The reason why Rover/BL failed was purely management. Lack of investment in all parts. Poor designs, poor engineering, etc. The factories were dumps, unmodernized and soul destroying to work in.
@SIERRACOS He might've been talking about the 1975 Austin 18-22 series, which was known as the Austin 1800 before it became the Princess in 1976, he probably didn't mean the original ADO17 1800 Which was from 64-75, predecessor to the 18-22. The Tunnel was there when the Marina was getting designed in 1970 so that's what Jeremy's most likely on about.
@SIERRACOS In fact it could very well be the 18-22 since it is according to Wikipedia 68.11 In wide whereas the original ADO17 1800 is only 67 In wide, don't know if that's absolutly accurate it is Wikipedia afterall. Not much difference I know but could've been enough that it wouldn't fit.
why he says that the rover 75's problems was coused by the bmw? and why bmws were sold great around the world and were all great cars(that time)? cmon clarkson you know that rover 75 was a s**t 'couse it was a rover
The Rover 75 was designed during BMW. They did not want Rover cars to take market share from BMW, so designed them very different to Rover's disgust.
Rover was the same size as BMW on take-over. Rover were the only Euro maker increasing sales & had every type of car: off-road, front drive, small, limo, etc.BMW wanted that expertise. BMW ruined Rover, after Rover got its act together.
@Hanske90: Thanks very much. Just been Googling this song and I now understand your ':P' after your comment :) I get more luck searching Baba O'Riley than Teenage Wasteland.
@andy86i My uncle' s Mk1 and 2 Ford Granadas leaked far more oil on the driveway than my dad's Triumph 2500PI and Rover SD1 ever did. Clarkson takes some journalistic licence here too - BL had two Mini replacements well into pre-production, first in the late '60s and again in the mid-'70s. Management canned them both, and what we ended up with (the Metro) derived ideas from neither.
I see the same thing happening with ITV to an extent, and it's the same mixture of uninformed politicians, bad union practices and clueless businessmen that are responsible. Nope, Jezza is on the money here and that's before we even look at what happened to the Rootes group - later Chrysler controlled before Peugeot bought them all up - and those companies that ended up under the control of GM.
Oh, and don't kid yourselves that it couldn't happen anywhere else but in Britain.
@myintegraisonfire You could say there that Chrysler and the British components thereof went the same way as BL, just at a different pace and without the painful nationalisation bit in the middle. You could also say the same of Ford except that they didn't really start off as British. Each of the big players in the British motor industry went through the same thing, really.
And yes, I liked the Humber, though I preferred the Minx. It's what I grew up with, I suppose... :)
If BMC never had purchused Pressed Steel to form British Leyland than maybe British Car Makers would have remianed pretty competative eager to keep up with each other and foreign companies, making commercially viable vehicles, while BL was Nationalised for example I woulden't be surpised if they didn't worry to much about sales etc, since at the end of the day the state will prop them up anyway, then if BMW didn't sell, Mini, Land Rover then MG Rover would have been able to sell more cars
The idiots never heard of 'partners' and 'unity' (not that there was any). Excuse my French: How the FUCK do you let sister companies, EFFECTIVELY under the same ownership, get as fucked-up and out-of-hand as Leyland!? SURELY there had to be SOME form of restraint on what company had the rights to which other? Apparently, British motoring died at the hands of self-serving bigots and foreign eyes...BOLLOCKS to them ALL! That's why Jaguar is under ownership of a manufacturer FROM A FORMER COLONY!
@Lanciarules: funny how free trade works we give our Headache industries to lesser countries, I don't see sexy fat defense contracts going the same way.
@Lanciarules Yep, they made some shitty cars. What you should ask, however, is why they made them. After all, if you go back to the pre-nationalisation era, BMC were making cars that were streets ahead of much of the market. Then, between the former owners, the government, the managers and the workers, they slowly flushed it down the crapper along with rather a lot of taxpayer's money. This show gives an excellent perspective of the whole shitty mess.
