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Is the british car industry past saving?
RoverMG are a bottomless money pit. BMW tried and failed selling out for just a tenner. Who did kill the british car industry? RoverMG inparticular. Things have been going wrong for a long time, since the mid-eightes from what I can see. But what did go wrong, does anyone know? Lets see..... |
The real truth is very un-palletable... and causes too much arguement for any car forum...
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Go on mycroft, give us your view, i would be interested in reading this. I also wouldn't say that Rover were the cause, BMW ripped that company to pieces and took whatever they wanted e.g. the mini etc etc
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That is true, BMW used RoverMG and has made alot of money out of them!
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The British Car Industry (like the motorcycle industry before it) commited suicide with a little help from the British Public and Goverment.
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any companies trying to flog second rate goods is going to fail when there's a lot of competition.
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I don't think the unions helped much ;)
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I don't think the unions helped much Being young I remember very little about his time there but the one thing I do remember vividly was the number of union meetings he had to attend. |
Probably Mycroft !
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Information contained below by kind permission of Dr. Morse-Wiltshire. Original text Copyright protected 2003.
Joseph Stalin killed our car Industry... it wasn't his intention... but he did it... in 2 ways... his rise after WW2 caused the UK Government (who still thought the UK a World Superpower) to divert so much of our National resource into producing a nuclear weapon... this on top of the burden we bore for fighting the war for so long single handed we were Bankrupt and not just an ordinary bankrupt... we still to this day are paying off the debts incurred in fighting WW2... 60 years after borrowing we are stil paying for the War... So we added to this awful situation by wasting even more of resource on the foolish pursuit of old glories... The worst thing is that we did not get the 'helping hand from the US that 'front-line states' did Germany got huge amounts to re-build its industry... from both the US and the UK... seriously we borrowed money from the US and then lent it to Germany for less than the rate we were paying the US... think about that and then look at what happened here as a result... Our industrial heartland although less damaged than that of the German or French industry was literally 'worn out' we had run 'hand to mouth' for years and it showed... We, instead of giving our Industry a helping hand did nothing... just left them to their own devices... That was the start of our troubles... I'll post more later... It is too depressing to think about this for too long... |
I believe it was complacency.
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Toyota killed it off, they built the Soarer and after that the Brits just thought:
"Whats the point, that car is absolute perfection, we may as well give up" ;):D Cheers, Grant [Edited by RS Grant - 5/17/2003 7:49:56 PM] |
The Unions. The car designs. the british working attitude........ the Goverment. In many ways thank god it has died.
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Unions in the 70s and early 80s.
Simple. |
Rover was dying before bmw took over. FULL STOP
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True.
They meade a poor product and expected people to pay a comparable price for it against better, more streamlined oposition. Once the Japanese cars started gettting good they were fukced. |
Red Robbo.
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Red Robbo was not the cause he was, along with those that supported him, a sympton...
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###
...the british working attitude ### Our attitude like everything to do with attitude is 'conditional'... if you did the same job but in the UK you got only ½ the standard of living of you equivalent in Germany. Add to this working in less pleasent conditions and trust me you'd be bloody militant... |
I trust you're talking about 'then', and not now?
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Immediately post-war, yes.
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Datsun!
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Datsun turned to Nissan, though.
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I see their is no post from MGJohn - I was expecting a host of posts from him saying somthing like, "it never died, we are alive and well!" lol
Sorry John no offence ;) |
GTI...
