BMC>Rover: The Whole Story
Previous Page	Next Page

The full, unexpurgated story of the rise and fall of our beloved industry. Sit down, take time and read the heartbreaking story. Prepare to wipe away a tear...

Humble Beginnings: The Principal Players

The British Motor Industry may have only gained momentum ten years after that of our continental rivals, but by the time of the great depression in 1929, there were literally hundreds of car producers, big and small dotted across the country. It could be described as a cottage motor industry in many cases, but there were also the manufacturing giants to contend with.

The situation, of course, is never quite as simple as it would first appear because not only were there the large producers, such as Austin, Morris and Hillman, but there was also the presence of Ford, an American company, that decided early on, to use the United Kingdom as a centre of the European operations, opening up a mass-production site for the Model-T, in Trafford Park, Manchester. Then there was Vauxhall, which since December 1925 had fallen under the auspices of American ownership: along with Opel in Germany, the company had become centre of European operations for General Motors.

Some Industry analysts would say that the seeds of the collapse of the British car industry could be traced back as far as the 1930’s, where there were too many manufacturers, who remained in competition with each other for far too long. It is true to say that this made the British automotive manufacturing situation was somewhat unique in the Motor industry as a whole. In the USA, for instance, many of the volume producers had already been swallowed up to become General Motors, formed in 1913. This meant in the USA, there was not the same number of competing manufacturers as there was in the UK.

This situation in the UK was also distorted somewhat by the fact that the Two largest indigenous companies in the Country, Austin and Morris, were massively suspicious of each other. The rivalry between these two companies is, of course, legendary, but perhaps it was also rather destructive for the UK industry, with Herbert Austin and William Morris watching each other instead of the competition. As these were two major companies, both based in the Midlands, both fighting in the same market sectors and both chasing the same customers, it would make sense that they would become obsessed with defeating the other. However, this intense rivalry was further heightened in 1938, when Leonard Lord, William Morris’s number Two was poached by Herbert Austin to run his company when old age (he was 72 years old at the time) meant that he began to lose interest in running Longbridge himself.

Below is a list of principal players in this story – One cannot help but notice that out of all the companies that played a role in this story, only Two remained as survivors into the Twenty-first Century: Rover and MG.

Austin

In a neat irony, the story of Austin cars begins in Longbridge, South Birmingham, just as it continues at the turn of the 21st century, as the only remaining factory in British hands in what was once, a huge and sprawling empire. Herbert Austin had started out in the Motor Industry, working at Wolseley cars, where he quickly became the general manager. In 1905, he resigned from the company, so he could set-up on his own. Production of his first car, the chain-driven 25/30HP, started a year later – this particular car being noteworthy for being well-made, employing a side valve T-head engine and separately cast cylinders.

Production was expanded so that within Three years, Austin offered a full range of 15, 18/24 and 40HP four cylinder models and a 60HP Six. Four of the six cylinder models were entered in the 1908 French Grand Prix, but two of these were crash damaged in practice. Out of the two damaged cars, one good one was salvaged, but it fared badly in the race, suffering from a seizure. The two that were left did go on to finish, crossed the line in 18th and 19th position.

In 1909, a mini car, the single cylinder 7HP model appeared. It was effectively a re-badged Swift, but it was in no doubt the inspiration for the later Austin Seven of 1922. Austin was growing as a car producer, offering this full range of cars, starting at the 7HP, through the odd 15HP model with its cab-over-engine configuration, culminating with the 60HP model, which boasted an engine of almost six-litres.

Production was punctuated by the First World War in 1914, as was life itself. 1919 saw the next change in the Austin manufacturing philosophy where instead of previously, there had been a wide range of cars, catering for a wide range of tastes, he offered just one car – the 3.6 litre Austin 20. Unfortunately, this large, American inspired car failed to sell in any great numbers and along with mounting losses caused by the government decreed West Works Shell factory, led to Austin being placed under receivership in 1920.

In double quick time, Austin produced a smaller, more UK-friendly design, the 1.6-litre Austin Twelve, effectively a scaled down version of the Austin 20. This car did manage to sell and remained in production until 1936, seemingly beginning the love affair that UK Manufacturers seem to have with long production runs.

The car that saved Austin’s bacon, though, was the legendary Seven, launched a year after the Twelve, in 1922. Conceived as a response to the Motorcycle/side-car combinations that Herbert Austin despised so much, but which were proliferating on our roads. He and draftsman Stanley Edge planned the car using the billiard table he possessed at home in order to give it scale. The resulting car was a 696cc (later enlarged to 747cc) open topped four-seater which could most aptly be described as a scaled down replica of a full-sized car. Needless to say, the Seven was a huge success, helping put the working class on wheels, and it went on to sell 290,000 in a production that continued through to 1939. Ironically, the companies that would become BMW in Bavaria began car production building the Austin Seven under licence. Nissan’s version of the Austin Seven, however, was a clone of the car – not an agreed venture – and when Herbert Austin inspected one of Nissan’s cars, it was considered just different enough to avoid litigation…

Because of the success of the Seven, Austin re-embarked on his bid to build larger cars, developing and launching a replacement for the ill-fated Austin 20, this time using a 3.4 litre six-cylinder engine, as opposed to the four of its predecessor.

In the run-up to the Second World War, as well as the larger cars, Austin’s range comprised of the 2.3-litre Austin Sixteen, launched in 1928, the 1125cc Austin Ten, the 1525cc Austin Light 12/4 and the replacement for the Austin Seven, the unoriginally named 900cc Austin Eight.

After the Second World War, Austin initially built its pre-war models, but quickly produced, its first post-war model, the Austin Sixteen. This was not an entirely new car, comprising of a new-to-Austin overhead valve engine displacing 2199cc, which was fitted to the 1940-vintage Austin Twelve body and chassis.

The genuinely new cars soon began to arrive, though. In 1948, the Princess, the A125 Sheerline, the A70 Somerset and the 1.2-litre A40 all appeared in quick succession. The Austin A40 Devon, which boasted independent front suspension and a 1.2-lire engine which was considered to be the direct predecessor to the visually similar and long-lived B-Series engine.

1948 also saw the introduction of the Austin A90 Atlantic, a car pitched unashamedly at the US car market. “Export or Die” was the slogan of late Forties Britain and the A90 was built with just this in mind. It possessed what could be described as “Transatlantic” styling intended to appeal to the Americans. Needless to say, it did not – and of course, the British did not find it a whole lot appealing either, if only they could buy it anyway. The 2660cc did, however, outlive the car – ending up in the Austin Healey sports car as well as a few in the civilian version of the Austin Champ.

The last cars to be developed Austin, whilst still an independent company were the Metropolitan, Cambridge and the Westminster. Production of the Metropolitan was purely a contract job for Austin (winning out over Standard and FIAT), to assemble the Nash designed car for sale in the USA. Austin had no involvement in the US sales of this car when it was launched in 1954, although they did end up selling the car in Austin form in the UK. The Austin Cambridge and its larger brother, the upmarket Westminster variant that followed a year later were launched after the age-old adversaries of Austin and Morris merged to form the British Motor Corporation in 1952.

Morris

Car production for William Morris was an inevitable development for the Oxford based cycle and motor agent. Taking this step was a large one and although this part of England may have been the heartland of car industry, it took Morris until 1913 to start producing his own cars. The first car produced by Morris was the two-seater Oxford model, launched at a cost of £180 incorporating a power train supplied by White and Poppe, displacing 1017cc. This first car comprised of many bought-in parts, supplied by companies that resided in this fertile valley of automotive parts suppliers, but what set this first Morris product was just how well put together it was.

1915 brought the Morris Cowley, again using a bought-in engine, this time coming from the American producer, Continental Motors of Detroit. This was a shrewd move by Morris, who knew that British suppliers were suffering from the fact that they had to slow down car manufacture in order to make way for munitions production. After 1916, however, this loophole was closed when American imports were banned, other than those that were supplying parts for commercial vehicles.

After the First World War, Continental Motors stopped making their red seal engines, so Morris bought the manufacturing rights for the engine and then persuaded the Coventry branch of the French munitions manufacturers, Hotchkiss to build the engine for them.

The nickname “Bullnose” was inspired by the rounded radiator of the post-war Morris Oxford and Cowley models. These two models did lose popularity in 1920, in the slump that followed the post-war boom. This almost led Morris cars to bankruptcy, but in an act of impeccable timing, the company dropped their prices to follow Ford’s lead in 1921. This act boosted sales to such a degree that the Oxford and Cowley models became the best selling cars in the UK during the Twenties.

The Bullnose models remained in production until 1926, after a production run of over 55,000. Similar cars (still known as Oxford and Cowley) with a less characterful flat nosed design of radiator replaced them. At the same time Morris attempted to move into the export market with the ill-fated 2513cc Morris Empire Oxford, which featured – among other things – a wide track option which would allow the owner to fit flanged wheels to the car, in order to run it on a standard-gauge railway.

Morris also bought the Leon Bollee factory in Le Mans in order to produce Morris-badged cars in France. The cars were called the Morris Leon Bollee, but as a result of poor sales of this car, which bore no resemblance with the home market model, it was withdrawn and the factory closed, in 1931.

Next to come was the six-cylinder Morris in 1928, that drew inspiration from the Wartime Hispano-Suiza aero engines that Wolseley, freshly taken over by Morris the year before, had produced. This engine featured a single overhead camshaft arrangement, which at the time was very advanced, not seen on something as humble as a mass-produced British car before.

Like Austin over in Longbridge, Morris was expanding their range, although in the case of Morris it was downward to meet the challenge of producing a rival to the Austin Seven. This duly arrived in 1929. Named the Morris Minor, the car was powered by an 847cc OHC engine and was priced at the psychologically important price point of any car manufacturer at the time: £100. The engine only lasted a couple of seasons, to be replaced by a side-valve unit (variations of which lived on until at least 1971 when it was still being used as a tank generator unit), but the name of Minor certainly did. Surprisingly perhaps, this car did not sell, but its two rivals had already established themselves an enviable reputation in the baby-car market, so the chances of the Small Morris were damaged by its late entry into the arena (the Ford Model Y would be later however).

Just as Austin had endured a tough few years in the Twenties, so Morris had their hard times in the Thirties. They launched the 1.3-litre Morris 10/4 model in 1933, which like the original Minor of 1929 just did not sell at all well and it was not until 1935, with the launch of the popular 918cc Morris Eight, that the fortunes of the company looked good again. This car, subsequently known as the Series I Model Eight went on to sell over 250,000 copies and as with the Bullnose a decade before, the best selling car of the decade in the UK was a Morris.

