Why did British Leyland fail?

cargo · 2 February 2016 06:15

andrew.s:
……. on general maintence is a piece of ■■■■ and most jobs easy if you know what your doing-engine swap on a Saturday no problem

Yes it simply needed a change of mindset.
Previous engine bays were usually cavernous things with a baby in-line engine sitting fair square. You could get in and have a real good tinker.
We all thought the Mini, Hillman Imp, VW etc were horrid to work on but by today’s standard, they weren’t that bad.
Those old fashioned engines were pretty quick to have out, no fancy ecu, sensors and whatever, very basic.
Ever seen under the hood of a 300ZX, the classic “engine-out” vehicle.
Another example, to check the air filter in my R32 there’s a heap of boost pipework to remove and one AFM. That’s just to open the lid on the air box.
The whole concept of “ease of maintenance” went out the window somewhere in the late 80’s.

carryfast · 2 February 2016 14:22

cargo:
The whole concept of “ease of maintenance” went out the window somewhere in the late 80’s.

Let’s just say that the values of old tech inefficient push rod 60’s American rwd motors or their modern counterparts like the VXR8 haven’t exactly gone through the floor in favour of their potential buyers rushing to buy a modern tech complicated fwd heap instead.Among other similar examples.

motorauthority.com/news/1092 … 30-seconds.

kr79 · 2 February 2016 14:44

My last comment on this post as it’s like arguing with my ex wife.
A mustang will always sell as it’s a bit different but your bog standard family motor people will be more concerned about its road tax band or does it have a dvd player in the baack to keep the kids quiet not what wheels are driven as they see a car ad a means of transport not and driving as better than getting the bus.

dazcapri · 2 February 2016 15:43

Firstly there’s no argument that the 1100 was selling.The question was its ‘profitability’ in large part because people generally bought the thing on price not by practical choice.

You couldn’t possibly have had an A40 from Leyland Group because BMC/BMH didn’t join Leyland until 1968.

If you read the Marina article closely you’ll see that Stokes was under massive pressure to continue with BMC’s fwd design philosophy and to ditch the Marina project from within BMC based on the ( correct ) premise that such a move would further undermine the already precarious market credibility of BMC’s fwd products.At least only some of which he obviously overruled in the case of the Marina but obviously not all.While it’s obvious that the Marina project was the baby of Triumph’s engineering thinking in the form of Webster and Turnbull not BMC.IE Leyland allies of Stokes at which point it’s a fair bet that the whole situation was effectively one of civil war already breaking out between BMC and Leyland Group regarding the fwd v rwd argument at that point very shortly after the 1968 merger.Any ex Ford staff obviously having to do whatever they were told to do in that regard not their own initiative.I’m sure probably themselves asking the same questions privately why are we being told to design the worst possible option of the under funded compromised rwd car that we need to save money for the fwd ones we don’t.

As for the issue of fwd v rwd in the case of Triumph.You’re still left with the inconvenient question of ‘if’ fwd was the way forward ( at that point in time ) why did Triumph ‘start off’ with fwd small mid range products in the form of the 1300 and 1500 which had to ‘then’ be re engineered to rwd and not vice versa ?.
[/quote]
The trouble with BL was that no one realised there profits margins were all wrong there fwd cars were there bestsellers so when it was time to update they tried to keep to the same winning formula.

Your right you couldn’t buy an a40 from bl that should have read bmc but we both know the real point was that if people wanted rwd there were cars they could but they chose fwd

Stokes was under pressure from austin to use what little money there was in the kitty to develop their fwd cars but he was also under from pressure from morris,Triumph and probably most if not all of the other companies in the bl group(approximately 40 companies) to spend the cash on them and not on what they considered a rival company. It’s already been pointed out that triumph refused to fit an engine from their rival rover into the new stag sports car even though it would’ve been a better product had they done so. Civil war did break out in bl but it was never fwd versus rwd it was more austin v morris v triumph v jaguar etc, most of whom considered themselves as rivals you had the crazy situation in some towns where they all had there own dealerships basically competing against each other.

The designers would have done exactly what they were told but they were told by stokes not Issigonis,who had been sidelined by then,so your theory that fwd was given priority because of his influence is completely wrong it was given priority by stokes because it was his bestselling product. Haynes did leave bl he probably could see that it had no future.

