Yeah old minis were never that fast buy they could corner at the same speed as they could go on the straight.
I have read a lot of this topic, and there are some omissions, not least the fact that Leyland and AEC had worked closely on bus chassis for London Transport, but also on rail mulltiple units where they had operated a jointly ond company called British United Traction which was set up to design and build trains for operation on branch lines, the need for which was reduced drastically by the Beeching report. I understand that both companies uprated engines for this company and the results were applied to road vehicles.
The other common thread is that AEC were overruled by Leyland. This is not supported by the facts. The rising star at AEC was an accountant called Jim Slater who was responsible for the early integration of the two companies particularly the Thornycroft and Scammel operations. He became deputy to Donald Stokes before going on to achieve notoriety in other enterprises
The rise and collapse of British Leyland should be viewed in three stages.
- The early years 1962 - 1965
The early years showed great progress in R & D and 1965 saw the introductin of the Ergo cab and also complete move from AEC’s wet liners to dry, and the introduction of the 505 and 760 engines together with the 691 and new or updated models from both companies. - The middle years 1965 to 1968
During this period every lorry builder could sell everything they could produce, an In 1968 Leyland introduced the Lynx and the Bison with the new fixed head 500 engine. AEC launched the V8 Mandator and Scammell A 6 x 4 Detroit diesel Crusader. - 1968 on the slow painful demise.
The 500 and V8 engines were a disaster, cost the company a lot of goodwill, and any projected profit in warranty costs, with bankruptcy in 1973.
Post 1973, no proper strategy for the future of the company in place and the head men at the company were trying to stem losses from underdeveloped, badly built vehicles which were representative throughout the whole company.
I`ve just watched an old rerun of Car S.O.S and the subject was a Triumph Stag , without getting into a debate about cars the presenters were questioning the interior design and overall build quality which seemed to have been a common line throughout the entire company. The Stag had been re engined with a Rover V8 because the Triumph V8 had failed and this was another common occurence ,the first thing that would never happen now is that 2 seperate companies trading under the same umbrella producing 2 different V8 engines 1 of which was prone to reliability problems .
My point being the many companies that made up BL were basically building poor quality vehicles that were competing against each other head on, so in a way cancelling each other out
Just to re-visit some of Vertco’s comments, all of which have been discussed on this and other threads, and there is broad agreement in what he writes. However I think that the pre-amalgamation co-operation between AEC and Leyland via BUT is overstated; it never fulfilled its potential and it ended in tears between the two constituents. There was no recorded joint approach with regards to engines, for example. Similarly, Leyland had very little input into design engineering of London Transport requirements in the mid part of the last century. As written previously AEC had a “golden handcuffs” contract from LT from 1933 for most of LT’s needs. The Routemaster was a joint design venture purely between LT and AEC. Yes, Leyland engines were fitted in RT and RM variants to provide a second source of supply (sound commercial practice). As to Jim Slater, who died as recently as 18th November 2015, he qualified as a chartered accountant in 1953 and in 1955 he joined Park Royal Vehicles as Company Secretary. Promoted to ACV, the AEC parent company, in 1959 he built his reputation in export sales and he was appointed Deputy Sales Director of the newly formed AEC / Leyland Group in 1962. He left the company in 1964 to pursue his own ventures. I have never seen any information to say he was involved at either Thornycroft or Scammell, other than what he would have had as a senior manager of the group. Similarly, the claim that he was Donald Stokes’ assistant is rather surprising.
ramone:
I`ve just watched an old rerun of Car S.O.S and the subject was a Triumph Stag , without getting into a debate about cars the presenters were questioning the interior design and overall build quality which seemed to have been a common line throughout the entire company. The Stag had been re engined with a Rover V8 because the Triumph V8 had failed and this was another common occurence ,the first thing that would never happen now is that 2 seperate companies trading under the same umbrella producing 2 different V8 engines 1 of which was prone to reliability problems .
My point being the many companies that made up BL were basically building poor quality vehicles that were competing against each other head on, so in a way cancelling each other out
Firstly the issue of ‘build quality’ at least in the case of anything Jaguar Rover or Triumph is just generally typical unwarranted,barking up the wrong tree,stereotyping.Which at worse could be answered with if you want Mercedes ‘build quality’ then you’ll need to pay a Mercedes price bearing in mind the more or less comparable 350 SL would have cost you around £ 7,500 in the mid 1970’s v the £ 4,500 of the Stag.IE almost twice the price.On that note trust me you weren’t going to find anything better than Jaguar Rover Triumph products ‘for equivalent money’.
