Factoid Extra: @neilmbriscoe @TopOfTheTower @t2stu @DarraghMcKenna @Roadster_Life @StvCr You know, one of the great things about doing these factoids is stumbling upon films that offer a useful perspective & add to my knowledge. This is a thread about such a doc.

It’s a 1985 BBC Schools doc & looks at the UK fleet car market & offers some interesting insights too. We start at the 1984 UK Motor Show & notes the fierce battle btwn Ford & GM.
We also get a quick clip of a Cavalier ad though you might be interested to know who’s driving.

Yep, that’s Hugh Laurie...

Even though it's a schools programme, it doesn't 'dumb down' the subject & this comment from The Financial Times Motor correspondent is interesting. Also, there's a gd analogy of the 2 US firms fighting it out in the UK fleet car market & a ‘tiny’ AR trying to compete with them.

What follows is a potted history of the problems in BMC & then BL. Some of what's mentioned here applied more to BL than BMC (esp the issue of quality & reliability), but it also offers info such as the fact the Mini made a loss for the 1st 9 yrs of production, which is correct.

Indeed, the short history is as good an overview you’ll find about the source of BL’s problems.

The doc notes the arrival of Michael Edwardes & the impact of that on BL. There's a revealing clip of him offering a stark choice in 1979. To some, this tough management was what BL sorely needed but others felt he weakened BL by closing too many plants.

The doc looks at AR's Cowley plant (though it incorrectly says it has most of the manufacturing as Longbridge was bigger). The plant, like Longbridge, had undergone extensive automation in the previous few yrs.

The face of Cowley had truly been transformed (just like Longbridge) & all this was a world away from the manual body welding from just a few years before.

In some ways, the production gap AR had was a legacy of the Edwardes era & BL’s contraction, but equally BL's sales volume had fallen significantly too. The rivals mentioned in the clip had large domestic markets while AR was a poor 2nd to Ford & vulnerable to Vauxhall.

This meant the new cars had to sell & as they’d generate profits so replacements could be developed.
That was the hope, but in reality, it was elusive, as the Maestro & Montego weren't successful & thus AR didn't have the funds to develop those new models.

The UK motor component industry depended on AR for their survival & they had suffered due to BL’s problems since the mid-1970’s. Indeed, the programme noted that employment had halved in recent years.

As noted here, the components sector was an important contributor to the UK economy & indeed for many years it maintain a trade surplus while UK vehicle exports vs imports went in the opposite direction.

In a sense the UK motor industry acted as a ‘motor’ for the UK economy as a whole & helped counter declines in traditional Industries. All was fine when the industry was doing well but conversely it showed why it was so serious for the UK when the motor industry hit problems.

By 1985, 40% of Fords sold in the UK came from Europe, a process that had been accelerated since Ford of Europe’s creation & a consequence of UK industrial relations problems.
The result was a reduction in the cars built in Ford's UK plants & cars sourced exclusively from abroad.

Ford like other firms were faced with oversupply & thus the risk of plant closures seemed likely. What's interesting here is the reaction of what would happen if Ford closed a UK plant. It’s ironic watching it now given Ford no longer makes vehicles in the UK...

The programme then looks at Vauxhall's Luton plant & you can see an early form of globalisation here with parts coming from all over the world to build the car but the impression given here is Luton was merely a glorified CKD operation. It was more than that.

While Vauxhall no longer developed their cars, these Opel designs had transformed their fortunes & probably kept Luton & Ellesmere Port in existence...

There's a clip of GM's plant in Zaragoza where the Corsa/Nova was made. The doc notes the car could’ve been made in the UK, but that chance was always remote. You can see why GM built it there & also why BL's decision to sell their own Spanish plant was so shortsighted.

And finally, there's reference to Nissan's UK arrival with their new plant. The programme attitude seems rather curious as nobody these days would doubt the incredible importance this plant brought to both that region (in employment terms) & to the economy (in export terms).

Mention of Nissan naturally leads onto AR's tie-in with Honda & ironically the Rover 200 shown here would end up being more popular than either the Maestro or Montego.
The doc also makes reference to the forthcoming Project XX, which was, of course, the Rover 800...