Prior to the Second World War, Morris launched the Series E Model Eight, which built on the successes of its best selling predecessor. Along with this, Morris also offered four versions of the Series II models, ranging from the popular Series M Morris Ten, which boasted unitary construction, through to the 3.5-litre Morris 25.

But as with everyone in Europe, the events of 1939 would overtake car development.

Immediately after The Second World War, Morris re-started production of the pre-war Morris Eight and Ten models, but the world would only have to wait until 1948 for something new and exciting. Alec Issigonis is a name that will crop up a lot in this book, but for 1948, he engineered the Morris Minor, which was a radical step-forward for the car company and the first British car to sell more than a million units.

Initially the Minor was available with the Side-valve Series E Morris power unit, but following the formation of BMC in 1952, it was made available with an 803cc version of the OHV A-Series engine. The engines were really the least advanced part of the car, because the Issigonis designed car incorporated torsion-bar independent front suspension and rack and pinion steering. Advanced for a British car of its time, it also boasted a low centre of gravity, which was an advantage bestowed on it by its monocoque construction and 14-inch wheels, specifically developed for the car. After Issigonis had designed the Minor, he left Morris to pursue ambitious design projects at Alvis cars.

The consequences of this car were far reaching, because it vaulted Alec Issigonis to the (relative) status of superstardom and it meant that after the formation of BMC, he was encouraged back into the fold by Leonard Lord, to become the overall chief of car design in the Corporation. Certainly, thanks to the success of Issigonis and the fact his Minor was such a successful design, it meant that Morris management were not entirely swamped after the merger. However, with Herbert Austin long since dead it meant that William Morris would be at the head of BMC at the time of its formation, but he soon stepped down as Chairman to become a non-executive President of the company, thus leaving Leonard Lord to call the shots in the Corporation. So it was the Austin side of the partnership that would prove to be the driving force in the new Corporation.

Rover

The name of Rover is the oldest of these principal players in the story of the formation of British Leyland, the company having been formed by John Kemp Starley in the mid 1880s to sell cycles. In 1888, the Rover Company built their first safety cycle, but far more significantly, Starley also showed what he claimed to be the first motorised vehicle produced in Coventry, an electric tricycle powered by an Edwell Parker motor. Starley had to ship the cycle over to France in order to prove the cycle’s maximum speed, which he clocked at 8MPH, far in excess of the UK speed limit, of 4MPH.

Rover’s cycles soon earned an international reputation, but it was not until 1899, that they entered the realm of vehicle production with the construction of a DeDion engined motorised bath chair.

Starley died at young age of 46 in 1901 but the company branched into car production just two years later. Their first car was the 8HP model designed by Edmund Lewis, noteworthy for its use of aluminium in the car’s backbone chassis. The year after, Rover followed this up with the more conventional single-cylinder 6HP model. These Two cars sold so well that Rover soon expanded the range to include two four cylinder models, also designed by Lewis, the Rover 10/12 and Rover 16/20. The 3199cc 16/20 was significant for the company because it went on to win the 1907 Tourist Trophy race.

Bernard Wright designed the next pair of Rovers to appear in 1908, the Rover 12HP and Rover 15HP, which suffered unreliability problems with the engine, due to the deficiency of the lubrication system. Wright pressed on with the next models, to appear in 1911, the 1041cc 8HP and 1882cc 12HP. These two cars used Daimler parts in the construction of their Knight sleeve valve power units.

In the autumn of that year, Rover’s direction changed with the hiring of Owen Clegg as not only the designer of the new 2297cc Rover 12HP, but also as the production organiser at the factory. In no time at all, he had re-arranged production, abandoning the principle of many differing cars made over small production runs. It may have been a 1912 boast of Rover, that they produced an enormous range of vehicles from the cheapest cycle at £6 10s to their most expensive car, at a cool £600, but there were a lot of inefficiencies in offering such a wide choice of vehicles. Due to Clegg’s single-minded changes, Rover became a single vehicle producer in 1913, offering only the Clegg-designed Rover Twelve.

Rover’s first new car to appear after the War ended was the small Rover Eight, which boasted a 998cc flat-twin engine, designed by noted motorcycle designer J.Y. Sangster. The Rover was so diminutive, that it was almost considered to be a cycle-car, but it did go on to sell 17,000 in the four years that it was in production.

After the First World War, production of the Twelve had resumed and it would remain in production until 1924. Clegg’s successor updated the car, to produce the Rover Fourteen, which featured the novelty of a four-speed gearbox. At the same time, the more Car-like four cylinder Rover Nine replaced the compact Rover Eight.

Going into the 1930s, Rover were considered to be the producer of middle-class cars, so it would come as a surprise that Rover designed a sub-utility vehicle called the Scarab. This depression busting machine was priced at £85 was a car/motorcycle hybrid, and incorporated some very clever engineering solutions, most noteworthy being its rear-mounted vee-twin engine and clever suspension system, which at the rear incorporated Swing axles. The car was shown in 1931, but never made it into production, even though it won admirers in the industry.

Throughout the Thirties, the company centred on the production of larger cars, carving itself out an enviable image for solidly-engineered middle class cars, which was nurtured by the new manager S.W. Wilks and his protégée Frank Ward. The results of this conservative thinking arrived in 1937 with the launch of the highly successful Rover Ten, Twelve, Fourteen and Sixteen, which were collectively covered by the P1 (P for “Project”) label – a Rover naming system that would remain for many years to come. Following the War, Rover continued the production of the P1 cars, but in a thoroughly revised form (now known as the P2 cars) until 1948, when the Rover 60 and 75 models (Rover P3) superseded them to run until 1950.

The now rather conservative company finally blew away the post-war cobwebs with the new range of four and six-cylinder models, the P4 cars, known as the “Cyclops” Rover 60, the 75, 80, 90, 100 and 105. These cars defined Rover’s image throughout the Fifties and Sixties and it was the “Bank Manager” image of solidness that these cars seemed to possess that BMW called on in the late Nineties when they produced their modern incarnation of the Rover 75. These cars and their descendants proved to be very popular with Rover’s customers – a group of people that the company’s management must have know extremely well – and as a result, enjoyed a remarkably long production run, which finally stopped in 1964.

During the time Rover were producing their P4 range of cars, they made some advances in the field of Jet Engine application in motor cars, with the development of the Rover JET 1 of 1951, which was successfully tested up to 152 mph on Belgian roads. The company worked on this form of propulsion all the way through to the early Sixties, when they showed their last jet powered car, the front wheel drive Rover T4, which formed the basis of the David Bache designed Rover 2000. The P6 always intended to use a gas turbine power unit, if it could have been made suitable for production but, alas, it would prove to be a task beyond Rover – and just about everyone else. The concept may have been an evolutionary dead-end, but there were some benefits of the gas turbine project, not least the bringing to the fore of Spen King – a gifted engineer that we will hear about more throughout the course of this website.

Rover also launched the P5, an upmarket model, which expanded the P4’s image for solidness, employing the newly uprated inline 3-litre six cylinder engine. This engine was soon to be replaced by the remarkable ex-Buick aluminium V8 engine, to create the Rover P5B. Rover had bought the production rights for this engine off GM for a song, when aluminium fell out of favour in US Engine production.

The P6 actually incorporated some design compromises in order to accommodate the potential installation of a bulky gas turbine engine, notably in its front suspension design. Needless to say, this “innovation” never happened. The Rover 2000 also enjoyed a long production run, by now a Rover tradition, and was at the absolute height of its career when Leyland entered into merger talks with them in 1966.

Triumph

Triumph was a relatively late entry into the arena in 1923, but the company had been a successful producer of motorcycles since 1901. The entry into car production was facilitated by the purchase of the recently defunct Dawson factory in Coventry and soon, the first Triumph road car was launched, the 1.4-litre Triumph 10/20 which lasted two years before the 1.9-litre Triumph 13/30 replaced it, in 1925. This car was notable for being the first British production car that incorporated Lockheed external contracting hydraulic brakes.

The 832cc Triumph Super Seven was launched in 1928, which was a light and well-designed car, as was its replacement, the 1931 Scorpion, powered by an unusual 1.2-litre six-cylinder engine.

The following year, the first Triumph powered by a Coventry Climax engine was launched, the Triumph Super Nine. The power unit used in this car was interesting for being overhead-inlet-side-exhaust configuration. After that, the Triumph Ten joined the Super Nine.

In 1934, Donald Healey joined the company as chief experimental engineer and he pushed ahead with the two-litre, eight-cylinder, double overhead camshaft Dolomite sports car. It was noted by contemporaries that this car was an obvious plagiarism of the Alfa Romeo, but whatever, the specification of this car was exceptionally advanced for its day. Unfortunately, this car did not prove popular and was only produced in small numbers, but it did lead to a family of Triumph engines, which were made available alongside the Coventry Climax unit.

In 1937, the range had expanded to include the 1.5-litre Gloria and the four and six-cylinder variants of the Dolomite, which shared only their name with the Healey-designed straight eight of a couple of years previous.

On the eve of the War in 1939, Triumph was declared bankrupt and it was not until 1944 that the Standard Motor Company, to form Standard-Triumph, rescued it from obscurity.

When production resumed after the war, Triumph production had been moved to the Standard factory in Canley and the cars that Triumph produced there were the razor-edge 1800 saloon and roadster – the latter being infamous for being the last series production car to feature a dickey-seat. The final Triumph-designed engine, the 1.8-litre OHV unit that had been conceived with the intention of being used in a small Jaguar, powered both of these cars.

It was not long before the Standard Vanguard engine supplanted the Triumph units and in 1949, these wet-liner engines were standardised across the range. In 1953, a 2.1-litre version of this was used in the first of the long line of Triumph TR sports models, the TR2. Variants of this car remained in production until the Harris Mann penned Leyland devised TR7 took over the mantle in 1975. The 2.1-litre engine remained as part of the TR model until 1967, when the 2.5 litre six from the Triumph 2500 saloon replaced it.

Saloon car production faltered in 1955, when the Razor-edged Renown saloon was phased out and did not get back into serious volume production until the unconventional Triumph Herald was launched, to great acclaim in 1959.

Standard-Triumph was taken over by Leyland motors in 1961 as part of the Donald Stokes grand plan and as a result, the rapid expansion of the Triumph marque ensued, at the cost of The Standard name, which disappeared soon after.

MG

With thanks to David Jacobs for his invaluable contribution to this story

Cecil Kimber was the General Manager of the Morris Garages in Oxford and in this role, he commissioned six Raworth bodied, two seater convertibles based on the Morris Cowley chassis, of which the first was sold for the princely sum of £300.