Triumph introduced the fwd 1300 in 1965 to take on their, then,rivals bmc to try and take sales from the bestselling 1100,it was supposed to replace the rwd herald range so even triumph thought the future was in fwd. Unfortunately they got the design wrong they fitted the engine front to back instead of transversely like there more successful rivals and it was a compromise from the start. Once they became part of bl the role of triumph was to be the more upmarket brand in the range,austin was the shopping runaround morris the fleet option,so there was no role for another small fwd car and the shape of the Triumph suited rwd better. As a former toledo and dolomite sprint owner the way triumph were overlooked / underfunded during the bl years was bordering on criminal.

The cars produced by bl were supposedly aimed at different customers,although the reality being they ended up competing against each other, bl didn’t think the person who wanted an allegro would buy a Marina or a Triumph .

carryfast · 2 February 2016 16:21

kr79:
A mustang will always sell as it’s a bit different but your bog standard family motor people will be more concerned about its road tax band or does it have a dvd player in the baack

The inconvenient fact being that in that market sector the customer buying decision and choice is actually between Focus ST v Mustang.The result being that Ford will now have to go to all the aggro of making a 4 wd Focus.Which obviously defeats the object and argument in favour of fwd in that sector at least.While then just creating a different downside for the customer of all the added expense and maintenance issues of a 4 wd transmission v 2 wd.On that note it’s no surprise that Ford seem to be possibly using rationing of Mustang supplies in an attempt to protect Focus sales in that market sector.While a Mustang obviously wouldn’t ‘sell’ if it used the fwd Focus engine and driveline package.

carryfast · 2 February 2016 17:03

dazcapri:
Your right you couldn’t buy an a40 from bl that should have read bmc but we both know the real point was that if people wanted rwd there were cars they could but they chose fwd

Stokes was under pressure from austin to use what little money there was in the kitty to develop their fwd cars but he was also under from pressure from morris,Triumph and probably most if not all of the other companies in the bl group(approximately 40 companies) to spend the cash on them and not on what they considered a rival company. It’s already been pointed out that triumph refused to fit an engine from their rival rover into the new stag sports car even though it would’ve been a better product had they done so. Civil war did break out in bl but it was never fwd versus rwd it was more austin v morris v triumph v jaguar etc, most of whom considered themselves as rivals you had the crazy situation in some towns where they all had there own dealerships basically competing against each other.

The designers would have done exactly what they were told but they were told by stokes not Issigonis,who had been sidelined by then,so your theory that fwd was given priority because of his influence is completely wrong it was given priority by stokes because it was his bestselling product. Haynes did leave bl he probably could see that it had no future.
As a former toledo and dolomite sprint owner the way triumph were overlooked / underfunded during the bl years was bordering on criminal.

The cars produced by bl were supposedly aimed at different customers,although the reality being they ended up competing against each other, bl didn’t think the person who wanted an allegro would buy a Marina or a Triumph .

The point being that BMC had no rwd products to compete with as part of the Leyland Group and there were rwd cars that buyers who preferred them could choose from the big US competitors and they did just that in large numbers.Obviously in large enough numbers to make BMC’s fwd designs commercially unviable hence the Marina and the change from fwd Triumph 1300 and 1500 to rwd.As for the civil war in question going on between pro rwd Marina Stokes and pro fwd BMC staff that couldn’t possibly have been an inter marque dispute it was all about personalities and personal engineering preference.Bearing in mind that Stokes had already seen the need to put Triumph’s engineering and management in charge of BMC in the form of Webster and Turnbull.It was the remaining BMC fwd loyalists who threw a spanner in the works of that plan.

As for the Triumph V8 unfortunately the last thing that Leyland needed was to kick off more aggravation between Rover and Triumph by doing what was needed in ditching the Triumph V8 in favour of the Rover V8.Although it’s my guess that ‘if’ they’d have sweetened the pill by ditching the SD1 in favour of an upgraded 2.5 then Triumph would probably have accepted it.That’s assuming that the stories,about it being Triumph staff intransigence in using the Rover V8,as opposed to a Rover embargo on giving it to them,are true. .My personal view is the latter. Bearing in mind that Spen King was running the show regards Triumph’s engineering at that time and Rover seems to have won out for ‘some’ reason with the retrograde SD1 over continuation of the 2.5 saloon chassis design.Although having said that if it had to be a complicated OHC Triumph V8 then at least spend some cash and make it a 4 litre 32 valve one based on the Sprint engine.Unfortunately Spen King seems to have been the spanner in the works at Triumph just as those BMC fwd fan boys wrecked the investment required in the Marina.

