own, without a hoist. It was heavy (I'd guess about 50 or 60kg), but I managed it. No wonder the Hayabusa swap minis are so ballistically quick. Not only are they getting 180bhp, but they're losing the weight equivalent of a fat passenger from the front of the car ! :D

If the Morris grilled Mini's were re-made again today, just as they were, therè would be a queue for them from Longbridge to Japan.!

A well-presented video. Even viewing it from just news reports here in Australia, the self-destruction of BLMC was a tragedy. A slow-motion trainwreck that ruined the great names of the British motoring world.

Probably the biggest mistake was when BMC/BMH first came about. The big companies shouldn't have amalgamated. All the different brands competing against themselves with the same cars, underneath one roof, madness.

It's very Sad to witness once Great Empires still in cancelation and decline.

British Motor industry. WHAT IF!!! Great content as always thank you (:

An excellent video. Thank you. What a shame BL made so many mistakes. I live in Australia and am a massive BMC and Leyland fan. My first car was a Morris Mini Deluxe 1966. I still have it and a 1977 Leyland Mini Van and a 1965 MG 1100. I’ve owned dozens of minis and BMC cars, I just love them. My mum had a Mk3 Cortina a lime green XLE with a tan vinyl roof with a 4.1 litre six cylinder engine from the Ford Falcon. It went like a rocket. Hubnut did some videos years ago on some Australian cars. I think you do a better job and are more investigating and could probably do a good series on Australian BMC/Leyland vehicles. They made many refinements to British cars and also produced their own models. Everyone just knows the P76. There’s more than that. Even the the Mini and 1100. They were adapted to Australian conditions and the changes were massive. My twin brother had a Rover 3500 V8, it was a nice car but it had its issues. They pretty popular here. We had JRA Jaguar Rover Australia after Leyland. Minis and Mokes were some of the last BL cars made here, although they did assemble Land Rovers and even Peugeot cars here too. I worked for an MG spare parts business in the nineties and remember BL Rover heritage coming to Australia to try and take control of the MG name as they were about to introduce the MGF, and they wanted my boss to pay a licensing fee to use the MG name. My boss basically told him to fuck off as Leyland or Rover had not represented anything in Australia for decades and he was keeping face and these vehicles on the road. I’m not sure how it all ended up, but the business is still going. It’s still amazing how many people still love BMC/Leyland/Rover cars. I still do. And in Australia we have no car manufacturing anymore I have Holden Commodore SV6 and Ford Falcon XR6 they the most comfortable cars for driving long distances as we do here in Australia. It’s a shame it’s all gone, like Rover. Thanks for your videos. I wish I could send you pictures of my cars. Or if you ever came to Australia, you always have a place to stay. Keep up the good work. 🇦🇺👍👍

Very interesting, didn’t know this prototype existed! The mini being the only British car I ever owned, it was great but of course I constantly wished it was updated to at least err...1970s features😅. I assumed they just failed to ever develop a replacement- clearly I was wrong! Here it is😳..what a total failure of short-sighted & stupid management to not get at least a version of this into production 😠

Everybody liked the mini .... so why change it drastically? The 9x may be better, but has awful lines .... Quality wise the mini needed many improvements (engine, corrosion), but with Japanese style refinements the concept mini could really have been a decade long stayer in the market. I had one and it was big pleasure to drive !!!

The poor relationship between the Leyland and BMC teams may have been the biggest problem. The merger ti form BLMC was arranged by the British Government, and "sold" to Leyland as an opportunity to create a merged firm with global scale. In fact, BMC had been on the point of going bust. Had BMC been allowed to fail, Leyland could have bought its assets debt-free from the Official Receiver and run it according to Leyland management principles; as it was, they acquired a badly-run company with a mountain of debt, run by senior managers with ill-founded self confidence. It followed that the Leyland team treated anything emerging from BMC with a lot of suspicion. Given capital shortage because of the BMC debt mountain and the fact that the Mini was still selling and marginally profitable, it was not surprising that the Leyland folks ledt the 9X project to one side.

In my opinion they should have gone for the Bertone design and the car that was actually produced in Italy by Innocenti : the Innocenti Mini 90 series, it had the much needed hatch and was an alternative for the very populat Italian made Autobianchi A112 model. They could have invested moneyin the powerhouse of the new Mini and go on from there. Let's face it, the Innocenti Mini 90 was a real looker !

Hmm. Strange that the video omits any mention of the Renault 4. The R4, iirc, used rear torsion bars - imo far superior to a beam axle. As for engine weight ... the Reliant Regal had an all-aluminium engine in 1962. (I owned a couple of the later examples - a '72 & a '73. with the 700cc engine). The "Delboy" van was also available with rear side windows and a folding rear seat - I owned one for a bit! A very practical little car, offering many of the advantages of a small hatchback - MUCH lighter than even a Mini, too. I leant to drive in a 1965 Wolseley Hornet Mk II, so I have a bit of "Mini" experience, too - that car handled well because the seats were so low it felt like sitting on the floor! Fittingly enough, my mother replaced that 1965 Hornet (fancy Mini) with a 1986 Ford Fiesta, which does rather reinforce the point you made in the video! Having said that, the various car designs near the start of the video (that BMC/BLMC never put into production), reminded me somewhat of the styling of some 1980's Citroens. So I guess "idea borrowing" goes both ways.