It is unclear as to what would constitute the first MG car proper, but it certainly was not the FC-7900, or MG Number One as it was known, which was Cecil Kimber’s first attempt at building a car exclusively for competition use, in 1924. However, it is generally agreed that this car was the first MG sports car.

Kimber’s first car produced in any serious numbers was the 14/28 Super Sport, based on the Morris-Oxford chassis, of which approximately 400 were built. The 14/28 Super Sport was available with either two or four seats and open or closed “Salonette” coachwork. This model was developed into the 14/40 and lasted until 1928, when it was replaced by the 18/80, which was based around the 2.5-litre OHC engine that was found in the ill-fated Six-cylinder Morris model that never actually made it into production.

The car that brought MG into the big-time, however, was the MG Midget, based around the 847cc Morris Minor, launched in 1929. It was at this time that Kimber moved his operations into the former Pavlova Leather Works in Abingdon; in order to meet his expansion plans for the marque – and to meet demand for the well-received MG Midget.

This M-Type Midget was developed into the 746cc C-Type Racing Midget, capable of 90MPH in supercharged form. At the same time as the C-Type was coming into it's own, MG entered into a very fertile period of its history:

The D type (with longer chassis and either open four seat tourer or closed coupe bodies but still with M type Midget running gear)

No E type, (probably to avoid confusion with 'EX' model numbers)

In late 1931 came the F type Magna - with 6 cylinder 1271 Wolseley Hornet engine, again with a variety of bodywork, 'standard' 2 seat sports or 4 seat open or closed plus a variety of coachbuilt bodies.

In 1932 came the J type Midget which set the trend with the 'classic' MG shape of double humped scuttle, cutaway doors, 'slab' tank hung on the back. It came in open 2 seat (J2) or 4 seat (J1) and a closed 'Salonette' style. This model also came with a variety of engine specs as the supercharged racing J3 and later J4 models

The K type Magnette was also introduced around this time, again with a bewildering variety of engines, chassis lengths, and body types - the K1 was the long wheelbase version with either four seat open tourer or four door pillarless saloon and 1087cc six cyl. engine in either twin carb/crash box (KB) or triple carb/pre-selector box (KA) formats, then later with the afore-mentioned 1271cc Magna engine (KD).

The K2 was the shorter chassis variety with 2 seat sports bodywork and twin carb KB engine though a few were fitted with KD engines. At the time the K Magnettes were getting the old F Magna engines, the F type itself was being replaced by the L type Magna, fitted with the KB Magnette unit. The L type came with the additional option of an attractive 'Continental Coupe' body style

In 1933 the K3 Magnette made it's competition debut - these used supercharged 1100cc engines giving anything up to 124 BHP giving 0-75 times of around 14½ seconds and 125mph top speed depending on gearing and state of tune. This won almost everything in it's class for two years beating all sorts of exotic opposition such as twin OHC Maseratis.

The production car range was rationalised somewhat in '33 with the J2 being replaced by the P type Midget (same 847cc Minor engine but now with 3 main bearings) The Magna and Magnette ranges were effectively both replaced by the N type Magnette, but still with two chassis lengths and open or closed bodywork with 2 or 4 seats.

Back on the competition front the J4 was replaced by the Q type with an even bigger supercharger giving up to 146bhp at 7500rpm from 750cc. This gave way to the single seater R type with all independant suspension, to cope with the increasing performance available. However, it was never fully developed as around this time, William Morris gave up his personal stake and sold MG to Morris Motors Ltd. With the withdrawal from racing, the last of the OHC engined cars, the P type Midget and N type Magnette were both updated to PB and NB respectively, before ceasing production in 1936.

In 1933, the Magnette name appeared for the first time, when MG launched the 1100cc supercharged six-cylinder K3 Magnette. This car went on to win the Team prize in its first showing at the Mille Miglia and it the legendary hands of Tazio Nuvolari won the Ulster Tourist Trophy.

As a result of the Morris takeover of MG in 1935, all Works competition activity was ceased so that the company could concentrate on development and sales of the road-going MG range, which now was comprised of the 1935 MG TA Midget, the two-litre MG SA, its 2.6-litre derivative the MG WA and the 1.5-litre MG VA.

After the war, the MG TC (a wider cockpit version of the pre-war MG TA and TB Models) brought the company international success, thanks to the UK Government’s “Export or die” policy. This policy also brought us the export-only drophead version of the 1250cc MG Y-Type, which normally came in the saloon version in the UK. The Y-Type also came with the advancement of independent front suspension, which found its way on to the 1949 MG TD – another of the successful line of T models that’s roots lay in the pre-war years.

As part of the Nuffield Group (the group of companies that were owned by Morris), MG became part of BMC in 1952 and it was after the merger that MG found its greatest sales success with the 1962 MGB model.

Formation of an Empire: BMC is Created

In 1952, old rivalries and suspicions were allegedly slaked when The Nuffield Group and Austin joined forces to become the British Motor Corporation. The idea behind the formation of BMC was a good one; to form an enormous British car company in order to fight the very real threat posed from overseas manufacturers – and assure the future of the British Motor industry. Problems with the BMC organization very quickly manifested themselves, though – as they always do.

In terms of managing the new Corporation, the Nuffield Group had definitely lost out right from the beginning. Although Lord Nuffield had stepped down to become the President of BMC in 1952 – at the age of 75 – it was quite understandable that he had lost interest in running the daily affairs of the giant company. Austin chief, the forthright and opinionated Leonard Lord (pictured above) had, therefore, taken the reins and oversaw the day to day running of the company and as such, ensured that Austin men were installed in just about all of the key management positions.

As explained previously, Lord had forsaken Morris in order to take Herbert Austin’s job at Longbridge, which Morris obviously did not appreciate one little bit. This event meant that a new low was reached in the already terrible relationship between Austin and Morris, so when further executives followed Lord from Cowley to Longbridge, most notably his right hand men, George Harriman and Joe Edwards, the rivalry between the two companies intensified.

All this, supposedly came to an end in 1952 when BMC was created from the two sparring partners, but like all things in life, parties affected by the merger had their own vested interests and so, in this instance it seemed that the interests of Austin and Longbridge came before those of Morris and Cowley. High-ups from the Nuffield Group saw the merger as nothing more than an Austin takeover and therefore became defensive of their own roles within the corporation. When they saw Austin executives taking key roles within BMC, it would appear that they were perhaps right in thinking this.

Not only was this evident high up in the company, but at all levels; employees still felt part of the “them and us” culture within the company, which was being perpetrated by the management’s actions. The dealer principals remained trenchant in their insistence that a separate network of dealers was maintained, and just like the old days they would have separate and distinct model ranges to sell.

The Issigonis-designed Minor was an extremely advanced car when it was launched and became the first BMC car to sell more than a million. The problem with the Minor was that it was left in production for far too long and so became adored by millions around the world. By the Sixties, Issigonis considered it a product of a bygone era, gave it no further development and it was not until 1971 that it finally got the axe, being replaced by the Marina.

The dealers were right in their fears that cuts in their organization would need to be made in order to fully amalgamate Austin and Morris, but they wanted to maintain the status quo by not accepting a single loss in the range and they fought very hard to do so. Not only this, but they would not accept losses in their distribution network, either. They used their influence with Lord to ensure that there would not be a single compromise made. The dealer principals could do this because they had direct access to Leonard Lord and as such, had an exaggerated influence over direction of BMC. They ensured that not only that Lord maintained separate Nuffield Group and Austin model ranges, but also successfully persuaded him to accept that the corporation required autonomous dealer networks to sell them. If there had been a will within BMC to break this stranglehold, then the dealer groups could call on written contracts defining their positions, in some cases stretching back fifty years.

The idea of separate franchises and separate model ranges may have had outward appeal because it was a marketing model that worked well for General Motors in the USA, but the reality was somewhat different: BMC was now effectively controlled by Austin at Longbridge. The parallels did not run any further than that, because whereas General Motors in the USA operated a system that each company may have shared componentry, but they operated as separate companies with separate management, BMC did not. BMC had neither the resources, nor the overall production capacity to maintain a policy like GM’s.

Leonard Lord may have been browbeaten into acceding to the wishes of the people that sell the cars, but he knew that his plans for the future would involve much component sharing, first of which would be the sharing of engines between the Morris and Austin ranges. Furthermore, the process would not stop there; it would be a lot more widespread than the simple policy of sharing engines. For Leonard Lord and George Harriman would continue the widespread policy of “badge engineering” first started by Nuffield before World War II, and would become endemic within the company ten years hence.

So, the boom years of the mid-fifties were not the time when the ruthless rationalisation of the corporation was seriously considered, let alone entered into. The problem, of course, is that it should have been because as the company grew and grew, it was built on this foundation laid from the two companies instead of one strong one. As time went on and the factories became more numerous, the empire more widespread, it would prove to be increasingly difficult to administer from Longbridge.

The management and factory situation may have been riddled with problems as a result of the merger, but the range of cars that the newly merged company offered surprisingly little overlap and should have formed the basis of a homogenous and logical progression of models:

·   Morris Minor

·   Austin A40

·   Morris Oxford

·   Austin A70

·   Morris Six

·   Austin A125 Sheerline

As explained before, the Morris Minor was an amazing and advanced car, which re-wrote many of the small car rules of the day, but in the post-merger management environment, it was isolated amongst an Austin-dominated range. Morris design at Cowley was slowly wound-down piece by piece and the Austin Drawing Office at Longbridge would eventually handle all design work from the end of the 1950s when the Farina designed cars came on stream: all subsequent cars developed by BMC would have ADO (Austin Drawing Office) development tags.

After 1952, signs of the Austin domination soon began to manifest themselves. The first evidence of this was in the range of engines employed by BMC. The rationalisation that should have happened within the management and distribution system of the company did take place in the model range. Well, the seeds of rationalisation were sown, maybe. In short order, a range of mainly Austin-derived engines, named logically enough, the A, B and C-Series, would power the entire range (the C-Series was designed and built by Morris engines in Coventry, using Austin design philosophy!). Significantly, they would all enjoy a long life, the A and B-Series especially so.

In very little time, the Morris Minor was revised in order to use the 803cc Overhead valve Austin A-Series engine from the newly launched baby A30 model. In 1954 a new Morris Oxford emerged, which was powered by a version of the B-Series engine found in the Austin A40, this time enlarged to 1.5-litres. These changes made to the power unit were also carried over to the A40, which was re-named the Austin A50 Cambridge – no doubt named thus to signify the close relationship between Austin and Morris by this time. The large cars, the Austin Westminster and the Morris Isis were finally launched, both using the 2.6-litre six cylinder C-Series engine.

