wjriding.webs.com/ergomaticleyland.htm
I hope this has not been posted before. This operator seemed happy enough with the Ergo Leylands, allowing for the few problems he had with them. His reason for defecting to Atkinson- supply problems in the 1960s- even before the union idiots had a stranglehold on the company.
CF again with the big engines! The best selling car the BLMC group members ever built was the 1100/1300 range, the Maxi was a natural progression. That was turned into a fiasco by boardroom decisions to use the wrong engine and limit the doors to two so they could use existing doors from the failed 1800. They followed this by allowing the Maxi and 1100/1300 to fight for market place. SFA to do with bankers…
Don’t let the facts that Labour took BL under State Control or that their regional employment policies meant factories were scattered all around the country bringing a logistal nightmare to an already troubled organisation, or that the inflation the workers wanted their wages in line with was caused by the Labour Government, or that strikes by Left Wing Militant Unions caused product launches to be put back by up to year resulting in loss of market share to the continually improving competition get in the way of your hatred for Maggie though…
newmercman:
CF again with the big engines! The best selling car the BLMC group members ever built was the 1100/1300 range, the Maxi was a natural progression. That was turned into a fiasco by boardroom decisions to use the wrong engine and limit the doors to two so they could use existing doors from the failed 1800. They followed this by allowing the Maxi and 1100/1300 to fight for market place. SFA to do with bankers…Don’t let the facts that Labour took BL under State Control or that their regional employment policies meant factories were scattered all around the country bringing a logistal nightmare to an already troubled organisation, or that the inflation the workers wanted their wages in line with was caused by the Labour Government, or that strikes by Left Wing Militant Unions caused product launches to be put back by up to year resulting in loss of market share to the continually improving competition get in the way of your hatred for Maggie though…
I thought Maxi had five doors and the seats folded into a double bed. It was, like many other BL products, a triumph of design over execution. Modern styling and a high-revving Italian-style screamer under the bonnet would have made it a winner. Oh, and a gearlever that was actually connected to the gearbox would have helped.
Was the head clamping improved in later 680’s, nope.
I had to do a Google on what you blokes call an LT11 but I think it’s a turbo 680? what we called a 690.
The last 690 dad owned pulled head studs during pre-delivery. They were backing off and re-tensioning the heads and then that horrible soft feeling, a pulled stud.
Much discussion, testing of torque wrench etc, talk of a replacement engine. But with the time restraints, we agreed on our proven repair system that we’d been doing on our 680’s for ages.
So heads off, studs out, drill and tap oversize and deeper, install longer specially made stepped studs and away you go with a 2nd hand brand new engine.
There’s a limit to this sort of repair, there’s not much meat around the studs in those old blocks.
Evening all, Anorak, I think that the Maxi had two new doors, plus two ex “Land Crab” ones, oh and a gearlever that connected…to something!!
Carryfast, as someone who had to as a normal lorry driver in the 60s, go into, and out from that awfull place , locally known as “the Austin”, I can speak from truly personal experience, and my dear friend it was far from your rose tinted dreams!!.
The workforce were totally out of control, management had abdicated total responsibility, and allowed the activities of the workforce to be controlled by, “the stewards”. If any meaningful work ever took place, then the quality was subjectively lacking!(As discovered by the poor people who invested their hard earned money in any of Longbridge`s products).
The front wheel drive ranges were conceptually right on target, but cut price engineering, and lousey quality in both build, and pass off, meant that they were less than perfect. And in your delusion dear Carryfast ,please do not think that the “big” Healey was any better…having owned a number of examples, I can assure you that its build quality at best was mediocre.
Personally I have always begrudged the Birmingham Management, and the workforce, their total lack of accountability in creating, and then enlarging the “black hole”, that eventually led to the demise of Leyland. Even more gratingly the local Birmingham BBC radio station wheels out on a regular basis a “historian” who propounds the same rediculous clap trap regarding “the workers”, their contribution, and their sanctity,as I find so annoying in dear Carryfasts posts. If only they spoke from experience, not some “warm fuzz like” rearward vision.And even more so from some real understanding of how companys thrive, or perish, (or in more basic terms…could they make a success of running a sweetshop)!! I very much doubt it!