Hi Tom , absolutely I had one of those a vanden plas model . Regards mark

Well done great stuff

Looks like the inspiration for the yugo

Love your videos mate! With that amazing and oh-so-70s hair you would look great on a Rover P6... you didn't know you needed one, right?!🤣

Firstly might I say I love your channel excellent work young Fellah! I'm impressed that a young bloke like yourself is taking on this project! My guess is that you weren't born when all this was going down!? Great work mate, be proud! Anyway my opinion is that BL's biggest mistake was....Excisting in the first place!! Not the cars but the company! A shocking juggernaut of a company! To me as a bit of an old conspiracy theorist 🤣 I have to say it looks like the whole thing was set up to bring down the great British motor industry!?, I reckon it was sabotage from Management all the way to unions (and this comes from a life long staunch union man!) I can not believe these people (not the workers they were got at!) made such incredible mistakes! by pure accident! It goes way beyond mere incompetence!!! 🤬 I now live in Australia but originally from UK, I was there when all this crap was going down! It's absolutely heartbreaking as I am a British car enthusiast, my favourite marques being Jaguar and Rover 😭😭 Ive owned both and own an XJ8 (built under Ford stewardship) but so sad to see what BL(zabub 🤣) did to those great marques! Along with Austin Morris Wolseley Riley! BL along with the Rootes group destroyed a once Great world leading industry so Sad so Sad! BTW I started my working life as an apprentice motor mechanic with a Ford dealer in Reading in 1967, later after finishing my apprenticeship I went to sea in the again once great British Merchant Navy as a marine engineer, yet another great British industry lost along with ship building! Keep up the good work Mate 👍🇳🇿

In 1968 the BMC 9X could't be ahead of a VW Polo because the Polo didn't appear before the mid 1970s as a rebadged Audi 50.

I was in England during this time and still feel so grieved at how their entire motoring industry just wanted it to fail. We would not look at just the good features but the "Eh?" ones as well, usually saying "the designers went home at 5 o/c. Just look at how they just left the Princess at 90% brilliant. A 90% car is a failure. I adore the Stag, but again, HO refused to install their perfect Rover V8 using (well you know). The Herald was an excellent car but again cost cutting was rampant. But, the blame isn't just at the boffin level as factory staff were nasty and I am not talking wage/condition strikes; if friends wanted bits, a couple of notes passing in a pub would get any part needed. I had a friend who asking for a radio or tacho didn't just get 1 but a box load! Remember the Jaguar that had a bad knock, had a complete strip where a nut on a piece of string would tap in the B-column with a note "so you found me at last". Let us also remember incompetent politicians who interfered with bizarre demands like the Imp being made in 3 factories hundreds of miles apart, or the TR7 being assembled by untrainable monkeys in an area where everyone just wanted to live on the dole. America demanding crippling payment for War costs was also nasty. Sorry if I offend anyone, but I am only remembering facts.

Great video, thank you

I had no idea that all UK Minis used the Hydrolastic suspension. Here in Canada, I owned a 71, 72 and 74, and I never saw a Hydrolastic Mini.

The front has great similarities with the Simca 1100.

We had a series of programs about cars that were on TV in Sweden at the time. Remember that we viewers were often warned against buying British cars.

At best an improved development of the 9X should have been applied on an earlier ADO88/LC8-type supermini capable of underpinning a direct SWB Mini replacement. The 9X’s gearbox was viewed as inferior when compared to the Mini, Clubman and Autobianchi A112 (see Issigonis bio by Gillian Bardsley), its engine was also a blind-alley the company could ill-afford against an earlier A+ or A-OHC. The 9X was basically created from the remains of the Innocenti-initiated Mini-Mini later 750 project that eventually became Innocenti Mini with Bertone styling (and a rejected Michelotti proposal).

Even the Metro missed the mark. At the launch the competition were planning their next generation of hatchbacks half a size bigger.

I understand the anger of the British that they once had a very large car industry just behind the American one, and now it is not in the top ten. But what are we Poles supposed to say? In the UK you still have Jaguar, Land Rover, Mini, Bentley, and Toyota and Nissan made car in UK. And we don't even have that in Poland. There is no Polish car brand. The Czech Republic, smaller than us, has a Skoda and even Romania has a Dacia.

9X front is stark to modern eyes. But overall the package idea was spot on

Alexandros Arnoldos Konstantinos was in Greek, Alexander Arnold Constantine was in English the first name of the Isigonis. His father was Greek from Smyrna and his mother from Bavaria (Germany).

Refreshing to see a younger RU-vidr that isn't convinced that BL problems weren't all to do with unions. Years of poor sales put the beancounters at odds with the creatives in a battle to kill or cure. Harris Mann could tell you who won.

Reminds me of a simca 1100

Good stuff. 👍

Love your blue 'Tina Mk3. After 50 years and 5 months of driving, never heard of this little car. BMC would have just lost more money making rot boxes (in fareness nearly all cars then were rot boxes!) The mini was the best thing they did...the rest were mostly boring FWD and engined cars.

Great stuff ( again ) thank you. The choice of disasters, could take forever. I think the biggest mistake was the K series engine. Such promise, but let down everyone. The only reliable thing about it, was the regularity of it overheating. So many otherwise sound motors , scrapped, as they were uneconomical to repair. This made even the remaining loyal diehards, myself included, give up. I could weep for my beautiful unmarked, regal looking, champagne 75, wheeled awau for scrap. So many knowing, pitying looks thrown my way. They did know better. I knew then, there was no coming back. Death by gasket.

The british leyland.... always snatching defeat from the jaws of victory......