But where did the 11 litre DAF engine originate,we had the engines ,dont know about the gearboxes what we didnt have was the refinement and build quality and certainly not the leadership from management.Was the mandator,crusader,beaver,GUY BigJ (even with an 8XLB in it…joke ) ever gonna be a match comfort wise for a Scania or Volvo?
Fergie47:
They didn’t build what the haulier and drivers wanted…Volvo’s and Scania’s…
Like the British motorbike industry… When the Japanese bikes started coming to the UK, they all laughed and said it wouldn’t last. Five years later they were almost all gone…
The British car industry…■■? do we have any left ?
The British Truck Industry…■■? we don’t have any left.
The British Ship building Industry… The British Fishing Fleet…
In fact what do we make now, as a once great manufacturing nation…■■ Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yes, Banking, and where that’s got everyone…
Like just about everything else in the UK,we can’t compete,they invest more money in manufacturing abroad.Also a lot of the third world countries have no Health and Safety or minimum wage.The UK is just a retail park unfortunately.
Rather than follow the usual British preoccupation for running things down, you could take issue with the original question: It may not be widely known, but there are significant parts of both the former Albion & Leyland organisations still alive &, arguably well, although under new ownership.
A company called American Axle Manufacturing bought ‘Albion Automotive’ including it’s Scotstoun & Spurrier (Leyland) facilities. Scotstoun supplies axles, driveline & chassis components to many of today’s well-know commercial vehicle builders. Spurrier is a highly regarded manufacturer of crankshafts, gears & other engine & transmission components.
The Leyland Trucks assembly plant at Leyland, now owned by Paccar, is widely regarded as one of the most efficient facilities of it’s type in Europe. See here for more: mxawards.org/MediaandNews
All of that said it’s hard to disagree with much of what has already been said. If anybody fancies it I can recommend the book ‘Back from The Brink’ written by Michael Edwardes about his time as chairman of BL. It deals mainly with the cars business but, there are mentions of the heavy vehicle side. Interestingly he talks at great length about the ‘bloated’ management structure he inherited & how, in his opinion the wrong type of managers were in the wrong places: ‘People Managers’ trying to determine strategy & ‘Strategy People’ trying to manage the bolshie militant workforce. It got to the point where the management were more or less paralysed from controlling the organisation.
Many of Leyland’s problems probably came about exactly because of the number & diversity of companies it owned. The job of rationalising the businesses in the face of a contracting market was all ways going to result in painfully decisions - the GUY product line was withdrawn whilst having a substantial order book, where other plants in the group did not.
No doubt there was also a good dose of ‘not invented here’ syndrome - particularly between Leyland & Southall. Good designs & concepts were starved of funds & development time, hastily released, with all of the well documented results.
Returning to the origionl title of the Thread! I can re-call the years between the mid/later 60s and the mid 70s when I witnessed both the peak and the “plummeting” fortunes of the “disaster” that was British Leyland.I soon realised that it was a lot to do with their smug,arrogant attitude to their customers,the basis of which was,“we are a nationalised company and we don’t really need you the customer,as the Labour government will bail us out forever” Furthermore"you will accept the products we build regardless of the price,quality and reliability!" “You are there soley for our benefit and we are doing you a favour by even talking to you” "You want what? and you want it when? “you are jesting of course!” “Please yourself,we don’t need your single vehicle order when we can sell everything we produce to other nationalised industries and big oil cos.” “yes OK OK you’ll soon be back when these fancy foriegn motors let you down” “And don’t ring me I’ll ring you”.Unfortunately this was the basic attitude of BL and to a lesser extent Foden/ERF and Atki/Sed,Atk.They quite wrongly assumed that they had the customer by the “short and curlies” and their grip could never be loosened!!!I don’t know if the situation could ever have been changed as the “us” and “them” attitude of both sides of British industry was entrenched in their respective positions and the poor customer was just an innocent by-stander who finally had had enough and "voted with their feet! If you now take out the Supermarkets there would be only a fraction of the transport running in the UK compared to what there used to be when we did have an industrial base! Bewick.
I did read somewhere a few years back, that although Leyland trucks were profitable, the money was used to prop up the loss making car industry, leaving no cash for further development.
It’s fairly easy to complain that BL didn’t develop vehicles that the drivers wanted, but in the early to mid 60’s they produced what the owners wanted.
Lots of companies at that time had fleet engineers who had come up through the ranks and had started their careers within haulage when horse drawn vehicles were still around.
These people were resistant to progress and wanted simple, plain trucks with easy simple repairs etc.
When I started as an apprentice diesel mechanic in 1966 I remember my fleet manger telling me " turbochargers will never catch on for trucks, you can’t get a quart out of a pint pot" !
He also used to tell tales of when horse carts got their wheels stuck in’t tram lines.
There must have been plenty like him around as he wasn’t THAT old, and he had the major say in what vehicles were purchased.
As such the company consistently ordered AEC Mercury, Albion Clydesale and Leyland Comet 4 wheelers, Albion Reiver 6 wheelers and Scammell Routeman 8 wheelers. This was even when Volvo 86’s were making a big impact.
Early Volvos and Scania trucks started to appear firstly in very small fleets/owner drivers who were willing to take a chance or had the imagination to see the way forward.
So Leyland continued to produce what the customer wanted and by the time the customer demand had changed, after Volvo and Scania had proven themselves over here, Leyland were too far behind to make the most of it.
Certainly management and union troubles contributed to the demise in a large amount also.
del949:
It’s fairly easy to complain that BL didn’t develop vehicles that the drivers wanted, but in the early to mid 60’s they produced what the owners wanted.
Lots of companies at that time had fleet engineers who had come up through the ranks and had started their careers within haulage when horse drawn vehicles were still around.
These people were resistant to progress and wanted simple, plain trucks with easy simple repairs etc.
When I started as an apprentice diesel mechanic in 1966 I remember my fleet manger telling me " turbochargers will never catch on for trucks, you can’t get a quart out of a pint pot" !
He also used to tell tales of when horse carts got their wheels stuck in’t tram lines.
There must have been plenty like him around as he wasn’t THAT old, and he had the major say in what vehicles were purchased.
As such the company consistently ordered AEC Mercury, Albion Clydesale and Leyland Comet 4 wheelers, Albion Reiver 6 wheelers and Scammell Routeman 8 wheelers. This was even when Volvo 86’s were making a big impact.
Early Volvos and Scania trucks started to appear firstly in very small fleets/owner drivers who were willing to take a chance or had the imagination to see the way forward.
So Leyland continued to produce what the customer wanted and by the time the customer demand had changed, after Volvo and Scania had proven themselves over here, Leyland were too far behind to make the most of it.
Certainly management and union troubles contributed to the demise in a large amount also.
I agree,you only have to look back to the launch of the roadtrain,said at the time to be yrs ahead of its time and no sleeper cab.
Hiya… people laugh at leyland and no surprise. leyland spent alot of money developing the roadtrain cab
infact a wind tunnel was used. Who purchesed leyland coach…Volvo… i remember when that first FH Volvo
appered on test in the UK… (opperating out of leyland) everyone thought it was a new roadtrain. did volvo
use the basics for the FH using roadtrain data.
it looks like Volvo carried on where Leyland could,nt be bothered.
John
You`d think with the experience these companies had they could have cornered at least some of the market,like its just been mentioned Leyland Bus was sold to Volvo because Volvo knew they were a worthy rival,then they ceased production.Scammell could and should have been able to compete in the heavy haulage market and still should be .AEC had the V8 which turned out to be a disastor but its considered this was because Leyland rushed it through against the wishes of the AEC designers,was the AV760 such a bad performer? and the TL12 could hold its own against the foreign competion.i have heard from many old AEC operators that AEC would "bend over backwards " to help customers but like Bewick mentioned Leyland didnt share this idea.It seems that other companies have hand picked what they wanted and the rest just left to die
In this country though we dont buy british, look at N/D must keep Renault going (especially in the turboliner years), and in France the roads are flooded with French cars.
Not wanting to distract from Ramone’s origional question … I can understand B.L. getting into trouble because of the diversity of companies it owned.
But what would you say finished Bedford off ? they looked to have had a strong hold on the light end of the market and M.O.D.
Back to BL again … you would imagine once their money was all in one pot, they would have been able to put the best of it’s ideas together and come up with the right products.
Wasn’t there something printed in Commercial Motor or Motor Transport in the mid 60’s, that sometime in the future they could see there being only 4 or 5 manufactures on the market.
The way the big transport companies have taken over the smaller ones it’s starting to look like the days of varied liveries are numbered now as well, all white or green … Bring back BEWICK’s !!!
NB12:
In this country though we dont buy british, look at N/D must keep Renault going (especially in the turboliner years), and in France the roads are flooded with French cars.
100% correct mate
wouldn,t happen in other country,s what happens here . they look after there own we look after anyone and anything
NB12:
In this country though we dont buy british, look at N/D must keep Renault going (especially in the turboliner years), and in France the roads are flooded with French cars.
100% correct mate
wouldn,t happen in other country,s what happens here . they look after there own we look after anyone and anything
Good point mate,as a result i ask the question what can you buy in britain thats british made by a british owned com?