The Triumph V8 was all part of the typically wrong call by office suits types regarding the move towards dodgy cheap and nasty ohc motors from which the V8 was derived.With even what they did choose not being the best possible scenario of a 4 litre 32 valve derivative of the Sprint motor in that regard.But chose instead a too small inefficient inferior 3 litre heap of junk.IE typical issues of under investment in development and production capacity just like the built in inferiority of the AEC V8 and 760/TL12. 
Ironically in this case Stokes having actually called for the Rover V8 to be put in it.While as I’ve said previously I,for one,don’t buy any of the general excuses as to why it didn’t happen.The only logical conclusion seeming to be that Rover was obstructing its use in anything outside the Rover product line up.Which also seems to be confirmed by similar bs excuses regarding it’s fit in the MGB with Leyland telling customers it wouldn’t fit.When everyone who knew anything about cars knew it would without a problem and similar issues in the case of the later TR7 which again was lumbered with the worst possible choice of four cylinder engines before the TR8 eventually arrived.
As for so called internal ‘competition’.How do you reach that erroneous conclusion when it’s obvious that it’s a case of just offering the customer more choice with all sales meaning a sale for the ‘Group’ as a whole regardless of what the customer chooses. 
My good friend the late John Ward was always going to have the drop on me on a climb with his Volvo F88, more power and a multi-ratio gearbox. However I was very badly baulked at the start of the climb 
It’s a cracking photo and brings back fond memories of recreating the ‘good old days’ of tackling Shap. Thanks for posting the photo, much appreciated.
Just admiring it again, this photo would grace the Roping and Sheeting thread. 
What’s going on here? Is that another Ergo-cabbed lorry heading down the hill, or is the 88 carrying a spare cab for the AEC?
It was another AEC pushing up close behind the F88, which has a 33ft tri-axle trailer behind it. I think that there’s a bit of fore-shortening of the picture that is slightly misleading.
gingerfold:
My good friend the late John Ward was always going to have the drop on me on a climb with his Volvo F88, more power and a multi-ratio gearbox. However I was very badly baulked at the start of the climb
Ive seen this photo before Graham ,not sure where though it could have been flickr, why did you choose the Spiers livery , i can remember them as late as the early 90s heading over the M65 towards Keighley .I think it was Truck magazine that did an article on them and their history ,they had just started buying Seddon Atkinson and ERFs . And you are quite right what a great photo , if you zoom right out you can see a Bedford TM V8 broken down at the side of the road , probably ran out of diesel 
Ps And a word of warning it`s extremely dangerous to overtake on the inside
DEANB:
Sorry cant resist !0
Graham , that is a lovely photograph with TNUK member Pete 359 pushing up behind with his…240 hp, 88 …(despite the grille)…If I remember correctly did not Chris, (Kelly), purchase the assets of Spiers of Melksham?
Lovely lorry Graham, proper British one, (and the dollies are far beyond Dennis`s, (Bewicks), best efforts!!!
Cheerio for now.
Ramone, I had got to know William Spiers and his sister Jean Still very well when I did their history in my book “Spiers of Melksham”. TGU 205M was parked in their garage in its Amoco livery and they had never put into service despite having bought it in 1982/83. when Spiers was sold to TDG they wanted to dispose of their scrap Mandators, plus about 3 containers full of AEC spares, even in the 1990s they had been running Mandators. TGU had the best cab I had ever seen on an AEC of that age so I took it off their hands. William Spiers believed that it had been re-cabbed, which did in fact turn out to be true. When I stripped out the cab interior for the restoration someone had written inside the date it had been re-cabbed with a brand new cab, which had been bought in 1982, only months before it came out of service with Amoco. It must have been one of the very last Ergo cabs that could have been bought. The agreement with William and Jean was that it went into Spiers’ livery. Ironically the superb paint job was done in Turners’ paint shop, where I worked at the time, and the F88 alongside it in the photo was new to Turners.
Yes, I shouldn’t have been “undertaking”, but the damned Volvo was under my feet. 
. Seriously though, I had come down the hill to Huck’s Bridge in silent seventh to get a run at Huck’s Brow (just like the “good old days” and I was baulked by a car in front of me taking photos. I had to brake sharply and started the climb only in 5th gear, so I just had to go up in 4th. (We all know 760 engines were rubbish. Wonder if our friend could drive a Mandator?)
gingerfold:
Just to re-visit some of Vertco’s comments, all of which have been discussed on this and other threads, and there is broad agreement in what he writes. However I think that the pre-amalgamation co-operation between AEC and Leyland via BUT is overstated; it never fulfilled its potential and it ended in tears between the two constituents. There was no recorded joint approach with regards to engines, for example. Similarly, Leyland had very little input into design engineering of London Transport requirements in the mid part of the last century. As written previously AEC had a “golden handcuffs” contract from LT from 1933 for most of LT’s needs. The Routemaster was a joint design venture purely between LT and AEC. Yes, Leyland engines were fitted in RT and RM variants to provide a second source of supply (sound commercial practice). As to Jim Slater, who died as recently as 18th November 2015, he qualified as a chartered accountant in 1953 and in 1955 he joined Park Royal Vehicles as Company Secretary. Promoted to ACV, the AEC parent company, in 1959 he built his reputation in export sales and he was appointed Deputy Sales Director of the newly formed AEC / Leyland Group in 1962. He left the company in 1964 to pursue his own ventures. I have never seen any information to say he was involved at either Thornycroft or Scammell, other than what he would have had as a senior manager of the group. Similarly, the claim that he was Donald Stokes’ assistant is rather surprising.
You obviously understand my post.I did not say that there had been any joint design on engines, I said that engines developed for use in the DMUs had been utilised for road use.I cannot imagine why you find it surprising that I described Slater as Stokes assistant. Stokes was Sales Director and Slater was Deputy sales Director. BUT’s involvolvement with DMUs continued up to the Pacer Trains which used panels from the Leyland National bus.Pacer trains are still in service.
Sorry, I thought that you meant that Jim Slater was Donald Stokes’ assistant when the latter was the Chief Executive of the entire British Leyland Group.
vertco:
Stokes was Sales Director and Slater was Deputy sales Director.
It depends on the definition of ‘sales director’ during the dates given ( 1962-4 ? ).At that point in time Stokes’ ‘sales directing’ role seems to have been all about the car side within Triumph under Marlkand then taking on the role of Chairman of the board of Triumph when Markland went in '63.IE possibly no connection with the AEC truck side at that time ?.
I agree CF. Only assuming, but I suspect that Slater and Stokes would have not enjoyed the best of relationships given that Slater was also very much on the exports side for ACV / AEC and he had established the joint ventures in Europe with such as Willeme. As has been written earlier in the debate Stokes was not very keen on pursuing European markets so there must have been the potential for conflict between two strong and ambitious characters.
gingerfold:
I agree CF. Only assuming, but I suspect that Slater and Stokes would have not enjoyed the best of relationships given that Slater was also very much on the exports side for ACV / AEC and he had established the joint ventures in Europe with such as Willeme. As has been written earlier in the debate Stokes was not very keen on pursuing European markets so there must have been the potential for conflict between two strong and ambitious characters.
As I’ve said I think that most if not all of Stokes’ calls were the correct ones.From over seeing the marketing and introduction and development of the big Triumph saloon range.To the realisation that Leyland Group’s in house truck engine manufacturing capability wasn’t going to cut it v the competition at which point the writing was on the wall for AEC.Or the fact that European customers were never going to be big buyers of British made vehicles from cars to trucks and that was always going to end up in a 3 horse race between the Germans,Swedes and the Italians.
It’s arguably what he didn’t do which was the problem.In threatening the government with his resignation,if 1) he wasn’t going to be allowed to cut BMC loose and 2) fixing the stupidity of wasting public money on a state funded manufacturing operation without also imposing import restrictions to protect the National interest in that regard.Especially bearing in mind the importance of the domestic market v the already lost cause European ones.The fact that he was then made a scapegoat for the inevitable downfall of the Group,ironically for his erroneous cooperation,with typically economically illiterate and suicidal government policy,which continues to this day,is not only sad but also a diabolical injustice. 
I went on one of those AEC engined trains once, I’m not sure, but I think it was to Warwick on a visit to Volvo HQ, I recognized the engine note immediately.