Make no mistake the fwd BMC v rwd Leyland Group engineering argument was a massive factor in down fall of Leyland Group followed by putting the Rover fox personality in charge of Triumph’s chicken house.Although to be fair he seems to have made the point that Triumph’s fate was the result of lack of cash.Which again can in large part be blamed on the amount of money wasted on continuing investment in ongoing development of BMC’s fwd products.

dazcapri · 2 February 2016 18:15

What commercially unviable fwd products are we talking about exactly would that be the bestselling fwd 1100 that bl sold from 1968-72 a car that was significantly cheaper than its only serious rival the mk2 cortina had they got the pricing right could have made more profit and still been cheaper than the ford. The little austin made money just not enough that wasn’t because it was fwd it’s because the company making it was badly run.

Again your saying that had they developed the marina into a McPherson strut equipped rwd car it would have took on the Cortina now would that be cortina that ditched struts in 1970 for a double wishbone suspension cos they thought it was too harsh for a fleet/family car.

So the team from triumph who were in charge at bmc were anti fwd is this the same triumph who developed a fwd car in 1965.

You slate the marina for using an out of date floorplan but then say bl would’ve been better off scrapping the SD1 and putting the engine in an out of date floorplan ie the Triumph 2.5 that first hit the road in 1963 I really don’t understand your logic there besides people wanted hatchbacks by then which is way all bl’s competition was introducing them.

Infighting in car companies wasn’t exclusive to bl,Ford uk’s mk1 cortina was codenamed the cardinal because their rivals at ford in Germany had codenamed there’s archbishop a cardinal being superior to an archbishop. Ford had the sense to unify their products and factories into ford Europe,as did vauxhall/opel although a bit later than ford. The reason for this was they’d seen how easily bl were crippled by strikes and realised that if the UK was on strike they could produce the Cortina in Germany. When the marina factory was on strike bl simply couldn’t supply any Marina’s.
You can waffle on about fwd versus rwd as much as you like but one of the reasons bl failed was because all of their cars,whether fwd or rwd,were underfunded,underdeveloped and unreliable.

dazcapri · 2 February 2016 18:34

I’m putting this in a separate post cos that one was on the long side.

You’ve defended the bl workforce in your posts but they must take some blame for what went wrong. Here’s something that was written in 1975 near the end of Stokes reign.
A journalist compared the number of employees compared the number of cars produced in various companies.
Toyota produced 36 cars per employee
Honda 23
Ford uk 7
BL 4
Oh and by the way the supposedly more conventional rwd marina actually cost more to develop than fwd allegro

kr79 · 2 February 2016 19:10

Your wasting your time this loon is trying to say a focus St and mustang will be fighting for the same buyers.
Next it Will be vw should scrap the golf gti because they own lamborghini and it’s stealing sales from them

carryfast · 2 February 2016 19:16

dazcapri:
What commercially unviable fwd products are we talking about exactly would that be the bestselling fwd 1100 that bl sold from 1968-72 a car that was significantly cheaper than its only serious rival the mk2 cortina had they got the pricing right could have made more profit and still been cheaper than the ford. The little austin made money just not enough that wasn’t because it was fwd it’s because the company making it was badly run.

Again your saying that had they developed the marina into a McPherson strut equipped rwd car it would have took on the Cortina now would that be cortina that ditched struts in 1970 for a double wishbone suspension cos they thought it was too harsh for a fleet/family car.

So the team from triumph who were in charge at bmc were anti fwd is this the same triumph who developed a fwd car in 1965.

You slate the marina for using an out of date floorplan but then say bl would’ve been better off scrapping the SD1 and putting the engine in an out of date floorplan ie the Triumph 2.5 that first hit the road in 1963 I really don’t understand your logic there besides people wanted hatchbacks by then which is way all bl’s competition was introducing them.

Infighting in car companies wasn’t exclusive to bl,Ford uk’s mk1 cortina was codenamed the cardinal because their rivals at ford in Germany had codenamed there’s archbishop a cardinal being superior to an archbishop. Ford had the sense to unify their products and factories into ford Europe,as did vauxhall/opel although a bit later than ford. The reason for this was they’d seen how easily bl were crippled by strikes and realised that if the UK was on strike they could produce the Cortina in Germany. When the marina factory was on strike bl simply couldn’t supply any Marina’s.
You can waffle on about fwd versus rwd as much as you like but one of the reasons bl failed was because all of their cars,whether fwd or rwd,were underfunded,underdeveloped and unreliable.

On the opposite side of that argument would that be the good selling Mini and 1100 produced by BMC/BMH from 1959 and 1962 respectively leaving the Group a financial wreck firstly taking advantage of Jaguar’s profitable position then requiring rescuing by the profitable Leyland Group ( in large part Triumph ) in 1968.

As for the Marina there was no way that they’d have been able to afford a wishbone front set up while Triumph and even BMW in the case of the E3 etc managed with McPherson front ends.But yes in an ideal world Ford were right especially in the case of the Granada.In the case of the Marina just matching Triumph’s big saloon preference of McPherson front semi trailing IRS would have been a massive improvement on the obsolete Minor’s torsion bar front live axle rear.

As for the SD1,you’re contradicting yourself by pointing out Ford using wishbone front on the Cortina Mk3.While then making the case for the McPherson front live axle rear and ugly coupe styling v the wishbone front semi trailing IRS and three box or estate styling of the Granada.

As for German workers yes not surprisingly better industrial relations and better productivety from a much better paid workforce working with much better more efficient tooling.Because unlike us they got a much better deal out of the post war recovery plan.While even with all those advantages one of the best that they could do was the Mc Pherson and steering box front,semi trailing IRS rear,3 litre 6 cylinder,BMW E3.Sold at a massively higher price than the wishbone all round rack and pinion 4.2 or V12 Jaguar XJ.So yes an arguably more militant workforce with good reason to be militant.

carryfast · 2 February 2016 19:27

kr79:
Your wasting your time this loon is trying to say a focus St and mustang will be fighting for the same buyers.
Next it Will be vw should scrap the golf gti because they own lamborghini and it’s stealing sales from them

The difference between a + or - £32,000 proper V8 rwd motor v + or - £25,000 fwd hot hatch isn’t exactly the same thing as £260,000 super car v same.

dave_docwra · 2 February 2016 19:34

What is the price difference between a Marina & the BMW E3 when new?

carryfast · 2 February 2016 19:51

dave docwra:
What is the price difference between a Marina & the BMW E3 when new?

The Triumph 2000 would be the relevant comparison if it’s about a comparable suspension package.The Triumph stood at £1,870 v £1,170 for the 1.8 Marina in 1973.The suspension difference obviously only accounting for a negligable amount of that difference.

dazcapri · 2 February 2016 20:04

kr79:
Your wasting your time this loon is trying to say a focus St and mustang will be fighting for the same buyers.
Next it Will be vw should scrap the golf gti because they own lamborghini and it’s stealing sales from them

He spent several posts saying that Issigonis and his team were at fault for spending too much money on the fwd cars instead of spending it on the marina the I pointed that Issigonis left in 71 and that more money was spent on developing the marina than was spent on the Allegro proving him completely wrong he starts waffling on about the SD1 instead.

gazsa401 · 2 February 2016 20:07

It doesn’t matter if a BL car,lorry,bus or push bike had a twinsplitter dump valve sprocket slip diff fitted they still sadly failed

dave_the_renegade · 2 February 2016 20:08

dazcapri:

kr79:
Your wasting your time this loon is trying to say a focus St and mustang will be fighting for the same buyers.
Next it Will be vw should scrap the golf gti because they own lamborghini and it’s stealing sales from them

He spent several posts saying that Issigonis and his team were at fault for spending too much money on the fwd cars instead of spending it on the marina the I pointed that Issigonis left in 71 and that more money was spent on developing the marina than was spent on the Allegro proving him completely wrong he starts waffling on about the SD1 instead.

If they had bred faster horses, we would never had the car.

dazcapri · 2 February 2016 20:32

On the opposite side of that argument would that be the good selling Mini and 1100 produced by BMC/BMH from 1959 and 1962 respectively leaving the Group a financial wreck firstly taking advantage of Jaguar’s profitable position then requiring rescuing by the profitable Leyland Group ( in large part Triumph ) in 1968.

As for the Marina there was no way that they’d have been able to afford a wishbone front set up while Triumph and even BMW in the case of the E3 etc managed with McPherson front ends.But yes in an ideal world Ford were right especially in the case of the Granada.In the case of the Marina just matching Triumph’s big saloon preference of McPherson front semi trailing IRS would have been a massive improvement on the obsolete Minor’s torsion bar front live axle rear.

As for the SD1,you’re contradicting yourself by pointing out Ford using wishbone front on the Cortina Mk3.While then making the case for the McPherson front live axle rear and ugly coupe styling v the wishbone front semi trailing IRS and three box or estate styling of the Granada.

As for German workers yes not surprisingly better industrial relations and better productivety from a much better paid workforce working with much better more efficient tooling.Because unlike us they got a much better deal out of the post war recovery plan.While even with all those advantages one of the best that they could do was the Mc Pherson and steering box front,semi trailing IRS rear,3 litre 6 cylinder,BMW E3.Sold at a massively higher price than the wishbone all round rack and pinion 4.2 or V12 Jaguar XJ.So yes an arguably more militant workforce with good reason to be militant.[/quote

I’ve already said the mini made no money which is why I used the 1100 which did make money

Yes they were rescued from financial ruin by and I quote "the profitable leyland group (in large part Triumph ) that would be triumph who in 1961 were rescued from financial ruin by the leyland group.

They didn’t have the money to develop the marina with any new suspension whether struts or otherwise but as I pointed out they spent more money on the marina than on the Allegro so your point that they were biased towards fwd is bollix.

The leyland group took control in 68 with, leyland man,stokes in charge who installed a LARGLEY leyland management and it was the LARGELY Leyland management who decided that the Morris range would be more basic rwd everyday cars and then the LARGELY Leyland management decided that the Austin cars would be made up of,in their words,technologically superior fwd cars so your point that bmc staff undermined bl is bollix.

I didn’t say anything about the suspension of the SD1 I said putting a V8 triumph on sale with its sixties based floorplan wouldn’t be much different to selling the marina with its outdated floorplan
Ford’s granada was eventually offered as a hatchback so again bl’s designs were ahead of their time

Who mentioned the German workers being more efficient I mentioned Toyota honda and ford uk

Those militant workers at bl really did themselves proud in the first year of marina production there was over 300 hundred stoppages from minor to full strikes but still it really worked out for them they unlike the silly toyota/honda workers when onto have long profitable careers in the motor industry with companies that are still flourishing today
Or maybe not

ramone · 2 February 2016 20:53

I always seemed to think that both the lorry and car side of BL lacked quality. They didnt go that extra mile to produce a product of real quality, whether this was build or design . The lorries got left behind due to whats been discussed on here over and over again and the car side was much the same . I personally thought the BL cars were tinny poorly designed and even worse poorly put together. The Jeremy Clarkson documentary highlighted some unbelievable goings on , 1 that springs to mind was a new car being delivered to a dealer with 1 door card a completely different colour to the rest of the interior . I can`t imagine that happening anywhere else , but the militant workers at the time seemed to be running riot with management not being able to cope

dazcapri · 2 February 2016 21:04

ramone:
I always seemed to think that both the lorry and car side of BL lacked quality. They didnt go that extra mile to produce a product of real quality, whether this was build or design . The lorries got left behind due to whats been discussed on here over and over again and the car side was much the same . I personally thought the BL cars were tinny poorly designed and even worse poorly put together. The Jeremy Clarkson documentary highlighted some unbelievable goings on , 1 that springs to mind was a new car being delivered to a dealer with 1 door card a completely different colour to the rest of the interior . I can`t imagine that happening anywhere else , but the militant workers at the time seemed to be running riot with management not being able to cope

The old boys at the garage I worked said that a pdi (pre delivery inspection) during the bl years sometimes turned into a full rebuild there’d be that many missing/broken parts

ramone · 2 February 2016 21:17

dazcapri:

ramone:
I always seemed to think that both the lorry and car side of BL lacked quality. They didnt go that extra mile to produce a product of real quality, whether this was build or design . The lorries got left behind due to whats been discussed on here over and over again and the car side was much the same . I personally thought the BL cars were tinny poorly designed and even worse poorly put together. The Jeremy Clarkson documentary highlighted some unbelievable goings on , 1 that springs to mind was a new car being delivered to a dealer with 1 door card a completely different colour to the rest of the interior . I can`t imagine that happening anywhere else , but the militant workers at the time seemed to be running riot with management not being able to cope

The old boys at the garage I worked said that a pdi (pre delivery inspection) during the bl years sometimes turned into a full rebuild there’d be that many missing/broken parts

I`m certain someone on here will disagree