said I'd be back.... anyway it's raining heavily so changing that turbo will have to wait .... :) Numerous reasons. here's my thoughts on some of them: Obviously not just the car industry but allowing most aspects of British Industry to die or pass into alien control didn't help either. Oh yes, GTI, your >> BMW tried and failed selling out for just a tenner. << You deliberately forget about the 1.8 BILLION the bavarian outfit got from FOMOCO for Land Rover and the other similar deals? I also question how much they, as you also say; "tried". For example, ask yourself how much research and development went into the then still very new MGF whilst under their stewardship ...... big fat ..... you know the rest. Alien control .... you know it makes sense. On day one I accurately predicted it would end in tears - had heated arguments with work colleagues at the time who thought it was the best thing since .... they don't mention it anymore. Alien control ... you know it makes sense ..:( More recently, governments of certain misguided persuasions allowed UK industrial decline to proceed using various ploys or lack of effective action as it was a way to get what they really wanted.... Trade Union destruction. I've never been a member of a trade union in 40+ years of full time employment (part time now) but boy oh boy, there were times when I wish I were a member. There were much better ways to change things but those would not suit the ultimate underhand aim. By so doing they got their way to a large extent, but at what a price. That price in effect, was to surgically remove the UK's industrial backbone. We're a Nation minus that backbone now and is it any wonder we often perform in a spineless way? They, indeed we, are only kidding ourselves if we think we can survive and thrive as a Nation without an industrial backbone. Shuffling paper in the city and servicing aint gonna cut it long term for us all. Short term yeah, well maybe,but, long term? .... just wait and see. "I'm alright jack" is alive and well in the UK still today but, will you be "alright" say next year, next decade or even by next Tuesday when you arrive at work to find and open that 'bad news'envelope? Been there done that several times. Nothing stays the same and the HUGE UK failure to invest long term is and will prove very costly..... in the longer term. A "Profit by next week or asset strip" attitude so prevalent in recent times aint the way to go but has been the practice for at least two decades. That's the reality of "long term" UK investment today. Unfortunately, some people wouldn't know the real meaning of long term investment if you buried them under pile of dictionaries. Such people are often in control. The thing that really worries me is that I see no REAL evidence that things will improve long term. I really don't. Yeah I know what some are saying, but that's all short term stuff and where's the real evidence? In a way, "I'm alright Jack" now as I'm past my sell by date but, I do fear for my two sons who'll soon have to make their way in a much less certain and secure world. We as a nation appear to excel only at getting it wrong. Didn't used to be that way ......... Still, I'm alright Jack .... :( [Edited by MGJohn - 5/18/2003 10:33:12 AM] |
Going to watch the Austrian Grand Prix on TV soon... I do hope it's not another Schumacher walkover. Despite the numerous and various foreign Trade LOGOs all over those F1 cars... much of the F1 success stories for several decades now is a direct result of British Industrial expertise, inspiration and effort. So there ... !
and another thing .... how come BMW with the 'most powerful F1 engine' and with all that superior build quality fail to finsih so often? .... yeah how come that ... ;) |
We are pretty much a nation of shopkeepers now. Where are we meeting - on a Japanese car based forum, using chips designed in the US, chances are software from an US company and run on computer components manufactured in the East. Oh, my mouse mat was manufactured in the UK.
IMHO caused by sucessive cr@p governments, union problems and a lack of forsight on behalf of the people running some big companies and our great governments, keeps coming back to the government don't it! UK companies sold to foreign companies then asset stripped (back to the government again) |
What killed...
A combinaton of - a)Lousy quality and R&D b)Union militancy c)Atrocious marketing / product targeting d)Reliable, affordable, well-equipped competition So there |
Weve still got marcos, tvr and morgan! they better not go anywhere!
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Information contained below by kind permission of Dr. Morse-Wiltshire. Original text Copyright protected 2003.
So just after the War the 'victors' were in just as bad a state as the 'vanquished' and in one subtle and important way were actually at a disadvantage... the post-war industrial landscape was tilted toward Europe... the sudden menace from the Communist block meant the focus of US expenditure was in Germany, the Berlin Air lift brought an even sharper focus to that Country. The decision that a strong Germany was easy to make, and so support for Adenauer was total and staggering. All this time we, the 'victors', were suffering Rationing... for 8 years after the War we remained on rations. It is amazing that we managed to rebuild with so little money and carry on exporting and doing fairly well... never 'decry' the British worker in my presence... you are likely to get a nasty response... in the face of 5 years of War followed by 8 years of rationing and the Lowest wage in Europe, it is a wonder that there was even one willing worker in the Country. Then in 1953 the then Conservative Government withdrew the Manufacturing Support payments... these had up 'til then just kept the Management of our Industry 'on side'.. with the withdrawal the game was up and the selling off and asset stripping stems from that date and the decline was, from that moment, inevitable. I can view this from the advantage of 50 years of hindsight... at the time few if any would have known what the effects would be... Clement Attlee [PM.1945/1950] had fought hard to maintain these grants realising their importance, but Churchill [PM 1950/1955] thought them un-necessay and was the leading advocate for their abolition. That one withdrawal in the Summer of 1953 resulted in the 'Brain Drain' and signalled the decline... Again too depressing to dwell on. L8RZ. |
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