The management were 1 of the crucial problems... major pay rises for themselves, pitiful ones for the workforce. If the top brass of BL had focused each maker against a specific market rather then let them rival each other BL would've been a success
@Suprahampton isn't this a microcosm of what's been happening around the world? All the screw ups were stemming from improper decision making at the top and the finger pointing was always in a downward direction. Once the cluster fuck at the highest echelon was stabilized suddenly it became "I got mine; don't bother me with your problems now and walk it off".
@briquetaverne You're quite right, thats generally what happens when the accountants take over a motor manufacturer... rather then passionate people.
We see it everywhere, the biggest prob with BL was that they were too large, all the companies within the BL fold competed with each other rather than rival firms
the TUC were looking for higher wages, then a black man giving off in the background, no bride in there work, extra tea break, the us and them thinking. tea breaks, the black man over from kingston,
I like old British cars, but I've never owned one. Sad that British Leyland never got it's act together and gave Toyota, Nissan, VW and the other makers of small cars in the 1970's a real run for the money. Had the government stayed out of it and the unions had been told "NO!" at least once and a while, Britain could have been one of the major world auto producers. I fear that GM here in the US is slowly going the way of BL, however. If I'm wrong, tell me how so.
@70Kenny according to part 2, the unions were reacting to horrible management, and the blame would be shared between them. if you look at honda and toyota, they have totally different management styles (ie they actually listen to the workers from time to time).
And now Umerica has gone and done the same ting! Or is Fiat not going to buy Chrystler? The unions are of couirse not the problem, nor is some of management.
;PS: For those of you that don't know UMERICA is pronounced Uhmerica.
Andrew Marr summed it up nicely in his History of Modern Britain ... "Britain wasn't producing enough well-made, properly priced goods to earn the standard of living its people thought they deserved." Plenty of blame to go around for management, labor and government across all industries.
The loss of the car industry is the fault of all. The senior mgt until the mid/late 70's was dire and the unions operated like gangsters and bullies - they intimidated the workers. Everyone just gave up in the end. Why bother making an effort if you just got a kick in the nuts for your efforts.
The majority of workers/mgt were just decent guys who wanted to do a good job, get paid and go home to the wife and kids.
They didn't stand a chance. Longbridge is like a ghost town now.
who put BL out of business, the union's and the BL workers, who striked,and striked and striked, British Leyland workers were a bunch of slackers, and the cars that were produced were crap in realiabilty, well done BL worker's you set the standards world wide for dedicated and good workforce, not.
@bikersrule07 What about the management? Who designed the cars? It wasn't the workforce who came up with the Quartic steering wheel. It wasn't the workers who sold whole ranges at a loss for years. Yeah, the Unions have to shoulder some of the blame, but the management and the government have to shoulder their share too.
BL was a rolling fuck up on every key dimension: corporate direction [it didn't exist], product design, production engineering, model range balance, customer after sales, inept management, and a unionised "work" force that struck over every trivial matter.
At the same time the Japanese and Germans were setting the standard for the customer - both in Britain and in BL's crucially important export markets.
That hardly surprises me. It takes a village to take care of a child, and unfortunately, that village was refusing to take care of the child, which in this case, was the auto industry. It's bullshit.
El caso de España es mejor todavía, porque nuestra industria de automóviles, motos y camiones se fue a la mierda a pesar de las restricciones a la importación impuestas por Franco.
Good one! Reminds me that Malcolm Forbes was a Harley-Davidson fan and had a huge hot air balloon made in the shape of Harley. Harley-Davidson used the photo image in a print advertisement with the caption, "Thank God they don't leak oil anymore".
@Sephirius We did make computers. Better computers than anyone else in the world, actually. Sadly everyone wanted what the yanks had and Acorn went under.
@richardmaudsley77 Acorn wouldn't have gone out of business (they weren't bankrupt) had they not trusted their future to Stan Boland and his venture capitalist weirdos who only wanted Acorn for its major share in ARM. Up until then they still had new designs coming through but they killed the company just as they were about to go public with the followup to their successful RISC PC. They were literally days away and had orders on the books! Asset stripping at its worst.
@mistie710 Ahh, the Pheobe. But I didn't know that they still had money at the time they were killed off. Something similar happened to Commodore. One million A1200s sold, 100,000 CD32s, then shut down by april. Bastards.
@richardmaudsley77 I have one of the unfilled Phoebe cases sitting around somewhere. Shame about Commodore too. I might have been an Acorn user at the time but you couldn't ignore the Amiga and all that was done with it.
@mistie710 Yeah, I heard about them selling of all the Pheobe cases. What motherboard standard is it? If I had one I'd fit one of the newer acorn compatables.
I have an A1200 with a brand new ACA1230 processor card (28Mhz, 64mb) and a 4GB CF card fopr a hard disk, it's going online soon. What's your Arc setup, if you have one?
@richardmaudsley77 It was based on the early ATX form but modified to allow for the podule bay that the Phoebe was supposed to have (there is a prototype knocking around somewhere but I've never seen it in the flesh). There was a guide showing how to fit a RISC PC inside though it did need a little cutting around, though I'd expect that an Iyonix board should go in without too much of a problem. If you can find one, of course.
If British Aerospace sold Rover to the Japanese, Rover would still be around. If Japan can do better than what Europe do like how they succeeded in making a proper british sports car then they can surely make a british car manifacturer succeed.
MG/Rover or Roewe is now under the chinese which is close but.....
Well the Japanese have contributed a lot of things in the motoring industry like how they showed the europeans reliability so if a Japanese company have purchased Rover (like Toyota for example), they could still be with us.
but because I just brought the Japanese into the topic and they never had any relations with the british motoring industry, this is a bit of a nonsense so let's just forget about what I said.
My 2002 Honda Civic Si was designed and built in Swindon.
I miss that car, it was a joy to drive. 26mpg on regular fuel. A slick gearbox with a shift lever that came out of the dash. A hatchback that could accommodate my folding ladder. It's what the Fit should have been modeled on.
Well the fit is good as it is. I like the fact that it's a small 5 door hatchback. A bit girlish but nice. They were planning on a different kind of car when they were doing the fit. The current civics are far from compact I must say. Small cars seem to be getting bigger every year. Just look at the mini compared to the original Mini Cooper.
@mondeost2202008 strangely not quite so,but they did slowly improve on the basic design and in the end started making their own cars entirly in house!
Lotus, Aston Martin, RR, TVR and Marcos are small manufacturers and they all almost went bust (TVR and Marcos are now gone). Size doesnt matter, but the the product they sell does. If it was not for the type of cars they sold, tthey would never survived.
Jeremy should really make up his mind... When the Rover 75 was first brought out, he said it was brilliant! If I'm not mistaken, he even said he'd rather have that than the Jaguar S Type...
I dont think he said the overall car was brilliant. Its exactly as he said there its not a bad car i.e. the quality of the build but its like driving round in a bettys tea room its not what modern britain wanted and i agree the s type wasnt better but the brand was and the brand sells the car.
That is absolutely right. However, when the car was launched, James May had severelly critisized the car, but years later said it was his favourite british car...
Oh, so the government DID own BMC? Well, that explains everything - governments cannot do ANYTHING right. And you Brits are stuck with government care, but no manufacturing base! Ha ha ha!
(Why am I laughing? The US is in the same situation now under Il Duce! AAArrrrgh!)
BMC was losing money on every Mini? I heard that was the case with every Austin 1100/1300, at 10 BP per car - since they shifted 1,000,000 of them, that is a LOT of money down the drain! Wow, BMC was being a Sister of Charity. What happened to turning a profit? Or was SOCIALISM permeating into everything English, even their accountants? Lol! No WONDER the UK is B-R-O-K-E!
Better learn sound economics, fast. Lesson 1: Your costs should be LOWER than your selling price, not HIGHER
BMC was losing money on every Mini? I heard that was the case with every Austin 1100/1300, at 10 BP per car - since they shifted 1,000,000 of them, that is a LOT of money down the drain! