geoffthecrowtaylor:
And what s more I ve had enough of this technical crap, whilst savouring a large blended Scotch and stroking the cat i ll try to think of something more entertaining than all this guff ,don t hold your breath.
hiya,
Yes good buddy with you 100% 
thanks harry, long retired.
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Anorak CF is not talking about the cost of WW2 he s on about the Krauts having more U.S assistance than the U.K. its not true, check out the Marshall Plan its all there Crow.And â â â â â â â â to gearboxes.
Thanks for that Mr. Crow. According to the chart, GB got more than France, who got more than Germany. The Netherlands and Sweden got two balloons and an orange respectively. Cfâs theory of post-war disparities in funding affecting the behaviour of lorry builders is duly turned on its head. Iâm sure he just makes it all up.
[zb]
anorak:Thanks for the link. It said this:
The economic cost of the war has been estimated at US$1500 billion.
Of this, the US spent 21%, Britain 20%, Germany 18% and the USSR 13%.
(Source: The Penguin Atlas of World History ; Hermann Kinder and Werner Hilgemann; Originally published as Atlas zur Weltgeschichte).British lorry builders were no more skint than Continental ones. Their owners were used to a faster return, that is all. When the industry changed in the fifties- more R&D, expansion/consolidation of manufacturers, new markets, the GB lot decided it to take the easy money from the markets who would accept old-hat technology. That is another overarching generalisation, of course: Leyland and AEC had the money and the foresight to have a bash at it but, unfortunately, they fell under the influence of the charlatan Stokes and his small-firm mentality.
It also said that Britainâs debt stood at 250% of GDP in 1945.Debt to who and who paid it certainly not the Germans.It should have been a case that German workers were paid a subsistence wage living in tents after WW2 and if they didnât work they didnât eat and we keep all the money that Germany used to re build their country to re build ours instead and use the profits made from German industry to pay all of the money back instead of us.The economies of the two countries would have probably looked a lot different in the 1970âs let alone now. 
[zb]
anorak:geoffthecrowtaylor:
Anorak CF is not talking about the cost of WW2 he s on about the Krauts having more U.S assistance than the U.K. its not true, check out the Marshall Plan its all there Crow.And â â â â â â â â to gearboxes.Thanks for that Mr. Crow. According to the chart, GB got more than France, who got more than Germany. The Netherlands and Sweden got two balloons and an orange respectively. Cfâs theory of post-war disparities in funding affecting the behaviour of lorry builders is duly turned on its head. Iâm sure he just makes it all up.
I think youâre forgetting that money had to be paid back with interest it wasnât a gift and being that it was Germany who caused the war then it should have been Germany that paid it all back not us. 
CF you re doing it on purpose are you a Russian Jew or an under privileged product of an approved British school ,why do you constantly leave yourself open to so much criticism you remind me of my dad he could cause an argument in an empty room, i m going for my final night cap now and wish everyone a pleasant night. Crow.
Carryfast would argue with his own shadow
newmercman:
Carryfast would argue with his own shadow
Things might have looked a bit better for British industry if these plans hadânt been watered down for âsome reasonâ.So why would the British establishment have wanted to help the German industry re build instead of getting rid of the competition.
