Read on Twitter
Factoid No:124 - @neilmbriscoe @t2stu @TopOfTheTower @Nigel_Mutt @DarraghMcKenna @Daraghmclove @Roadster_Life @Scrof In examining BL, & its cars, you have to look at how it ended up like that - a nationalised, unsuccessful firm going from crisis to crisis. It's a well-known story
It's a story which has been covered very well, many times and to adequately give it coverage on here would be a real challenge. How do you neatly sum up why a major part of a major industry failed? Well, what I purpose to do is to try to give a primer at the very least.
The central problem at heart of BL was it never earned enough money in profits to properly modernise its factories & the model range. While the company might have been Europe's 2nd biggest car company, that volume was spread over 11 different brands & dozens of factories.
The brands weren't complimentary either. So, you found major rivals under one roof - like the Triumph 2000 & the Rover P6, the various Triumph & MG sports cars, Austin 1100/1300 & the Triumph 1300 & let's not forget Jaguar XJ6 versus Rover P5. Today this seems bizarre.
Dealers/distribution was an illogical aspect too; BMH never rationalised its dealer networks so there were separate for each brand and these competed with one another. Now with BL, there were also separate chains for Triumph, Rover & Jaguar. This was intra-firm competition.
Overseas, this often meant separate distributors for different brands, which then competed in the same market - in the last years of BMC this meant ostensively identical cars (with different badges) fighting over the same market.
Forgive the interruption...
Nice chat intervened
Nice chat intervened
One of the big issues when BL was created, was the financial condition of BMH. In his book, The Leyland Papers, Graham Turner, writes about after the merger, that it emerged the BMH's condition was far worse than originally thought.
it all centred on a chance meeting with between Jack Plane, who ran Leyland's South African operation and BMH's Finance Director, Ronald Lucas. Such was the nature of his replies, more and more Leyland directors gathered round and Lucas continued to talk.
During this unofficial meeting, Lucas told how BMH had failed to meet their production targets, were unlikely to make a profit that year & how product planning was non-existent. The last point of the rot that set in BMC was shown by the recent cars they had launched like the MGC.
In fact, BMH's issues were far more serious than Leyland or the wider world actually realised. The very weak state of the larger BMH would have a dramatic impact on the newly merged firm. This paragraph from the book is most extraordinary & useful in understanding the BL story:
With that context, one could argue that Leyland should perhaps have never considered creating BL in the first place. However, in the late '60s, there was a mania for mergers in the UK & this was shown by the outside pressure of the British government for such an alliance to occur
And 1 should remember Anthony Wedgewood Benn (later Tony Benn) as Min. of Tech was 1 of the main drivers of that merger. However, this wasn't a merger for the sake of vanity, but a belief the UK needed a major motor manufacturer as it was a key industry/export earner/employer.
Of course, when BL was created, many worthy things were said it in the press about it. The belief was that this combination of brands would be a strong force in the world's motor markets, but wasn't to be.
(Story from The Times - 18/1/68)
(Story from The Times - 18/1/68)
This merger, the then biggest in British industrial history was hampered by the weakened state of 1 of the companies, plus the other factors mentioned above. In addition, there were inefficient out-of-date factories & the ever-worsening industrial relations climate.
This is before we mention about the rivals they faced. In the '60s, the industry was dominated by US & European firms, but by BL's creation, Japanese firms were making startling progress. In the article is a list of the world's top 10 makers in '66. It makes interesting reading.
The lowly place of Toyota & Nissan would quickly be replaced by high rankings by the early seventies. For BL, a company that was weak financially, it was difficult for them to invest to compete against such firms.
What becomes apparent with even a cursory examination of the cars developed during BL was the lack of funds available. As a result, the cars produced were always a compromise, as they had to share engines or parts, not because it was good practice, but out of financial necessity.
The case of the Maxi is a good example. As related in a previous factoid, the new BL mgt would've liked to have cancelled the Maxi, but as money had already been invested, they had no choice but to launch it when it was clearly underdeveloped:
https://twitter.com/andrewryan100/status/963405193567195138
https://twitter.com/andrewryan100/status/963405193567195138
In addition, this lack of funds was exacerbated by the sheer diversity of models of the different marques. Now, if 'Britain's GM' had had the sales of their American rival or even half, it could've funded a full model programme, but with small change, it was make do & mend...
What BL needed and sorely lacked was a popular car, that could drive volume and make decent profits for the firm. It did have one extremely popular car, but that was the Mini & we all know about its money-making potential...
While BL did increase production, it was boosted by a strong market in the UK, & good sales for existing cars they had existed before the merger, but the inconvenient truth was the cars they created, they developed, all performed poorly versus the cars they replaced.
The Allegro is a good case in point - it was the replacement for the 1100/1300, but as we have seen in previous factoids, it singularly failed to match its success. Indeed, it has been suggested that the Allegro's failure, was 1 of the reasons BL ceased to be a major car maker.
Perhaps 1 problem was BL's inability to make realistic forecasts for their cars, the Allegro was 1, but so was the SD1. The original plan for the SD1 was 1,500/wk, which was realistic, but it was doubled & that, as we've seen, was at best, optimistic, at worse, foolhardy.
For BL to have succeeded as a company, tough decisions needed to be made after its creation & these would've been very painful at the time. It would've meant factory closures, job cuts, range & dealer rationalisation. Unfortunately, for BL these tough decisions were avoided.
The problem was, by delaying these decisions then, it meant that when these issues were eventually tackled, the result would be far worse & far more extensive than was needed so that any meaningful recovery would be at best remote & at worst, impossible.