So the slimming down of Austin and Morris was beginning to take hold. The point had been made; a full range of cars could be maintained, using a smaller range of engines. Huge economies of scale could be maintained by this engine sharing and the dealers would still remain happy, as they all had their full ranges of cars to be sold. Customers did not care that the engine in their Morris Minor or Oxford was an Austin unit, so everyone was happy.

At this point, it could be argued that it was the best of a bad situation. OK, so the dealers could not, would not accept any slimming of BMC’s model range, but at least the management were ensuring that much in the way of resource sharing took place, so that if the Austin and Morris franchises wanted their own cars, they would make sure that they would produce both options as economically favourably as possible.

Of course, the logical solution should have been to drop the separate Austin and Morris badges at this point, encourage all the dealers to stay on board with generous incentives and to sell a single range of Austin-Morris cars, badged as BMCs. The obvious conclusion was not drawn though, because people throughout the company were paralysed rigid with the fear that a single loss would have led to sales surrendered to the opposition.

Luckily, throughout the Fifties and into the early Sixties, BMC sales were shored up so much by Harold Macmillan’s economic miracle throughout the country and the post-war boom overseas in general, that the obvious conclusions were not drawn. It was a seller’s market and because car ownership was growing rapidly, no longer the preserve of the middle and upper classes, BMC could sell cars as they pleased. The successes of the company financially and on the marketplace meant that any tough decisions that should have been made at the start could be deferred, not considered until it was absolutely necessary to do so.

One problem that began to manifest itself in a big way – and one that would sadly leave an indelible mark on the events in the company for the following thirty years – was that of strikes and union unrest. The problem of course was that following the Second World War, there was almost unlimited demand for cars – and in order to satisfy that demand, BMC were prepared to do whatever it took to build as many cars as they could. When Unions approached Leonard Lord for pay settlements, no matter how inappropriate, he would be forced to cave in because the cost of these wage settlements would be outweighed by the potential cost to BMC through lost cars built and therefore, lost sales. As time went on and the burden of these Union demands became increasingly severe, Leonard Lord began to lose patience: following a particularly disruptive strike in 1956, Joe Edwards was tasked by Lord to deal with the Unions, by taking on a role in Labour relations. Edwards refused to do this as he saw himself more as a production man, and as a result, a huge falling-out occurred between both men, which ultimately led to Joe Edwards resigning from BMC.

Edwards’ resignation did have lasting effects on the company not only because he was popular with the Longbridge workforce (hence Lord’s “offer” to deal with them), but also he was a man of great conviction – someone that would try very hard to maintain the success of BMC in the years that he was there.

So instead of rationalising the model range to offer a cohesive product line, what Leonard Lord did was, in fact, the opposite of this agreeable and logical policy. Resources were now shared and offering what was outwardly the same car in two different manufacturer’s guises could further make economies of scale. Sure enough, in 1958, with the launch of the Farina saloons, we saw the first example of major post-merger “badge engineering” would take place in the Austin and Morris ranges.

Of course, in retrospect, it was a ridiculous situation offering identical cars through differing dealer networks, but people did not seem to mind, as the situation back in the fifties was somewhat different to how it is now, when customers were loyal to a marque, or even the garage that was closest to them, and as such did not so much mind what the company or garage served up.

These cars that BMC offered at the time were thoroughly conventional, uninspiring and somewhat stolid cars and it was as a backlash to this thinking that Pininfarina were invited restyle the cars, giving them a corporate look. Lord and Harriman, however, were pleased with the success they were making of their badge engineering policy and it comes as no surprise that they would pursue this policy actively with their next wave of new models.

With great efficiency, Pininfarina produced their proposals for the new cars, the first of which they launched in 1958 to great acclaim. This car was the A-Series engined A40, a rebodied A35 incorporating smart Italianate styling and a novelty for the time, the Countryman version offered a split tailgate – a prelude to the hatchback design (despite a designation that hinted at Estate car status). The A40 was priced at a premium over the A35, but it proved popular nonetheless because it was smart-looking and more importantly, it hit the market at precisely the right time, just as effects of the 1956/57 Suez crisis had switched people on to buying more fuel efficient cars again. Because of these circumstances, the A35 was left in production, BMC figuring that it would do no harm at all to offer as many cars as possible in bottom end of the market.

Next to come were the B-Series engined cars, the Cambridge and Oxford replacements, launched right at the end of 1958. What Pininfarina served up here was regarded with mixed feelings by trade and the public, alike. The problem with the “Farina” models were that they were exclusively powered by the B-Series engine, a not-too energetic 1.5-litre engine and as the new bodywork, so similar in style to the Peugeot 404, managed to make the car both large and heavy. This saddled the car with less than spirited performance. The tail fins, large hooded headlights and the narrow track with wide body also conspired to make the car look somewhat over-bodied, which exacerbated the situation. This confused image that the car portrayed did not endear it to the motoring press and buying public alike, and although the car had its devotees, it was never the sales success that BMC had hoped it would be.

However negative the response to the initial Wolseley badged model may have been, the Farina models came thick and fast. Following on from the Wolseley 15/60, the inevitable flood of badge engineered models followed in quick succession: the Austin A55 Cambridge, the MG Magnette III, the Morris Oxford IV and the Riley 4/68.

The final model in the Pininfarina styled triumvirate was the pair of large C-Series engined cars, the Austin A99 Westminster and the Wolseley 6/99. The styling of these two cars was similar to the B models, but more in keeping with the engine capacity and market aspirations of this model.

The Pininfarina styled Austin A40 model was launched in 1958 as a replacement for the A35. Styling was smart, but underneath though it was tediously conventional.

By mid-1959, the range was complete. There were the A models represented by the new A40 (The 35 and Minor were throwbacks that would remain in production to satisfy fuel-crisis demand for small cars), the B Models, represented by the “Farina” cars and the C Models right at the top of the range, the large Wolseley and Austin Westminster. The range was homogenous, the cars were neat and contemporary looking and above all, they were a success.

The underlying worry, of course was that beneath that smart styling, they were painfully conventional in their engineering and BMC were beginning to receive a certain amount of criticism over their engineering timidity. The last thing they would do though, is tell the world that they were working on some advanced alternatives. In their quest for a more contemporary identity, BMC had investigated various different models, notably a rear engined saloon that would have offered nothing, except a whole load of awkward questions to the public. Apart from this, Alec Issigonis had been locked away working on something far more radical than people would give the conservative company credit for. As far as BMC as a producer of cars was concerned, this conservatism was to change in the most profound way on the 26th August 1959, when BMC launched the fresh new Mini.

The “Farina” bodied mid-sized car, the Morris Oxford. Not the most inspiring car on the road to drive, but it was reasonably stylish and went on to live a long production life.

As the fifties became the sixties, the whole complexion of the market began to change. Competition began to become a whole lot tougher and as merger mania began to take hold of the industry, BMC’s policy of badge engineering separate Nuffield and Austin ranges began to look like the foolish policy of a bygone age. In the wider arena, Jaguar swallowed Daimler in 1960 and in 1961, Leyland Trucks absorbed Standard-Triumph to become the Leyland Motor Corporation, the Lancashire based heavy vehicles company being headed by the ambitious Donald Stokes.

In 1960, British car production also broke new records when 1.36 million were built in total, but this would appear to be the absolute zenith for the British car industry, a culmination of the momentum gained in the “golden years” of the fifties. The following year, disastrously, production dropped back to just over a million, but worse than that, for the first time in the modern era, France had built more cars than Britain to line up second behind West Germany in the European car production league.

With the health of the company looking so good, George Harriman announced a huge expansion plan for the company, making the announcement that it was the intention of BMC to produce a million vehicles a year. The £49 million government assisted programme involved opening new factories in Llanelli, South Wales, Bathgate in southern Scotland and Ravenscraig – all areas of high unemployment and badly in need of government investment.

The results of this investment soon bore fruit, with the output of BMC increasing significantly, so that by 1964 the company produced a record 731,000 cars. The seeds of disaster however had been sown; investment had been made in manufacturing, but at the cost of a viable new models programme. The evidence of this is not hard to see: after the launch of the ADO16 in 1962 and the ADO17 in 1964, no new cars of any substance appeared until well after the Leyland takeover in 1968.

The new factories must have looked like a great idea at the time, but by moving away from their Midlands heartlands, BMC management were for the first time, being overstretched with the task of overseeing the this vast new empire. Human resources were stretched and industrial relations began to suffer accordingly. Profits began to drop on the sales of new cars as well, compounded by the double whammy of a poor pricing policy, which was defined right from the top, and high warranty costs on the troublesome Mini and 1100.

For an example of the Corporation’s slap dash pricing, one had to look no further than the new Mini. Leonard Lord’s famous quote that, “if you build bloody good cars, they’ll sell themselves.” was certainly the case with the Mini and the 1100, both being excellent products, but the downside of this was that they made a disastrous error in pricing the Mini too low. This marketing ineptitude resulted in the basic Mini costing £496, which not only was the same price as the Ford 100E Popular, but £100 cheaper than the new 105E Anglia. When Ford’s costing engineers stripped down the Mini in order to work out how on earth BMC could sell it so cheaply, they estimated that BMC were actually making a loss of £30 on each one built.

Leonard Lord dictated this pricing policy himself believing that BMCs cars would only sell if they were the cheapest in their class – the result was that BMC’s cars were horrendously under priced on the home market. Of course this philosophy of his dated back to when he was the head of Austin and would always deliberately price his cars below Nuffield’s cars, regardless of the profit implications.

The trouble, of course with the Mini and 1100, was that they were new concepts and as such, did not have direct rivals. BMC were worried about customer resistance to both cars and so, priced them in such a way that they cut their own throats. John Barber, who was the finance director at Ford at the time, but later went on to become the Managing Director at British Leyland, stated that, “We priced at what the market could stand. Then, almost as an afterthought, we would cost it and if it showed a loss, we would have to cost it again. BMC should have said: Where do we slot into the market? We’ve got the most sophisticated car in the world. We can afford to charge £100 more than the wretched Ford runabout. Then, having got the Mini into the wrong slot, they did the same with the 1100 successor.” It was not until Barber himself moved over to the company as finance director, that the price of the Mini would be jacked up to a sufficient level that at least it was not losing any money.

The financial performance of the Mini and 1100 were demonstrated potently by the fact that in 1960, BMC had made a £26 million profit on total sales of £347 million, but by 1967, when they were building and selling more cars, they made a loss of £3 million on total sales of £467 million. Turnover and sales were good for BMC during the sixties, with the Mini and the 1100 being the company’s best sellers, but as no profits of any significance were being made on them, no investment was being made for the future. The issue of the future, or more precisely, the lack of forward planning for it was becoming more and more pressing as the Sixties wore on.

By this time Leonard Lord had stepped down as the company chairman, to be replaced by George Harriman, who had been BMC’s managing director since 1956. Lord, who became Lord Lambury in 1962, would stay on at BMC as Vice-Chairman and would remain firmly in touch with the Corporation’s policy until his death in 1967. When Harriman took overall control of BMC, he ensured that Alec Issigonis was promoted to become the technical director of BMC, ensuring that these two men alone would dictate control of future model policy. Both men shared a close relationship, but in a way, this bond may have blinkered Harriman’s judgment with regards to future model development.

Fresh from the successes of the Issigonis-penned Mini and 1100, this same formula was used in the creation of the medium sized car, the ADO17, Austin/Morris 1800. It could be said that model policy took a disastrous turn for the worse with this car, because for reasons explained in the chapter dealing with the ADO17, the focus of the car was lost.

The ADO17 was designed as a replacement for the 1.5-litre “farina” models to buoy up the Corporation’s sales in the middle market, but when the B-Series engine was enlarged for the MGB to 1.8-litres, Issigonis allowed the width and weight of the ADO17 to increase in order to make the best use of this new power unit. Not only was the car widened, with the result that it was moved out of the market it was intended to compete in, but the styling of the car was an extremely unhappy mix; and perhaps it was this that allowed potential customers to perceive the ADO17 as being a larger car than the Farina saloon it was meant to replace – it was not. Whereas the Mini had not been styled as such – and that was essential to its charm, the ADO16 completely the opposite – being a highly styled car, the ADO17 was neither fish nor fowl.

Where the 1800 went wrong was that Issigonis styled (or more correctly, non-styled) the original car and then Sergio Farina re-jigged the design in order to put some style into it. Because the 1800 was awkwardly proportioned it a conceptual stage, it would prove difficult for the Italian designer to improve upon the design – and looking at the development pictures (see chapter four) it is evident that he merely tidied up the overall design as opposed to producing his own concept. What compounded this strategic error was that BMC seriously believed that they would be able to produce the ADO17 at the rate of 4000 a week! To put this into perspective, this was a higher rate of production than the ADO16 and that was Britain’s best selling car.

With Pininfarina’s record of producing successful cars for BMC, the company seriously evaluated the “Yellow Peril” as it was known internally – Harry Webster even drove it around for a while. However, there was a strong belief that any replacement for the ADO17 would require a new chassis – and as a result, the ADO71 was chosen as the way forward. Note that the styling pre-dated the Citroen CX and Rover SD1 by seven years. It is debatable whether the car would have gone on to sell more than the 1800, but it certainly would have been a more credible vehicle for Donald Stokes’ idea that Austin was the producer of advanced cars.

Of course, it was soon realised by all that not only was the car not right for the market it was intended for, but it was not even suitable to replace the aged and costly to produce farina saloons. The seeds of BMC’s downfall were now well and truly sown: at one end of the spectrum, there were the brilliant new Mini and 1100, which were selling in bucket-loads, but not making the company a bean. Then there was the hulking great ADO17 which was not selling at anywhere near the rate predicted for it. While at the other end of the spectrum were the elderly and labour intensive Morris Minor and Farina saloons that the corporation was unable to replace.

By 1965, the first full year of ADO17 production, BMC’s output began to fall, but Harriman did not feel yet that this was a cause for concern, because output from the industry as a whole was falling. What he was concerned about though, was the question of forward planning within the corporation, or more precisely the lack of it. This was a problem that had been endemic since the late Fifties, but was now becoming increasingly pressing as competition, most notably from Ford became more intense.

The question was finally answered, but it took the failure of the ADO17 to act as the catalyst. In response to these concerns, a director of planning, Geoffrey Rose was finally installed in 1965, whose responsibility it was to ensure that the company’s cars were priced correctly and future planning was directed in the correct way. His installation then led to the formation of a market research department, which for BMC was definitely a step in the right direction. Before this, there was no market research as such; mainly in the past, new cars were developed and launched in response to what the engineers wanted and management instinct. The result of this was the ADO17 appearing on the market in the form it did.

This department mainly comprised of inexperienced university graduates and certainly did not operate on the same scale as the Ford equivalent, but it was a step in the right direction and one of the first results of this was the formation of a product-planning department for commercial vehicles, which appeared late that year.

Alec Issigonis still had overall responsibility for cars, but with an eye on the failure of the ADO17, management would ensure that the marketing strategists would have a great deal more say on the direction of future model policy. Perhaps, it was already too late for the corporation, who’s management now must have seen the writing on the wall, especially when they could see that their only products in development were the Austin 3-Litre and the Maxi. It cannot have made good viewing.

But still, the matters of internal efficiencies were not addressed and yet the expansion of BMC continued afoot. With the purchase of Pressed Steel during 1965 (which was then merged with Fisher & Ludlow to become Pressed Steel Fisher), BMC had finally brought the manufacture of the company’s body shells in-house. Outwardly seen as a good move, the purchase was made using nothing more than company funds – no external funding was required - and it would provide a source of income from Pressed Steel’s other customers. Pressed Steel not only produced BMC’s body shells, but also those of the Rootes Group, Jaguar, Rover, Rolls Royce and Leyland’s cars and so, in one fell swoop BMC now had inside knowledge of what the opposition were planning to build in the future and more importantly, how much it was costing them to do so. This was a fantastic coup for BMC and yet, this unfair advantage was never really capitalised upon. The purchase also heralded the return to the fold of Joe Edwards.

Follow up to the Pininfarina 1800 proposal of 1967, this fully engineered prototype built on Austin 1100 running gear was commissioned by BLMC, who had been impressed by the original. This car represents an even bigger missed opportunity than the larger car and its relevance is thrown into great relief by the absolute ugliness of the 1100’s replacement, the Allegro – and it comes as a disappointment to report that not only was this car passed over by British Leyland, but they reported to Pininfarina that they were “disappointed” with the design for being “too close” to the BMC-Pininfarina 1800!

George Harriman immediately offered Edwards a joint assistant managing directorship of BMC alongside himself, but Edwards was not interested in this, making the counter-suggestion that he could become the managing director of the company if Harriman were to take up the post of executive chairman. Harriman accepted this without hesitation because he knew that Edwards had the wherewithal to make the cuts within the corporation that would be needed in order to keep them fit for the challenge of the Seventies.

When Edwards took his post on 9th June 1966, he returned to the office that Leonard Lord had used to fire him, a decade ago. Just like the last time, Lord was present, only this time he would be smiling when Edwards returned, “There is only one man in this office today whose hand I want to shake”, Lord said to Edwards, “I should never have done what I did and I am delighted to have you back”.

When Edwards took over the running of BMC, he would have seen a lot of changes in the Ten years since he left. Firstly, the company was a great deal larger, having opened up new factories, they were producing new and advanced cars, but at the same time viewing the company with a fresh pair of eyes, he could see that there was a great deal of excess capacity in the company and that the factories were seriously over-manned. Sadly, it was also apparent to Edwards that the factory at Longbridge had been neglected badly during the intervening years – and that the workforce there was under-motivated and less productive than they should have been.

He instigated a programme of cuts, in order to improve the health of BMC. Late in 1966, he cut 14,000 jobs across the company and then he started on a programme of factory closures, significantly the body plants at Coventry and Castle Bromwich. Significantly, Edwards was also to re-join BMC right in the middle of protracted negotiations with Donald Stokes that would eventually lead to the BMC-Leyland merger of 1968. Edwards made it clear to Harriman that he did not feel that this was the correct path for BMC to take – but went further by saying that he was not interested in merger and would play no part in it – instead he would try and address the problems endemic at BMC which had arisen through the years of neglect.

Maxi was vitally important for the company, but even before it was launched, Stokes and his management team knew that it was virtually unsaleable. The Morris Marina would be created as an antidote to the advanced, but ugly Austin. (Picture Supplied by Graham C. Arnold)

Edwards also tried to address the issue of lack of future model plans, finding it unbelievable that George Harriman and Alec Issigonis had perpetrated such a critical error of judgement. Upon viewing the upcoming 1.5-litre car (the ADO14 – Maxi), he ordered an immediate restyle of the front end styling – being far too late in the model’s development to do anything more radical. The body pressings for the Maxi had already been signed off and Pressed Steel was gearing up to produce bodies-in-white. He also commissioned newly recruited ex-Ford man, Roy Haynes to face-lift the Mini (resulting in the Mini Clubman), whist Issigonis himself worked on the more radical 9X.

By the summer of 1967, Edwards felt that times were becoming very worrying for BMH. Several issues that had been building over the past couple of years were now coming to a head:

·   Market share for BMH fell to a low of 28%.

·   BMH did not follow up the success of the Mini or ADO16 by producing replacement models.

·   Poor product planning led to the panic development of the Maxi.

·   The ADO17 was selling terribly, never bettering 1000 cars per week.

·   New cars were taking too long to reach the market.

·   Mini/ADO16 made no profit, other cars made very little money.

·   BMH inefficiency was rife; a perfect example of this, as Edwards observed, was that the 1100 was built at four factories and yet, the production volumes of this car did not justify this.

These cuts, especially those in the work force did not make Edwards a popular man, but it is true to say that he was only making cuts in the company that should have been made years before. Prime Minister, Harold Wilson was all too aware of these overmanning levels throughout the company and even if he did not want to see a single job loss, he knew that these cuts were necessary. At the 1966 Labour Party conference, as Wilson recalled later, a delegation of six BMC shop stewards were invited to address him in his hotel room. When the delegation arrived to say their piece, it comprised of twelve people!

Exasperated, Wilson said, “That’s what’s wrong with BMC, always needing 12 men to do what six should be doing”. Wilson still believed that the company was overmanned even after Edwards had made his cuts and he knew that he would in some way have to address this situation further in the future.

In the wider arena, Jaguar was now looking like rich pickings for both the acquisitive-feeling Leyland and BMC car companies. Donald Stokes approached Jaguar in 1965, offering a merger deal, where Sir William Lyons would take control of Standard-Triumph, as well as maintaining control of Jaguar. Lyons liked the deal, but at the last minute and on the golf course, he told Sir William Black (the then chairman of Leyland) that the deal was off and that the reason was that he feared that Jaguar would be engulfed and lose its identity in the new company. The response from Leyland management was swift – if they could not have Jaguar, they would pursue Rover. Within months, Stokes acquired Rover and now Leyland controlled an increasingly large slice of the UK market in the profitable “premium” end of the spectrum.