Interesting post Valkyrie, can you reference your sources, I`m sure that I am not the only reader who would be interested.
Cheerio for now.
newmercman:
CF again with the big engines! The best selling car the BLMC group members ever built was the 1100/1300 range, the Maxi was a natural progression. That was turned into a fiasco by boardroom decisions to use the wrong engine and limit the doors to two so they could use existing doors from the failed 1800. They followed this by allowing the Maxi and 1100/1300 to fight for market place. SFA to do with bankers…Don’t let the facts that Labour took BL under State Control or that their regional employment policies meant factories were scattered all around the country bringing a logistal nightmare to an already troubled organisation, or that the inflation the workers wanted their wages in line with was caused by the Labour Government, or that strikes by Left Wing Militant Unions caused product launches to be put back by up to year resulting in loss of market share to the continually improving competition get in the way of your hatred for Maggie though…
Firstly you seem to be allowing the idea of volume and turnover to cloud the fact that it’s ‘supposed’ to be all about return on investment ( profit ) that matters not turnover and the fact is regardless of the Austin Morris division’s turnover/volume figures it was Jaguar/Rover/Triumph division which was producing a better return on the meagre amount of investment which the group as a whole was getting ploughed back into the business by the bankers.The whole idea of Austin Morris moving away from cars like the Westminster and into the unprofitable,cheap,poverty spec front wheel drive market sector was all banker driven.Just as trying to downgrade the general standards of living in the economy as a whole by keeping wage increases below price led inflation was driving the demand for those heaps.
The issue of you seeming to support the idea of ‘rationalisation’,on the erroneous basis of cutting in house competition,would actually put you in agreement with Stokes who you seem to have said previously you don’t agree with.Whereas competition is always a good thing.In this case with the win win situation that there can be no losers because whichever product the customer chooses the money always gets back to the same Group while the customer keeps the benefits of choice.
Which is what kept Jaguar/Rover/Triumph moving forwards.IE Rover customers wanted to buy a Rover and Triumph customers wanted to buy a Triumph while Jaguar customers wouldn’t want to get involved with either of those and it’s why,contrary to Stoke’s wishes,the Rover V8 never ended up in the Jaguar and Triumph would/should have been producing a 4.0 Litre 32 valve V8 development of the 2.5 saloon and the Stag based on the Dolomite Sprint engine,in competition with the larger capacity developments of the pushrod Rover V8.That’s ‘if’ the bankers had provided the investment to produce them and kept wage levels in the economy high enough for customers to buy them.Instead of which we ended up with continuing waste of space front wheel drive Austin Morris production and the SD1 and then Jap based products which wrecked both Rover and Triumph leaving just Jaguar still standing.
Although having said that there should always be room for inter divisional co operation where that could be of mutual benefit to the group as a whole in this case for example between AEC and Scammell in the case of putting the 3 VTG cab together with the Crusader chassis and then use the production capacity of both plants to make it and putting the Rover V8 engine in the Triumph 2.5 saloon and Stag in the absence of funds to make the Sprint based V8. 
As for Left Wing Militant Unions the fact is a well paid content workforce doesn’t strike for the fun of it as shown by the German economy at the time.However that’s obviously not the case when bankers try to hold back funding ( and wages in real terms ) and try to keep too much of the returns made by industry for themselves at the expense of the workers.Unfortunately for the economy the bankers,helped by successive Tory ‘and’ so called ‘Labour’ governments,won the argument and the so called ‘left wing militants’ lost it.Which is why the economy is where it is now with an economy based on cheap labour and prices running ahead of incomes and economic growth to match. 