newmercman:
[zb]
anorak:
Nmm, gingerfold- The notion that the British Bulldog mentality made us disregard the talents of foreigners may apply to popular culture, but we are talking about the decisions of successful businessmen, with firms full of clever people. One would expect them to be less naĂÂŻve and better-informed. For some reason, they found a reason or reasons (or excuses) not to join the party. If a collaboration was the only way, there were plenty of potential suitors in Europe in the fifties, all of them doing whatever it took to keep up with the increasing demand for top-weight lorries.I disagree, at the end of the 60s both companies (Gardner and Foden) were on the downward spiral that would eventually lead to their demise
Up until that point, youâre correct, they were successful businessmen, but the decisions they made in the early sixties were naive
Take it one step further and look at the arrogance of Gardner, they were notorious for long lead times, so their product was obviously in demand, but did they ramp up production or invest in more facilities so that they could upply the customer with the engines they so clearly wanted when they wanted them, no they never, the attitude was more like âYouâll get it when we want to give it to youâ and look where that got them
The same arrogance was responsible for their reluctance to move with the times and develop a turbocharged engine, they had the brains and their engineering ability was second to none, but they were just not interested, their belief was that turbocharging was unnecessary and that you would never need an engine with more than 250hp, this arrogance led to the end of the company, so if they were well informed, they didnât listen
Iâve thought about my post above and I would like to add to it. I made that post with the benefit of hindsight, which is a luxury the likeâs of Foden and Gardner did not have. Maybe what I term as arrogance was actually belief in the home market and that of our Commonwealth and in fact, rather than arrogance the decisions that were made in boardrooms around the country were ones of patriotism
The Directors would not have been wrong in making decisions based on that, we had just won (with some Trans Atlantic help) a war and our Empire was very strong, why would they want to mess around with Johnny Foreigner 
Of course this only applies to the 50s and 60s, the decisions to not move with the times in the 70s and 80s were a different matter altogether, by that time they were so far behind the eight ball it wouldâve been next to impossible to recover, especially as the Governmentâs of the recent past had given away any advantages that were once available to British Companies in their misguided quest for European Harmony 
Gardner had people Queing up to buy there engines well in to the 70s and by then the devolpment costs of there engines must have been well and truely recouped they were a brand people trusted it was obvious the motorways cross channel ferries and bigger trucks were going to change transport so why not devolp new products hauliers marine people and god knows who else trusted the name and Iâm sure they would have accepted these designs.
Look at the AEC v8 and the fixed head leyland engine people tried them as they trusted AEC and leyland. The fact they was released before they were fully devolped is a different story.
newmercman:
the decisions to not move with the times in the 70s and 80s were a different matter altogether, by that time they were so far behind the eight ball it wouldâve been next to impossible to recover, especially as the Governmentâs of the recent past had given away any advantages that were once available to British Companies in their misguided quest for European Harmony
^This.
However it still probably wouldnât have made any difference concerning the issues that,even if weâd have just kept ourselves in a much stronger trading position with the colonies,instead of trying to do the impossible of taking over the euro markets from their domestic manufacturers,the combination of an effectively broke economy from the end of WW2 on and the resulting debt mountain,therefore lack of development funds from the banks,and a domestic customer base that wanted to keep going in the opposite direction to everyone else around the world,all still would have been in the equation.
As Iâve said the only way forward for the British manufacturers was the American way and it would have been government action concerning the f word (for road fuel costs) that probably would have provided the biggest catalyst required to change the mindset of the British domestic market in forgetting about itâs fixation on fuel consumption to the point of forgetting about everything else.But for the British commercial vehicle engine manufacturers,especially Gardner owing to itâs always average at best outputs,the outcome was always going to be the same.
Which is all ironic considering that itâs that same issue of over taxed road fuel that is the biggest threat to the road transport industry today.
kr79:
Gardner had people Queing up to buy there engines well in to the 70s and by then the devolpment costs of there engines must have been well and truely recouped they were a brand people trusted it was obvious the motorways cross channel ferries and bigger trucks were going to change transport so why not devolp new products hauliers marine people and god knows who else trusted the name and Iâm sure they would have accepted these designs.
Look at the AEC v8 and the fixed head leyland engine people tried them as they trusted AEC and leyland. The fact they was released before they were fully devolped is a different story.
The development costs of their old obsolete naturally aspirated designs had probably been recouped but thatâs not the same thing as AEC and Gardner having the development funds to produce something that would have been better than the whole combined product range of â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â Mercedes during the 1970âs/80âs
The story of the leyland groups profits been used to subsidise Austin princess production but Gardner ERF foden Atkinson etc were private companyâs with healthy sales.
Scania Volvo Man Daf etc were hardly giant companyâs with bottomless pockets but they found cash to design and build new products.
kr79:
The story of the leyland groups profits been used to subsidise Austin princess production but Gardner ERF foden Atkinson etc were private companyâs with healthy sales.