Sir William Lyons of Jaguar approached George Harriman the following year, due to his own fears for the long-term viability of his company and its vulnerability to a hostile takeover. Lyons also had private fears that his company could quite easily fall foul of BMC’s management and their acquisitive desires, using their ability to take away his supply of bodies (Pressed Steel supplied Jaguar).

However, sixty-six year old Sir William Lyons was a very canny negotiator and so, from what he may have considered was a weak bargaining position, he managed to ensure that he remained in complete control of the Browns Lane factory and also had a seat on the board of BMH.

As part of the deal, changes were made to the BMH range; the large and cumbersome Austin Princess was dropped, as was development of the new 4-litre Austin-Healey sports car (so not to queer the pitch of the Jaguar E-Type). Unfortunately, the Austin 3-Litre saloon was too far advanced in its development to be scrapped, but it never was to endure a glittering career. Finally, BMH agreed not to build any saloons larger than the ADO17/1800cc. Of course had Harriman had not been preoccupied with the matters of Leyland, he might have seen he was in a better position than Lyons made him believe that he was, but Lyons assuredly made the BMC Chairman aware that it was he who was responsible for the unprecedented growth of Jaguar in the previous 15 years (6647 produced in 1950, 25,963 produced in 1965). There been real growth in the past, but there was also the real prospect of further product-led growth in the future; backing up this feeling was the fact that they offered the world-beating E-Type sports car and they had the XJ-6 saloon in the offing. It was the single-mindedness of this trenchant negotiating position adopted by Sir William Lyons (and his chief of operations, Bob Knight) that undoubtedly assured Jaguar’s independence during the merger and throughout the turbulent Seventies.

British Leyland: A Tubulent Time

The creation of the British Leyland Motor Corporation, in 1968 may have been a long time coming, maybe it is also easy to describe it as an answer to a question that no one had yet posed, but there is a kind of convoluted logic as to why it happened. As we have seen, BMC was a most influential and respected manufacturer of motorcars. After BMC had been formed in 1952 to form the fourth largest car manufacturer in the world, the combined company had gone from strength to strength, exporting hundreds of thousands of cars to all four corners of the world. BMC had single-handedly re-written the rulebook for small cars, producing the Mini in 1959, and then following it up in quick succession with the ultra-successful ADO16. Before this point, their range of cars (as were those of their UK competitors) was a painfully conservative one, reflecting the tastes of UK car buyers at the time, comprising mainly of boring rear wheel drive saloons, such as the Morris Oxford and Austin Westminster. Piece-by-piece, however, the entire BMC range would be replaced by a new range of Issigonis-engineered front wheel drive cars.

Over on the other side of the car manufacturing fence, Triumph had also had a successful time in the Sixties, having launched the popular and well-liked Herald in 1959 and then the Harry Webster engineered and Michelotti-styled 1300 in 1965. Along with this range of small cars that had carved out a profitable niche slightly above the Austins and Morrises of the world, there was also the highly successful 2000 model that, along with Rover’s 2000 model, had the “executive” market practically to itself.

Rover had also had a good few years in the Sixties. First there was the P5, then the P6, both templates that for years to come, other manufacturers would use in the creation of their upper-middle management cars.

Merger mania was beginning to take hold of the UK car industry, however. During the 1960’s, management teams across the industry were seeing that the European and American car industries had grown at an extraordinary rate – post war consumerism had created a massive build up in the demand for luxury goods across the globe and people desperately needed cars. Japan, and Germany in particular rebuilt their car industries at an astonishing rate and were only too happy to meet this demand. Reasons for this change in fortunes are diverse and many, but Germany and France had used their Marshall-Aid money wisely, investing in infrastructure and industry whereas the British Government had not. The result of this was that the UK were not able to ramp up production at anywhere near the same level as the competition – and demand at home was artificially kept low by the Government’s tight squeeze on Hire Purchase regulations.

Where once, in the immediate post-war era, the UK had been the largest producer and exporter of cars in the World, by the Sixties we had fallen behind the USA, West Germany and Japan. Companies reasoned that in order to survive the next few years in the increasingly competitive world stage, they would have to be bigger than the next guy – and if that meant swallowing up his company, then so be it.

Super-salesman Donald Stokes had made his name as one of the outstanding salesmen of his generation when he had successfully managed the Leyland Truck company, turning it from a ragbag of UK manufacturers into one of the largest producers of trucks and buses in the world, earning a fortune for the company in exports, too. His masterminding of an audacious £9 million sale of Leyland Olympian buses to Cuba in 1964 had proved his abilities as a salesman beyond any doubt.

He had risen quickly through the company and once he had reformed it, this ambitious man had wanted a new challenge. Fresh from these successes in the Heavy vehicle market, he found his challenge when he turned his hand to the car industry, no doubt dreaming that he could perform the same magic. He had pushed forwards a plan to purchase the Standard-Triumph group, which he did in 1961 and then followed this up by purchasing Rover in 1967. Times were good and the new car company, Leyland, had a good few years in the Sixties on the back of the revitalised Triumph range and the success of the range of Rover cars already in place. Initially, there would have seemed little logic in this joining of Britain’s two middle management brands of cars, but Stokes saw a very healthy export market for Triumph’s sports cars and with Rover he had picked up the favoured transport of upper management; the Rover P5. Besides, as detailed in chapter three, Stokes bought Rover when it became clear that Leyland had lost in their battle with BMC to purchase Jaguar.

The competition between the Rover and Triumph 2000 models was not seen as a problem because both cars were such a huge success on the UK and European markets, almost having the “2-litre” class in the UK completely to themselves. If the Two cars held 90% of their given market and there was no competition, then how could that be a bad thing? The reality of that situation was somewhat different: Why have two cars competing against each other – and worse – using no shared parts? It was madness of course. So by 1967, Donald Stokes, through a couple of careful acquisitions, controlled 16% of the UK car market, but more importantly, Leyland were now a serious force in the car industry and Stokes himself now was a very influential voice. But what of BMC and more importantly, why did Stokes decide to take that final step into the realm of mass production?

During the 1960’s BMC were failing to make hay whilst the sun shone brightly for them. The Mini was making the company no money whatsoever, even though it was (along with the E-Type Jaguar) the trendiest car in which to be seen in around the West End of London and other fashionable European cities. The ADO16 was fighting an almighty battle with the Ford Cortina for sales supremacy in the middle ground of the market and was selling in huge numbers, but was also costing the corporation a packet in warranty costs.

As we have seen, Issigonis had used the same formula to produce the 1800 with disastrous consequences and the less said about the forthcoming Austin 3-Litre flagship car, the better. These were two cars that lacked in appeal and gave away market share in the upper-medium class. In the years between the launch of the 1800 in 1964 and the Leyland takeover in 1968, there were no new car launches of any relevance and although the business still outwardly looked in reasonably good shape with BMC holding over 30% of the new car market, the Corporation was losing money at an alarming rate.

This is where things seem to have gone even more than a little bit awry. BMC, no doubt looking over their shoulders at the successful Leyland Company, absorbed Jaguar in 1966 to form the short-lived British Motor Holdings (BMH). The cost to the Company’s finances had been considerable. Maybe the decision was made to go with Jaguar because BMC management knew that even before its launch, the 3-Litre was a lemon and so felt that the Jaguar/Daimler range of cars would represent the pinnacle of the BMC range in the face of the almost-certain failure of the 3-Litre. Whatever though, there was a huge chasm in the BMH range between the Austin Morris models in the family car sector of the market and the world class Jaguar range. Of course there might have been some logic in this takeover, had the cost to BMC not been so great.

After The Merger: A mess to be sorted out

The Government decided to “encourage” Donald Stokes of the Leyland Group to meet up with George Harriman of BMH and less than subtly push for a merger. This form of Political “intervention” was not unheard of back then and when the Harold Wilson Government invited Stokes to talk to BMH, the edict was for a “Big get together”. In order for the British Motor industry to survive on the worldwide stage, the Government reasoned, they needed to be as large as possible. It must have looked like manna from heaven to everyone when the Leyland Group and BMH decided to get into bed together – in one fell swoop here was created the British answer to General Motors, with the capability of producing a million cars a year.

Donald Stokes looked at this as a great opportunity, not only seeing this as a way of increasing Leyland’s volume massively, but also it was a wonderful opportunity for Stokes to become the “figurehead” of the British Motor Industry. Stokes, himself initially revelled in the role of “Captain of the British car industry”, using the media in a most effective way, something that made him quite unlike any other British Industrialist.

So what had Stokes inherited? Well, it must have seemed unbelievable to him that BMC had nothing to show in terms of future cars to produce, but this pretty much summed up the state of affairs in the company at the time: only the Maxi and the Mini Clubman were undergoing serious development and nearing completion. A revised ADO16 was in the early stages of development – and of course the wonderful little 9X, a replacement for the Mini, was also undergoing development, but were soon adjudged to be too expensive for the new organisation to produce. Stokes also found that the management of BMC was no way near as strong as it should have been, in fact it was a lot worse than he ever would have imagined. If there was a tiny glimmer of light though, it was the fact that the company’s finances were not quite as bad as he was expecting (even though he would subsequently say otherwise), but if anything it would lull Stokes into a false sense of security – in truth, BMH had been in deep, deep trouble.

Because the Mini and ADO16 had made the company very little money, there were no funds coming back into the Corporation with which any investment could be made for the future, so all through the “golden years” of the Sixties, BMC had been haemorrhaging money at an alarming rate. The over manning in practically every area of the company certainly exacerbated the situation and as he also pointed out, this was in no part down to the lack of direction in the company, “After Sir Leonard Lord departed, there was no line of succession and I doubt whether they had a policy”

When Stokes took overall control of the newly merged company, he saw how much of a state the company as a whole was really in and he immediately started to make some fairly far-reaching changes to the management structure of BLMC. Already the managing director of Leyland, Stokes took over the chairmanship of the company from George Harriman, who became the Corporation President at this point, having no further involvement in the day to day running of the company.

He appointed an “interesting” mixture of management to back himself up with, appointing as his deputy chairmen, Jaguar man William Lyons and Lewis Whyte, formerly a big wheel in the world of insurance, who had joined the board of Leyland in 1964. Beyond this, he had Leyland men take up all the senior positions in the company, most notably George Turnbull who was given the unenviable task of running Austin-Morris.

The other notable new appointment high up was John Barber, who with Ten years of Ford experience behind him, was perhaps better qualified than anyone else at this level to influence company policy. It was sadly obvious to all observers, that of all the appointments in the senior positions only John Barber had any experience of life in a large car company, a situation made worse by the fact that Joe Edwards had left as a direct consequence of the management shake-up, which happened as a result of the merger. OK, Leyland’s car companies had produced 166,000 cars the previous year, but BMC was an entirely different proposition, having the capacity to produce a million cars a year.

Stokes was the first to admit (in retrospect) that he and his company were out of their depth absorbing a company as large as BMC, having 190,000 employees at the time, but he defended himself by saying, “I was not and I have never pretended to be a manufacturing expert, ever. I have no pretensions as to that. I am an engineer by training but I think that my strength lies in selling and I think that it is worth recalling that we did sell, until the oil crisis, everything that BMC could make.”

If Stokes had been surprised by the state of the management chain, the overmanning and dearth of new models in the pipeline, he was absolutely appalled by the state of the company’s two principal manufacturing plants, Cowley and Longbridge. Both factories were badly in need of refurbishment; Cowley was especially bad, Longbridge simply appeared “half finished” and it was with all these woes in mind, Stokes had approached the Industrial Reorganization Committee for a £25 million loan, with which to make improvements to the factories and to start restructuring the company.

Speaking in 1973, Donald Stokes stated that, “Although it had become apparent to us that BMH had financial problems, we could not have understood until we took over the management of the company just how serious and immediate they were. It was also not apparent just how heavily they were dependent on a range of models which were beginning to show their age, or what a paucity of new products there were to maintain a competitive position. We could not have foreseen how bad the industrial relations climate was to become or how vulnerable we were going to be to strikes at outside suppliers.”

The British Leyland situation was highly political and it was a rude awakening for Stokes and his team to see what kind of mess the company was really in. Immediately post-merger this empire amounted to no less than 48 factories, of which 23 were major BMH plants. It was all too plain to see to all observers that Leyland had absorbed a company that had not been party to a successful merger itself, not having been rationalised to any extent in the fifties, by management that were too concerned with building their cars to look at the potential problems of the future.

The other problem was one of management - and by that, I mean the management right at the top: Donald Stokes himself. Stokes had confided to Joe Edwards in 1968 that he was going to need assistance in running the company and after Edwards resigned, this left Stokes alone in running British Leyland. Had Edwards remained, things may have been very different – one can see a situation that involved Edwards being in charge of manufacturing and Stokes in charge of marketing actually working very well. As it was, Donald Stokes was noteworthy for being an adept manager of people – a great motivator – and he wanted to ensure that the company would be run his way – which meant initially at least, BLMC would be run like a one man show. Stokes was to run British Leyland in very much a hands on way, analysing all costs – and it was not until the first raft of management changes that September that he began to devolve some of this work to George Turnbull. Because Turnbull took these tasks on board, he justifiably felt that it was he that was now Stokes’ favoured right-hand-man. This personal judgment would prove to be disastrously incorrect: Stokes was actually nurturing two managerial whizzkids – Turnbull was one, John Barber was the other.

In 1969, the Industrial Reorganization Committee called Stokes to task, and in the first of two full-scale meetings raised serious concerns about the overmanning and low productivity within the company and its concerns with BLMC’s poor industrial relations. Tony Benn, who as Technology Minister, ran the IRC alluded to the troubles ahead following this meeting, “Had lunch with Donald Stokes and the Leyland board. The number of strikes now in the motor industry does indicate a complete breakdown of communication. When we began talking about this, they said that Barbara Castle’s speech last year – in which she had said that power was passing to the shop floor – had done more damage than anything else. I said that it seemed incredible that if this was true – and none of them denied it – there should be any difficulty about it being openly declared. But they took a very conservative view, and although they were conscious of their own managerial defects, they were still a long way from realising that relations with the work force required a great deal more time and effort, thought and participation than they were giving.” The only way to resolve the low productivity and bring the company into line with its competitors would be improve industrial relations, markedly but also at the same time, cut an estimated 47,000 jobs out of a total workforce of 190,000.

Stokes honestly believed that he could maintain this level of over-manning by selling more cars and therefore, upping production. At this time, Stokes found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place – on one hand he needed this level of manning to complete the company’s ambitious expansion plans, but on the other, in order to maintain the huge work force, he needed to get on terms with managing them correctly.

One example of the malaise that was prevalent within BMH at the time of the merger was the complete lack of direction for future products, which was perfectly epitomised by the Austin Maxi. Here was a car that had been conceived to sell directly in the middle range of the market and yet, it was the absolute antithesis of cars that sold well in this market such as the Cortina and the Hillman Hunter. This car was almost ready for launch, yet it had been the subject of a lengthy gestation, the accountants had corrupted its design and implementation, and the result was an unhappy mix of ideas. Stokes had looked at this car, immediately adjudging it to be unsuitable to sell, the styling left much to be desired and the interior was, “ridiculously stark – like a hen coop”. Both he and Barber knew this car was simply not good enough and it was only the fact that there had been such a huge investment made at the Cofton Hackett that saved the Maxi from being scrapped before it was launched. As a result of the Maxi’s inappropriateness, Austin’s design staff found themselves with a new leader: Harry Webster was promoted from his role as head of new car development at Triumph to oversee the entire group’s product strategy – and first port of call was Austin-Morris.

Upon arriving at Longbridge, Harry Webster was asked by Stokes to formulate a plan for the future of Austin-Morris. Stokes made it clear to Webster that some quick decisions would be necessary in order to plan for the future, but as it was the sense of urgency that Stokes felt was right and very necessary. The man, who was pushed aside unceremoniously for Webster, was none other than the great man himself, Sir Alec Issigonis. Leyland management felt that Issigonis had lost touch with the needs of car buyers and to a degree this may have been true, as the failure of the ADO17 had demonstrated. The problem was that Leyland’s perception was that Issigonis would not work alongside the new man, so without consultation with Sir Alec, Webster took his office – literally leaving him without a place to sit. This was a monstrous humiliation for the man responsible for Britain’s best selling car and its leading export – and as a result, it did not take long for Issigonis to lose heart and leave the company. Such was the absolute haste in devising future strategy, the future plans of British Leyland were modelled around the plans of their competitors, most notably Ford. Right down to the idea of new models being presented and evaluated, “on a red book basis” (just like Ford).

This meant that all projects at BMH were put under serious scrutiny; a revision of the suspension system of the ADO16 was scrapped, the 9X project was dropped and all spending at Longbridge was brought to a halt. These were trying times at BMH, while engineers and managers sat aside waiting to see what Leyland managers and planners would do next.

The plan that Webster devised in double-quick time involved the scrapping of badge engineering and having a separate range of front wheel drive Austins and Rear wheel drive Morris models. The idea was for Morris to produce a, “trend-type automobile”, or to use the layman’s term – a “rep-mobile”, something to win sales back from Ford and Vauxhall. Using this directive, he formulated plans for the product range: there would be two cars - the Morris Marina would need to come first because Stokes and Turnbull absolutely wanted to fight “the Americans”. Later would come the Austin Allegro, which would replace the ADO16 and would be (to quote Turnbull) “durable” in its styling and execution – in other words, the Marina was to be a sales-led, highly-styled car and the Allegro would be a timeless and utterly contemporary high technology small car – designed with a long production run in mind. That was the company’s immediate priority though, to replace the best selling ADO16 and introduce something resembling a cohesive vehicle range.

That left the Mini at the bottom of the range and the ADO17 at the top. Work on the 9X prototype was cancelled soon after the merger as a result of the fact that the emphasis was placed very definitely on getting the Marina into production in double quick time. The ADO17 replacement was, however, approved for production in 1970, which meant that in the order of priorities, the Mini replacement programme had yet again been deferred; this time to the larger car. Of course, this decision was outwardly correct: the ADO17 was selling in dribs and drabs, whereas the Mini was still selling as strongly as ever. The problem, of course, was that Stokes failed to recognise that the Mini did not need replacing so much as supplanting with a “supermini”, but it must have been terribly difficult for Stokes to prioritise these projects because all of them were an urgent requirement. This difficulty was exacerbated by the fact that as talented as the BLMC design department was, it was too small: there was no way that all these cars could be developed concurrently – and when this idea was tried, resources were spread too thinly.

Austin-Morris aside, the Specialist Division’s range of cars also needed addressing. A new sports car was required: the MGB was suffering terribly in the USA at the hands of the Datsun 240Z and because this was the company’s most important export market, this would also take precedence over Mini. Interestingly, even though the MGB was a success in the USA, Stokes decided early on that the new car should be badged a Triumph – old loyalties coming to the fore perhaps?

Next, there was the Triumph 2500/Rover P6 clash in the executive car class – a single model would need to be developed in order to replace both of these cars. Again, massive company resources were poured into the development of the SD1 project and by early 1971, Donald Stokes had given approval for the car to go into production, and a new “green field” factory to build it – long before Austin-Morris received any resources with which they could use to work on replacing the Mini.

Once development of the ADO71, SD1 and TR7 was well underway and the Allegro was all-but launched, the matter of how to replace the Mini was dusted off yet again, in 1972. Amazingly, all the work that Issigonis had completed with the 9X in 1967 went to waste and the company asked for completely new small-car strategy to be drawn-up. As a result of this, the ADO74 was created, but because of the cash crises of 1974, it was cancelled by John Barber – from the ashes of this project raised the Metro, launched in 1980, but as subsequent events have shown, it came perhaps five years too late.

All these new model programmes were admirable enough, but Stokes fell into the age-old trap of replacing like with like and not anticipating the way that the market would change: the range of cars that were on offer needed a wholesale rethink and not just model on model replacement. The dealers were still too powerful within the company and were prone to calling the shots – defining model strategies to suit their needs. Filmer Paradise, newly installed as the overall Austin-Morris Sales and Marketing Director did embark on a series of dealership closures, but it was handled badly and as a result, the importers - principally Datsun – picked up these sites and their customers. Finally, factories were not closed soon enough because the Unions held too much influence over the Management (and Government) to allow any bloodletting – and because of Stokes’ unstinting belief that he could sell every car that BLMC could build.

Industrial relations were a pressing matter that needed to be improved. It was as much through pressure from the IRC as it was from the sheer number of lost working days and, therefore, lost vehicle production. In 1970, British Leyland appointed Pat Lowry as director for industrial relations, the first time in the company’s history that such a role was felt to be necessary. It did not improve matters one bit. As a result of his appointment and John Barber’s recommendations, the corporation changed the terms and conditions of 134,000 workers over the period of three years. Historically, workers had been paid for “piece work” – their rate being determined by how many cars they built, this was changed to a flat daily rate. In fact, as one ex BLMC finance manager described it, the changeover had disastrous consequences: “Under piecework the worker chased his parts and was motivated to produce; his wage depended on it. The systems for Production Control and Quality were dreadful and were horribly exposed when the move to Daywork happened. The management had little idea of how to control things and as a result cost overruns were running at huge figures per car. In theory the standard costing system showed we were losing money on Minis. But that assumed cars were produced at standard cost. Scrap quality and sheer bloody mindedness meant each car's labour costs were some 30 to 80% higher than standard. Management basically refused to recognise the problem and got VERY upset if it was pointed out to them”. In principle, the system was much fairer, but industrial action was reaching epidemic proportions at the time: in 1969, the corporation lost 5 million man hours, which doubled to 10 million the following year. In 1971, this improved to 7.4 million man-hours, but returned to the high of a couple of years previous, 9.6 million.

In May 1973 to coincide with the launch of the Allegro, Donald Stokes announced that he would be carrying on as Chairman of BLMC for another six years, but decided that it would be a suitable time to make some far-reaching management changes. Firstly, he was to upset the apple cart somewhat, by promoting John Barber from his post as the Company finance director into the role of Deputy Chairman – into the finance role he vacated, slipped Alex Park.

It was to herald the start of an intended major expansion programme for BLMC and reflected the management’s confidence in the ability of the Allegro to match the sales success of the ADO16. The intention was to increase production to a million-and-a-half cars per year and because there were new models in the pipeline, new engines and a new factory, Donald Stokes believed that this was the beginning of a new phase of growth in the company’s history, “This is the beginning of a very exciting era for British Leyland, and I think our designers, engineers and production men are going to provide you with a British motor industry of which you will be very proud”, Stokes bullishly proclaimed.

The consequence of Barber’s promotion was that George Turnbull was overlooked in the promotion game and would remain in charge of Austin-Morris. Part of reasoning behind this promotion of Barber in favour of Turnbull was that previously, he had vociferously opposed Donald Stokes’ plan to reorganize the administrative structure of British Leyland so that all marketing and management would be centralized. This policy of centralization had not worked previously at BMC and George Turnbull reasoned that it would prove to be just as an ineffective policy at British Leyland; he was a hands-on man and knew that to run a company as large as British Leyland from an “ivory tower” would result in management losing touch with people “on the ground”. As it was Stokes pulled rank on Turnbull and set-up the fourteen storey “Leyland House” at Marylebone, central London as the company’s headquarters and administrative centre.

Turnbull eventually viewed this as a big enough difference in opinion to become a resignation issue and when he was finally passed-over in favour of Barber, it would prove to be the final straw for Turnbull, who was becoming increasingly disillusioned with his ongoing boardroom battle with John Barber. Certainly, the day-to-day running of Austin-Morris was not an enviable job – with its labour relations issues and poor, undesirable product range. Despite all this, he made quite a name for himself there. Turnbull achieved tangible results at Austin-Morris; in 1968, the first full year of his appointment, the volume arm lost £16million, but by 1973, Austin-Morris actually turned in a £17million profit, contributing almost 50 per cent to the entire group’s profits. He would not remain for the duration, however. As it transpired, the centralization plan devised by Stokes was not a terribly effective one and so, in the run up to the end of British Leyland as a private company; it would prove to be yet another failed Stokes policy.

The crisis was deepening and although, it was not uniquely one of management, (the existing product range had a great deal of responsibility in this as well) Stokes took no time at all in explaining that a great deal of delegation did actually go on within British Leyland – despite what all Leyland watchers may have believed. The fact that he was explaining his management to the wider audience would indicate that in his own mind he knew that his management team had not produced the desired results. He went on to say that because he was the company figurehead, he was blamed for a lot that went wrong within the company, but his managers would be the ones that would take the credit for anything good that happened. Of course, this is a usual situation in any company – there is a failure and the boss takes the rap, but Stokes was making it quite clear that perhaps he was a victim of circumstance and that the imminent collapse of British Leyland was not his own responsibility.

An escalating sense of panic evident in the corridors of power at British Leyland permeated all within, but it was no surprise that George Turnbull announced his retirement from the Company a mere five months after John Barber’s promotion. Turnbull had accepted an offer from the Koreans to establish Hyundai cars – an opportunity that Turnbull was all-too-keen to grab with both hands. He did, however, recognize that the task of managing Austin-Morris had been greatly more difficult than he had ever envisaged and he acknowledged that the only reason he had coped was because he had good people around him.

Difference of opinion between John Barber and George Turnbull had also played a part in the resignation and this had been identified by Turnbull’s replacement, ex-Ford man David Andrews. As Andrews put it in succinct terms, “One was a doer and one was a planner”, and being an ex-Ford man, Barber wanted British Leyland to play its greatest strengths by going upmarket: Barber knew that British Leyland in its then current form would have no hope in competing with Ford in the Escort and Cortina market. Turnbull, on the other hand, wanted British Leyland to remain in the volume business, thereby remaining a player on the world scene.

As a result of Turnbull’s departure, Barber was promoted yet again to become the Deputy Chairman and also the Managing Director. This announcement was made to coincide with the release of British Leyland’s 1973 financial results. The situation looked buoyant for the company, showing a profit £51 million, but the reality was that, in John Barber’s view, this was not nearly enough profit. Barber wanted to instigate a new model programme (involving replacing the Marina and the small Triumph range) and he also wanted to cut the excesses in the manning levels in the factories.

Actually, John Barber did manage to start slimming manning by initially employing a “no hiring” policy. As he subsequently stated, “I got rid of 30,000 people and I did it quietly too, without hitting the headlines”. Because of this small step in the right direction, the company’s finances began to improve, only to be thwarted by the Arab-Israeli war in October 1973. These international upheavals had huge implications for the company’s already fragile finances – the Mini became the company’s best selling car ahead of the Marina, which had serious effects on the company’s balance sheets. Where the firm had projected another profit for 1974, it actually made £16.6 million loss. At the same time, there was yet another high profile management resignation, in the form of Harry Webster – he was to be replaced by Spen King – the father of the Range Rover.

Time was now very much against Stokes and his team and although the Morris Marina sold in reasonable, if not sensational numbers, following its introduction in 1971, the Allegro and Maxi both failed dismally in their markets. On top of this, the market for new cars had changed in a most drastic way in the run-up to the October War, which had far-reaching consequences for the company, as a whole. Demand for new cars in the UK had gone through a spectacular boom in 1972 (the market increased from 1.3 million to 1.6 million) and just when BLMC could have done with being able to boost production to meet this increased demand, they were unable to.

At this time, British Leyland should have been in a wonderful position to clean up in the market, having two new small-medium cars to sell. Unfortunately, at the very time they needed to get cars built in order to satisfy demand, the management had been embroiled in a massive battle against the Unions to actually get the cars produced. Industrial relations were at an all-time low and at a time when Ford stuttered on the Market with their new Cortina, British Leyland were also incapacitated by strike action at Longbridge and Cowley and so, were unable to take advantage of this fact. This was most definitely a vital missed opportunity and it may be said that the cars that BLMC had for sale were unappealing, but customers were still not given the chance to actually buy their cars. Had the company been able to increase production and that choice offered, would the cars have sold, though? Donald Stokes seemed to think so, but in reality, that is one question that we will never be able to answer.

One thing we can be sure of though is that as a result of this failure to boost production, the more or less consistent 40% market share held by British Leyland from the time of the merger now dropped catastrophically to 33.1% in 1972. This was a disastrous fall in sales in the period of just twelve months, one that is unprecedented in the industry. Alarm bells should have rung loudly throughout Longbridge and Cowley, echoing through Management offices, but nothing tangible was done to ramp up production levels when they were needed. The Unions were calling the shots. BLMC could justifiably say that their sales were consistent with the previous year, not taking into account the fact that theirs was a smaller percentage of an expanded market.

1973 and 1974 however, were very telling. When the market contracted back to pre sales-boom levels of 1.3 million in 1973, (as a direct consequence of the October War) the market share of BLMC share then remained static at around 30%. In other words, the market share lost in 1972 due to their inability to step up production had seemingly been surrendered for good. Most notably, this had been to Ford, who improved as they got on top of the Cortina III’s teething troubles, but also to the importers, especially the Japanese, most notably Datsun. When this decline through loss of sales (the Allegro and Marina combined were performing disastrously compared with the ADO16) and mounting warranty costs (cars were being so badly built between strikes, they were gaining a reputation for biblical unreliability) continued through 1974 with mounting losses, British Leyland’s backers, the City Banks, were becoming very nervous indeed.

As a direct consequence of the woes that British Leyland were going through in the summer of 1974, the company scaled down their previously budgeted-for expansion plans. Quite simply, British Leyland were not in a position to pay for them and so, asked the City Banks to help them out with medium term finance – amounting to an overdraft facility £150 million. The company also instigated talks with the Department of Trade and Industry and told them that they would be able to continue with their expansion plans if they could find £100 million from external sources – or to put it more directly, the Government. In September, the emergency cash conservation plan was put in place, but in the end, British Leyland lost £23.9 million in the year-to-date – what made these poor figures look worse, where that British Leyland had an Overdraft of £148 million, as opposed to £105 million in bank deposits.

The banks that had extended British Leyland their medium term finance had now become quite concerned and so, in November of that year, they instructed the accountants Thomas McLintock and Company to examine the validity of the company’s cash projections. As a result of these concerns, tripartite talks were instigated between the Department of Trade and Industry, the Accountants and British Leyland on the 27th November. The position was grave and Donald Stokes knew this, as did John Barber and so, it was with complete candour that in these tripartite talks, British Leyland stated that they would reach the limit of their overdraft in January 1975. They also stated that it was also likely that they would not be given further facilities from the banks.

Tony Benn spoke to the House of Commons on the 6th December and stated that as a “leading exporter”, and a huge employer of people in the Midlands, it was of paramount importance that government money should be used in the assistance of the company. Plans were drawn up for the emergency assistance of British Leyland and Sir Don Ryder was appointed on the 18th December to prepare a report into the future of the company and how to run it under the auspices of government control. Government approval was also given for a further £50 million of bank lending.

At the time, Donald Stokes made a statement to the press concerning the immediate future of British Leyland and I repeat this in full, as published in Motor Magazine, 4th January 1975:

All major decisions now taken by BL are subject to government approval until at least next spring. Then the review board, headed by industrialist Sir Don Ryder and including Mr Stanley Gillen (former chairman and chief executive of Ford of Britain) is due to report – confidentially – on the affairs of British Leyland.