Saviem:
Personally I have always begrudged the Birmingham Management, and the workforce, their total lack of accountability in creating, and then enlarging the “black hole”, that eventually led to the demise of Leyland. Even more gratingly the local Birmingham BBC radio station wheels out on a regular basis a “historian” who propounds the same rediculous clap trap regarding “the workers”, their contribution, and their sanctity,as I find so annoying in dear Carryfasts posts. If only they spoke from experience, not some “warm fuzz like” rearward vision.And even more so from some real understanding of how companys thrive, or perish, (or in more basic terms…could they make a success of running a sweetshop)!! I very much doubt it!
Correct me if I’m wrong but if I’ve read it right your experience of working at shop floor level of a car or truck manufacturing plant was a lot less than the 5 years which I did 
let alone the decades of loyal service,many of who had also fought in a world war to give you the freedom to insult them,put in by many of those who you’re branding as causing the demise of the Leyland Group amongst loads of other British industry.The fact is those workers at Cowley and Longbridge ( or Leyland’s truck manufacturing group ) would have been just as good,probably a lot better,than those in Stuttgart and Munich given the same level of investment and incentive,by the British bankers,as those German workers were getting from the German bankers.
I don’t see much thriving going on in the British economy after at least 35 years of your obvious ideology and views as to how to run things.
Yes the Maxi did have four doors, missed that bit out as I’m posting from my phone and the text has been jumping all over the place, (when the site is running) I think the new server must be in Longbridge!
Leyland was sunk by amalgamation with the disaster that was BMC, reliance on the shrinking Commonwealth Markets, Government Policy such as the NEB and IRC, badly built and designed products from the employees (from the boardroom down) & militant left wing assembly line workers striking at the drop of a hat
The constant references by some posters to bankers and their failure to support British Leyland financially is incorrect and is supposition based on recent banking practices. The banking system of the 1970s was completely different to how it has been since the 1990s and deregulation. The bankers did not run British Leyland and lack of investment into what was a basket case of a company was understandable by both merchant bankers and city stakeholders and shareholders. That was why the Labour Government set up the National Enterprise Board (need to check the name) to provide tax-payer funding to industry.
Hey, I read here of strikes and strikes, Unions,was England a huge stricking country ■■? I know that the French and Italians could strike but the English■■?.or was it only so at the before Thatcher time■■?
Cheers Eric.
Sorry about this folks but I’ve been watching this thread and need to have my three penn’orth!
Firstly the Turks have a saying which is very apposite. ‘The fish rots from the head first’. The problem with BL was that management had abrogated its’ responsibility. Ridiculous labour agreements had been made for short term objectives and the unions made hay. Jokes abounded about shopfloor intransigence, who does what disputes and sheer bloodymindedness. My own view is that the roots of the whole thing lie in the old class system, the ‘them and us’ mentality, the separate restaurants, plush boardrooms against basic facilities for the 'worker’s and inability of the patrician class to communicate with the ‘plebs’. However, having said that, when management finally got round to attempting to rectify the situation the shopfloor did not respond because militants with other agendas had taken control.
Secondly, government should never have become involved so intimately and in such a controlling way especially with forcing through the merger between Leyland and BMC. Socialist governments have no idea how commercial industry thrives. As witnessed in the Eastern bloc ‘workers paradises’ top down diktats are doomed to failure. If they had just let BMC go there would have been short term agony but there was still a chance at that time for the industry to regroup and revive.
Thirdly I have always been a ‘buy British’ advocate because I felt I should ‘put something back’ into the economy that was doing very nicely thankyou for me. TV pictures of workers turning up at Longbridge and Cowley in foreign built machinery did nothing to improve my sympathy for their lot! My first car was an ancient Riley 2.5, but I had a whole range of BMC’s from an Allegro estate, through a Maxi which I loved (5 door by the way!), a Marina GT, a plethora of Princesses, an Ambassador (not quite the quality of the Princesses), and once I started my own company, Jags, Range Rovers, MG ZTT for my wife which I’ve still got, and now I’ve settled on Discos as they are the ideal mix between utility for farm work and a bit of luxury which an old b. like me needs! I have never had serious problems with any of them and even though the build quality on some of them did leave a lot to be desired I enjoyed driving all of them. So I believe that the products were basically good but the money stopped flowing into the industry because of the awful images the public received of the militants, the strikes and the government’s interference.
