PART 13,GARDNER ENGINES,PAGE 43.
Hello Solly again 
. I’ve sorted out the computer problem - my computer problem and not Bolton
University’s “computer problem” .
I take you back to some of your comments in your post on page 41:-
“If as the agents, and the “Continental lorry manufacturers” themselves claimed at the time, that their products were superior to the British products….why did they buy out the British companies?
What part in these acquisitions did the British and EU governments play in it….and why?
Also worth noting…and I stand to be corrected… is that UK operators were not hauling to the continent with the same volume of traffic as were the other continental countries between themselves. Would this not be one of the reasons that Brit operators and hauliers didn’t need to spec their lorries so highly? Why the need for all the speed and power. After all why spec a lorry to travel thousands of miles per trip…mostly on motorways over 1000’s of miles…. when most of the UK traffic at the time was domestic/within our own borders? Brit hauliers and operators didn’t have to contend with the same regional topography as our continental friends.
IMHO the ultimate need for speed in the UK was introduced by the “Supermarket chains” and the continental manufacturers fitted the bill.”
At least some of the statements that I’ve made in prevous posts,and what I say in this post,
will provide at least some of the answers :-
VALKYRIE » Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:15 pm
PART 7,GARDNER DIESEL ENGINES,PAGE 26.
"As for that ludicrous 20 MPH speed limit :This law was a dead letter .Hardly anybody took any notice of it,many lorry drivers drove fast when running empty and also used Aberdeen Overdrive when running both loaded and empty!
Furthermore,the equally ridiculous 30 MPH speed limit for motorcoaches and buses was also a dead letter! In fact,certain motorcoaches were fitted with overdrive gearboxes and could do 60 MPH plus!
Nevertheless,it probably is true that these speed limits generally stifled engine development in the United Kingdom,leaving British lorry and passenger vehicle makers at a disadvantage compared to the Europeans,Scandinavians and Americans who all operated higher powered lorries,buses
and motorcoaches because of higher and more relaxed speed limits,bigger,better and faster roads:- autobahns,autostradas,freeways,turnpikes,etc.These continents have also got more mountainous roads and hills,so their motor vehicles need to be more powerful."
British lorry manufacturers did come out with European style lorries in the 1970s,such as the
Leyland Marathon,ERF European,Foden Universal,and British road haulage operators operated a
lot of European and Middle East freight services in the 1970s.And British lorry manufacturers
were gradually improving their lorry ranges to hopefully be just as good as European and
Scandinavian lorries.
And in answer to your “why did they [the Europeans,Scandinavians and Americans] buy out the British companies? What part in these acquisitions did the British and EU governments play in it….and why?”
From May 1979 to May 1997 the United Kingdom had four successive Conservative Governments,one of the main policies of which was free market economics that gave big business a free hand at running themselves,with hardly any Government interferance at all and no financial support.
It was a survival of the fittest mentality. They also had a policy of privatisation of…
seemingly - anything! Gas,electricity,British Rail,and so on,including motorcoach and bus operators!
Now,according to Doug Jack,one time employee of Leyland Motors,and the author of the definitive
books of the history of Leyland motorcoaches and buses:LEYLAND BUS;LEYLAND BUS MK2;BEYOND REALITY LEYLAND BUS THE TWILIGHT YEARS,Margaret Thatcher put four million people out of work
in the United Kingdom’s manufacturing industry.I would say that this is somewhat of an exaggeration,but at least some of the job losses were to make British Industry more efficient and competitive .
Margaret Thatcher and her Government had had enough of the British Leyland debacle and the millions of pounds that it was costing British tax payers,so she got rid of it:-
LEYLAND BUS,the motorcoach and bus division of Leyland Vehicles,was sold to it’s management
in 1986,and was bought by Volvo in 1988.The Leyland marque name was dropped from buses and
motorcoaches in 1994 
.
LEYLAND VEHICLES,which made Leyland lorries,and comprised of Albion Motors,Scammell Lorries,
Self Changing Gears,Freight Rover Vans,etc,was part of BL Ltd,which became the Rover Group
in 1986.
Leyland Vehicles,which was losing money,was sold to DAF in 1987,and as part of the deal with
the Government,Freight Rover Vans,which became LDV,was thrown in for good measure as a sweetner.
The resultant new Leyland DAF range very tragically had no place for Scammell vehicles,and indeed
the legendary Scammell marque name - a result of very misguided DAF management! 
The Leyland name was dropped in 2000 .
ERF.The chairman of ERF,Peter E.P.Foden,retired in 1996 and sold ERF Ltd to Western Star,who in
turn sold ERF to MAN,who had a half-hearted attitude towards ERF,shut down it’s new Middlewich
factory (true,I don’t think it was paying),transfered production to Germany and essentially
tried to pass off MAN lorries as ERF lorries in the last few years of ERF production ,which ended
in 2007 .