Scania Volvo Man Daf etc were hardly giant companyâs with bottomless pockets but they found cash to design and build new products.
As Iâve said I think youâre underestimating the British economyâs and therefore the British banksâ financial position in those post war years and the amount of money which was actually available to British industry compared to that of itâs major competitors definitely at the time and probably since.
However,as Iâve said even dragons den would probably have turned down Gardner for investment taking into account all those factors of what the opposition had available and the state of the domestic marketâs demands.If the domestic customers were only buying 8 LXCâs into the 1980âs and the foreign markets were all covered by their own domestic products or US ones then why invest in providing non existent funds to Gardner to develop anything better.
The same market that was buying untried foreign vehicles with an open mind? What happened to you never had it so good and the white heat of technology and the 60s boom
kr79:
The same market that was buying untried foreign vehicles with an open mind? What happened to you never had it so good and the white heat of technology and the 60s boom
For the purposes of this topic it was the same market that was buying the same old tech naturally aspirated Gardners in the 1980âs that it was buying in the 1950âs.
The 1960âs boom was all about the smart money going into Boeing to build 707âs and 747âs not Vickers to build VC 10âs for aircraft and Mercedes Benz,Scania,Volvo,DAF,GM and â â â â â â â etc etc for truck products not firms like AEC and Gardner.If youâd have worked with and asked any of that war time generation who were working in Britainâs post war factories at the time most of them would have told you that theyâd won the war but lost the peace by 1960.
Well Cf so now we re onto aircraft you really are a mine of useless information 707s stole the show after the 2 Comet crashes in the 60s all the research done by De Havilland to find the cause of these tragedies, which incidentally they did find was to the benefit of all other aircraft manufacturers the Comet like the Concorde was simply to small to be economically viable ,but to our lasting pride Comet was the first pure jet passenger plane in service and no one repeat no one has so far produced any thing like Concorde and that includes Uncle Sam ,not Gardner powered but good old made in Derby Rolls Royce. Bye for now, Crow.
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Well Cf so now we re onto aircraft you really are a mine of useless information 707s stole the show after the 2 Comet crashes in the 60s all the research done by De Havilland to find the cause of these tragedies, which incidentally they did find was to the benefit of all other aircraft manufacturers the Comet like the Concorde was simply to small to be economically viable ,but to our lasting pride Comet was the first pure jet passenger plane in service and no one repeat no one has so far produced any thing like Concorde and that includes Uncle Sam ,not Gardner powered but good old made in Derby Rolls Royce. Bye for now, Crow.
I think youâve missed the relevant comparison between the success of the 707 or DC8 compared to the VC10 nothing to do with the Comet.The harsh reality is the bankers and investors were looking for large scale commercial returns not funding brilliant money no object engineering and while the Brits have always been good at the latter itâs the former which you need to pay for it which is how the US got to the moon.But the comparison of Concorde with the 707 is like comparing the Scammell Commander with a â â â â â â â powered Kenworth or a Volvo F88/89/10/12 etc.
Coincidently I probably would have grown up in a much poorer household if my Dad hadnât chucked in his job as an engineer at Vickers and went to work for a small local precision engineering firm instead because of the zb wages which British aircraft builders were paid compared to their American counterparts and the same applied in the case of his job at Napiers making engines before that and if our major aircraft engineering companies were in that financial state itâs no surprise that companies like Gardner had no chance whatsoever. 
Carryfast, did you live under Electricity Pylons as a child by any chance
newmercman:
Carryfast, did you live under Electricity Pylons as a child by any chance
Not as I remember but it probably wouldnât have made much difference to the fact that even a trained monkey could understand what happened to and caused the demise of firms like Gardner.
Carryfast:
newmercman:
Carryfast, did you live under Electricity Pylons as a child by any chanceNot as I remember but it probably wouldnât have made much difference to the fact that even a trained monkey could understand what happened to and caused the demise of firms like Gardner.
How come you donât get it then?