Fourthly, back to the thread! We had a large fleet of AEC Mandators at Avis many of which were on permanent rental to Bass Charrington. I drove many of them on deliveries and thought the cab to be a great improvement on the ramshackle rubbish being offered by Atkinson, Foden et al. We also had a couple of the very first Scammell Crusaders which were definitely not a cab improvement on the Ergo!
However, when we started receiving F88’s the whole perspective changed in terms of driver comfort and quality. The T45 was, in my view, a very fine cab but I have to agree that lack of investment, the jaded view the industry had at the time of Leyland products occasioned by such things as the fixed head 500’s and the problems with the AEC V8’s ruined its chances.
So I would say to friend ‘Carryfast’ you are right in many respects but the main problem was bad management lousy shop stewarding and the unwillingness of the workers to challenge their stewards. No amount of verbage praising the dignity of the worker can hold water. Once the shopfloor were allowed latitude they seized on it and wrecked their own industry.
Carryfast:
newmercman:
CF again with the big engines! The best selling car the BLMC group members ever built was the 1100/1300 range, the Maxi was a natural progression. That was turned into a fiasco by boardroom decisions to use the wrong engine and limit the doors to two so they could use existing doors from the failed 1800. They followed this by allowing the Maxi and 1100/1300 to fight for market place. SFA to do with bankers…Don’t let the facts that Labour took BL under State Control or that their regional employment policies meant factories were scattered all around the country bringing a logistal nightmare to an already troubled organisation, or that the inflation the workers wanted their wages in line with was caused by the Labour Government, or that strikes by Left Wing Militant Unions caused product launches to be put back by up to year resulting in loss of market share to the continually improving competition get in the way of your hatred for Maggie though…
Firstly you seem to be allowing the idea of volume and turnover to cloud the fact that it’s ‘supposed’ to be all about return on investment ( profit ) that matters not turnover and the fact is regardless of the Austin Morris
division’s turnover/volume figures it was Jaguar/Rover/Triumph division which was producing a better return on the meagre amount of investment which the group as a whole was getting ploughed back into the business by the bankers.The whole idea of Austin Morris moving away from cars like the Westminster and into the unprofitable,cheap,poverty spec front wheel drive market sector was all banker driven.Just as trying to downgrade the general standards of living in the economy as a whole by keeping wage increases below price led inflation was driving the demand for those heaps.
The issue of you seeming to support the idea of ‘rationalisation’,on the erroneous basis of cutting in house competition,would actually put you in agreement with Stokes who you seem to have said previously you don’t agree with.Whereas competition is always a good thing.In this case with the win win situation that there can be no losers because whichever product the customer chooses the money always gets back to the same Group while the customer keeps the benefits of choice.
Which is what kept Jaguar/Rover/Triumph moving forwards.IE Rover customers wanted to buy a Rover and Triumph customers wanted to buy a Triumph while Jaguar customers wouldn’t want to get involved with either of those and it’s why,contrary to Stoke’s wishes,the Rover V8 never ended up in the Jaguar and Triumph would/should have been producing a 4.0 Litre 32 valve V8 development of the 2.5 saloon and the Stag based on the Dolomite Sprint engine,in competition with the larger capacity developments of the pushrod Rover V8.That’s ‘if’ the bankers had provided the investment to produce them and kept wage levels in the economy high enough for customers to buy them.Instead of which we ended up with continuing waste of space front wheel drive Austin Morris production and the SD1 and then Jap based products which wrecked both Rover and Triumph leaving just Jaguar still standing.
Although having said that there should always be room for inter divisional co operation where that could be of mutual benefit to the group as a whole in this case for example between AEC and Scammell in the case of putting the 3 VTG cab together with the Crusader chassis and then use the production capacity of both plants to make it and putting the Rover V8 engine in the Triumph 2.5 saloon and Stag in the absence of funds to make the Sprint based V8.
As for Left Wing Militant Unions the fact is a well paid content workforce doesn’t strike for the fun of it as shown by the German economy at the time.However that’s obviously not the case when bankers try to hold back funding ( and wages in real terms ) and try to keep too much of the returns made by industry for themselves at the expense of the workers.Unfortunately for the economy the bankers,helped by successive Tory ‘and’ so called ‘Labour’ governments,won the argument and the so called ‘left wing militants’ lost it.Which is why the economy is where it is now with an economy based on cheap labour and prices running ahead of incomes and economic growth to match.
Yes austin morris was lloosing money despite being the market leader and there is less profit per unit in small cars but ford and vauxhall made it pay.
Ford famously stripped a mini and said they couldnt even make it for its sale price.
When bl was formed it had a workforce of 120.000 but only needed 80.000. Neither stokes or the labout government had the stomach to put 40.000 out of work at once so the plan was to build more vehicles.
We know carryfast is a petrolhead who cant comprehend not everyone is bothered about driving some v8 150mph car and there is only a limited market for such cars.
So then as today its your mundane famiky runaround that is tge only thing that will keep a workforce that size busy.
The mini and 1100/1300 range were best selles but due to pricing and production costs. There biggest uk rival ford produced very simple to build cars with basic tried and tested mechanicals wrapped in a stylish shell that could be easily updated every few years.
Bl decided to stick with its inotave at tge time fwd models and if you see the initial drawings for the alegro it was very stylish but it was decided it had to use the heater from tge marina which changed tge bonnet line and ruined its looks.
gingerfold:
The constant references by some posters to bankers and their failure to support British Leyland financially is incorrect and is supposition based on recent banking practices. The banking system of the 1970s was completely different to how it has been since the 1990s and deregulation. The bankers did not run British Leyland and lack of investment into what was a basket case of a company was understandable by both merchant bankers and city stakeholders and shareholders. That was why the Labour Government set up the National Enterprise Board (need to check the name) to provide tax-payer funding to industry.
Firstly you seem to be forgetting that the lack of investment by the bankers applied to all sectors of British industry not just the Leyland Group,unlike what was going on in places like Germany and the USA.
The aims of British bankers have always been the same it’s just that after Callaghan’s and then Thatcher’s election as leader they were given carte blanche to put those aims into practice.But the basic fact is,that British industry was always a case of those at the top in the finance sector,taking as much as they can out of manufacturing industry at the expense of investment and workers wages,since the days of the industrial revolution.
Which is why most of British industry was a basket case long before the NEB and the nationalised tax payer funded Leyland Group was even formed and is actually why it was formed in the first place,because the whole group,just like every other part of the British manufacturing industry,was of course failing financially,long before that point firstly when they were all seperate competing private firms and then afterwards as a merged group.Which of course just like the modern day banks had to go cap in hand to the government to bail them out.
The difference,at the time we’re discussing here,is that the British workforce had formed themselves into strong unions to make some difference to the situation of living standards for the workers at least in terms of finally keeping wage levels ahead of,or at least level with,prices.Which is why the uk economic figures were a lot better in 1972 than they are now and since the mid 1970’s and it’s why the bankers have now moved on into the Global Free Market economy to take advantage of the cheap labour opportunities and levels of return on meagre investment levels which it provides.Which is why Indian workers are being buried alive under collapsed factories to pay for the bankers’ and those in the CBI’s continuing life of luxury at the expense of workers wages and industrial investment. 
The banks did have an impact on the fortunes of BL, but not as our loony leftie from Leatherhead suggests.
The Government (Labour) did impose restrictions on the way cars were bought in a failed attempt to control the economy. They raised the deposit required for financing and messed around with the terms of payment at various times, this severly restricted BL’s customer base.
BLMC was also only returning a profit of 2% or thereabouts, this could in no way sustain the company as there was nowhere near enough profit to plough back in the company to allow any development of its product range. The banks were quite right not to loan money as the meagre profits the group generated would not cover the interest on the loans.
Leyland, who made lorries, were a thriving successful company who were coerced into taking on the mess that was BMC. That they were in such a mess was in part due to the failure of GB to get into the EEC in 1960/3. This severely restricted their markets to the Commonwealth, which was trying to establish home grown car manufacturing and EFTA countries.
However, joining the EEC in 1973 was not the end of those problems. In fact it was to add to them as the competition, FIAT, Renault and Volkswagen had been able to trade freely within Europe for over a decade and BLMC was too far behind to catch up.
The home grown competition, US owned Ford and GM were already established in Europe, which not only gave them a larger market, but also allowed them to switch production to European factories when the British ones inevitably went on strike, thus retaining production levels. Coincidentally the workers at Ford and GM had long ago abolished the piece work pay structure that had the BL workers striking on an all too regular basis.
All of these problems meant that the car manufacturing side was going to drag down any company that took it on, as was clearly the case with Leyland Ltd.
So with consideration to all that, it’s remarkable that the Truck Division managed to last as long as it did. Let alone come up with radical new designs like the fixed head engines or gas turbine designs. That they managed to produce an engine (the TL12) to beat Scania and Volvo’s 280hp engines is almost a miracle…
Jazzandy:
Sorry about this folks but I’ve been watching this thread and need to have my three penn’orth!Firstly the Turks have a saying which is very apposite. ‘The fish rots from the head first’. The problem with BL was that management had abrogated its’ responsibility. Ridiculous labour agreements had been made for short term objectives and the unions made hay. Jokes abounded about shopfloor intransigence, who does what disputes and sheer bloodymindedness. My own view is that the roots of the whole thing lie in the old class system, the ‘them and us’ mentality, the separate restaurants, plush boardrooms against basic facilities for the 'worker’s and inability of the patrician class to communicate with the ‘plebs’. However, having said that, when management finally got round to attempting to rectify the situation the shopfloor did not respond because militants with other agendas had taken control.
Secondly, government should never have become involved so intimately and in such a controlling way especially with forcing through the merger between Leyland and BMC. Socialist governments have no idea how commercial industry thrives. As witnessed in the Eastern bloc ‘workers paradises’ top down diktats are doomed to failure. If they had just let BMC go there would have been short term agony but there was still a chance at that time for the industry to regroup and revive.
Thirdly I have always been a ‘buy British’ advocate because I felt I should ‘put something back’ into the economy that was doing very nicely thankyou for me. TV pictures of workers turning up at Longbridge and Cowley in foreign built machinery did nothing to improve my sympathy for their lot! My first car was an ancient Riley 2.5, but I had a whole range of BMC’s from an Allegro estate, through a Maxi which I loved (5 door by the way!), a Marina GT, a plethora of Princesses, an Ambassador (not quite the quality of the Princesses), and once I started my own company, Jags, Range Rovers, MG ZTT for my wife which I’ve still got, and now I’ve settled on Discos as they are the ideal mix between utility for farm work and a bit of luxury which an old b. like me needs! I have never had serious problems with any of them and even though the build quality on some of them did leave a lot to be desired I enjoyed driving all of them. So I believe that the products were basically good but the money stopped flowing into the industry because of the awful images the public received of the militants, the strikes and the government’s interference.
Fourthly, back to the thread! We had a large fleet of AEC Mandators at Avis many of which were on permanent rental to Bass Charrington. I drove many of them on deliveries and thought the cab to be a great improvement on the ramshackle rubbish being offered by Atkinson, Foden et al. We also had a couple of the very first Scammell Crusaders which were definitely not a cab improvement on the Ergo!
However, when we started receiving F88’s the whole perspective changed in terms of driver comfort and quality. The T45 was, in my view, a very fine cab but I have to agree that lack of investment, the jaded view the industry had at the time of Leyland products occasioned by such things as the fixed head 500’s and the problems with the AEC V8’s ruined its chances.So I would say to friend ‘Carryfast’ you are right in many respects but the main problem was bad management lousy shop stewarding and the unwillingness of the workers to challenge their stewards. No amount of verbage praising the dignity of the worker can hold water. Once the shopfloor were allowed latitude they seized on it and wrecked their own industry.
I’ve mostly run BL cars starting with a Triumph 2.5 from when I was 17 in 1975 until around 1980 and then two series 3 Jaguar X12’s since 1988 with the current one being a 1984 one.With hindsight the BMW 3.0 Litre which I had between around 1982 until 1988 was an overrated and expensive mistake when it would have been a lot cheaper and better to have replaced the Triumph with a last of the line 1977 one and put a Rover V8 in it before buying the Jag.
However ironically the BMW was bought at a price which was so low as to be an offer I couldn’t refuse it’s first owner obviously already having found out that the things were over priced and overrrated compared to the British competition. 
As for your final paragraph concerning British workers.Firstly maybe a few misguided socialists did get voted into the union leadership but that’s not the same thing as saying that every British worker was a raving commie.It’s just at the time no one (rightly ) was going to vote for a union leadership that was on the side of the bankers in allowing wages to fall behind prices considering that was the simple choice there was no in between.
While the inconvenient truth that shoots down your argument is that the American automotive manufacturing industry and it’s highly unionised workforce then suffered a similar fate as their British counterparts.None of who could exactly be described as being raving communists.The only difference in the case of their truck manufacturing sector being that it wasn’t opened up to foreign competition in the way in which the British one was.
newmercman:
The banks did have an impact on the fortunes of BL, but not as our loony leftie from Leatherhead suggests.The Government (Labour) did impose restrictions on the way cars were bought in a failed attempt to control the economy. They raised the deposit required for financing and messed around with the terms of payment at various times, this severly restricted BL’s customer base.
BLMC was also only returning a profit of 2% or thereabouts, this could in no way sustain the company as there was nowhere near enough profit to plough back in the company to allow any development of its product range. The banks were quite right not to loan money as the meagre profits the group generated would not cover the interest on the loans.
Leyland, who made lorries, were a thriving successful company who were coerced into taking on the mess that was BMC. That they were in such a mess was in part due to the failure of GB to get into the EEC in 1960/3. This severely restricted their markets to the Commonwealth, which was trying to establish home grown car manufacturing and EFTA countries.
However, joining the EEC in 1973 was not the end of those problems. In fact it was to add to them as the competition, FIAT, Renault and Volkswagen had been able to trade freely within Europe for over a decade and BLMC was too far behind to catch up.
The home grown competition, US owned Ford and GM were already established in Europe, which not only gave them a larger market, but also allowed them to switch production to European factories when the British ones inevitably went on strike, thus retaining production levels. Coincidentally the workers at Ford and GM had long ago abolished the piece work pay structure that had the BL workers striking on an all too regular basis.
All of these problems meant that the car manufacturing side was going to drag down any company that took it on, as was clearly the case with Leyland Ltd.
So with consideration to all that, it’s remarkable that the Truck Division managed to last as long as it did. Let alone come up with radical new designs like the fixed head engines or gas turbine designs. That they managed to produce an engine (the TL12) to beat Scania and Volvo’s 280hp engines is almost a miracle…
There is another version of history that says the Leyland Truck Group,just like the car divisions,was made up of previously failing seperate private companies that couldn’t raise sufficient investment from the finance sector to move forward and so,just like the car group,had to merge and then try to continue by using taxation funded investment.Which of course is all dependent on taxation revenues which are all dependent on keeping wage levels high enough to not only provide the required taxes to pay for it all but also to leave the workers with enough disposable incomes to buy the products which industry is making and trucks are moving.Just as the American economy had proved from the 1950’s the way forward was investment in domestic industry and keeping imports down and paying decent wages to allow workers to afford to buy load of goods and decent sized cars,not mickey mouse loss making small engined front wheel drive heaps.That was until Reagan got elected.Who’s calling who a loony leftie now. 