FODEN.This company went bust in 1980,and in the name of free-market economics,the receiver
sold this company to the American PACCAR = Pacific Car And Foundry Corporation,owner of
the Kenworth and Peterbilt motor truck marques .
PACCAR’s policy for Foden up until 1998 was custom motor truck building and profit - not volume.
Foden’s new Alpha lorry range was aimed at volume and profit,and many of the components came from
the DAF CF lorry range - DAF had been bought by PACCAR in 1996.
In 2005-2006 sales of DAF lorries in the UK were supposedly booming,so to free up more production
capacity for DAF vehicles,PACCAR DAF very misguidedly stopped producing Foden road vehicles
in 2006 - after 150 years of production! It was a scandal! And now at least some former Foden dealers are Japaneses Hino dealers! It just goes to show how incompetent PACCAR DAF management is!
SEDDON ATKINSON,after years of uncertainity over it’s future (which harmed sales),this company was sold to IVECO in 1992,the new owner updated the Seddon Atkinson Strato lorry range,but,due
to strong competition from mainly European and Scandinavian marques,Seddon Atkinson lost sales
and eventually just made a range of refuse vehicles.IVECO closed down the Woodstock,Oldham,
factory,transfered production over to Spain and stopped making Seddon Atinson’s in 2006 .
[ZB] Anorak wrote on page 42 of this Thread “Gardners were the most efficient automotive engines in the world until the early 1980s”.
Well there is efficiency and efficiency.Gardner engines reached a thermal efficiency of 40% -
a record at that time in the 1960s-1970s,they were also the most economical engines in
terms of fuel consumption and in overall running costs.They probably also had the least amount
of downtime than any other marque of diesel engine .
But if efficiency is also rated in terms of how much power and torque an engine produces,Gardner
engines were not as efficient as the more powerful AEC,Caterpillar,■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
Rolls-Royce,Mercedes-Benz,Volvo,Scania and other diesel engine marques .
[ZB] Anorak also wrote on page 42 “The subject that, I believe, has not been investigated at length, on this thread or anywhere else, is the Gardner company’s decision not to keep pace with the European market’s demand for higher power outputs from about 1960. This, combined with their apparent indifference to the great sales opportunities in Europe at that time, is at the root of their eventual demise.”
I have mentioned several times in my previous posts on this Thread (and some other members have),that L.Gardner and Sons Ltd had all on to satisfy the engine demands of the British
home market for lorry,motorcoach and bus engines - hence the 2-3 year waiting lists - never mind
trying to supply European lorry,motorcoach and bus manufacturers with diesel engines .
As I mentioned in my previous post,Neoplan built a large batch of Gardner 6LYT-engined motorcoaches,that gave successful service,but at least some of these motorcoaches were re-engined
with Mercedes-Benz,Scania,etc,engines because of poor service back up in Europe by Gardner .
Hugh Gardner was a fuddy duddy of a conservative Chief Engineer with a capital C,who was somewhat
reluctant to come out with more powerful engines,even up rated ones,and we are talking about
naturally aspirated engines - not supercharged or turbocharged ones! He was misguidedly against
supercharging and turbocharging,mainly because they placed greater strain on the engine,which
was really nonsense if you designed an engine to take turbocharging in the first place!
Hugh Gardner thought he didn’t have an engine that could take turbocharging anyway,Gardner apparently could not afford to develop a turbocharged engine in any case - that is until
Hawker Siddeley took over Gardner .
Gardner continued to produce underpowered engines because 1. Hugh Gardner was a fuddy duddy ,
2.Gardner was complacent and rested on it’s laurels,3.Many Gardner customers were marque loyal,
old-fashioned,conservative…and some of these were penny pinchers, 4.Gardner suffered
years of under investment,5. Gardner was slow to respond to higher engine power trends,6.
Generally speaking,in the 1970s and 1980s Gardner fell behind in the power stakes more than ever
and 7.Gardner’s new engine range -5LXCT,6LXDT and 6LYT - of 1984 were underdeveloped and had quality control problems,which greatly damaged Gardner’s reputation 
.
All of the above facts did severe damage to L.Gardner & Sons Ltd in the medium to long term,and eventually caused Gardner to go out of business .
In regard to the University of Bolton UBIR: University of Bolton Institutional Repository
History: Theses History
2010
L. Gardner and Sons Limited: the history of a
British industrial firm. A study with special
reference to markets, workplace industrial relations,
and manufacturing engineering technology,
1955-1986.
Maurice J. Halton
University of Bolton, mauricehalton@hotmail.com
ubir.bolton.ac.uk/index.php?acti … his_theses
I think that the above Theses does come to the same conclusions on L.Gardner & Sons Ltd that Graham Edge does in his Gardner history book,that I do in my posts on this Thread and the posts of other TruckNetUK Members in this Gardner Engines Thread 
.
VALKYRIE.
My money would be on the Gardner 