As for the TL12 powered Marathon to beat a Scania the SA 400 specced with a 300 hp + ■■■■■■■ or Rolls would have been more of an indication of progress.While the T45 was about as good as it ever got for Leyland at least after the TL12 had been ditched in favour of the outsourced ■■■■■■■ and Rolls options.
Why was bmc losing money in the 60s as market leader. Probaly because it had become a bloated overstaffed monster.
Ford done well churning out anglias escorts and cortinas
The Sed Ak 400 was a rare beast with anything bigger than an E290 or RR290, so once again you are comparing apples to oranges.
The TL12 engined Marathon soundly beat the F10 in every road test they had.
The above statements are facts, not its, buts or maybes.
Even if you move in to the 80s and 90s erf and foden etc went for the ■■■■■■■ fuller rockwell driveline.
This driveline with the 10 litre engine was probaly more reliable and fuel efficent than any scania volvo etc in that class and the 14 litre was more than a match for a v8 scanis but scania and volvo done a better all round product and tge cab looked more macho which is how geoffrey seems to measure quality
kr79:
Why was bmc losing money in the 60s as market leader. Probaly because it had become a bloated overstaffed monster.
Ford done well churning out anglias escorts and cortinas
Ford done well turning out Cortinas because the Cortina was a better car than any of the front wheel drive BMC heaps which,as I’ve said,needed to be virtually given away to give anyone with any sense an incentive to buy one.While to add insult to injury they also cost BMC/Leyland Group loads a money in developing and producing a fwd engine and driveline set up which,as any BMW engineer could tell you,is inferior to rwd,all to save a few bob at the assembly stage,over the good old fashioned rwd set up used on the Cortina and the superior Jaguar/Rover/Triumph division products etc.
Which then just left the choice between something like a used 5 year old Triumph 2.5 instead of a later or even new Cortina bearing in mind that even the 1600 crossflow engine in the Cortina was usually a smoking clattering heap of junk before the Triumph motor was even starting to wear out assuming it had been driven at anywhere near Triumph type levels of performance.( At which point,with hindsight having been there the most cost effective option would have been to put a Rover V8 engine into the Triumph rather than making the mistake of buying an expensive to run comparable BMW ).The same usually also applied in the case of the choice of Ford in the used market in that it was the older 6 cylinder Zodiacs and then the Granada which were the better choice than a newer or new Cortina.While a V8 Granada using the 302 or 351 lumps as produced in the South African market was even better. 
Good products are all about the amount of money that’s put into them at the design and production stage and in the case of Ford it wasn’t that it’s workers were less ‘militant’ or anything to do with staffing levels.It was because it had a big US parent providing US investment money for everything it did and then used that investment as cost effectively as possible in making relatively affordable rwd saloon cars like the Zodiac,Cortina and Granada. At least before,just like GM,it then decided to give all the work to the Germans instead and then made the same mistake as Leyland made in going for fwd designs to save some money in assembly costs.
Hence Dagenham and Luton are no longer the employers they were back then and Ford and GM’s fortunes then nosedived as a result of that change from making affordable rwd products to cheap and nasty fwd ones. 
As for the lack of investment and resulting mistakes made by BMC division bringing down the the Leyland Truck Group,it would be equally fair to say that the lack of investment and resulting mistakes made by at least the Leyland and AEC truck divisions,helped to bring down the profitable Jaguar/Rover/Triumph car division when added to those of the BMC car division.In all cases it was that lack of investment cash to do anything better and an economy which was making it ever more difficult to sell decent products even if they’d have built them that did it not the workers.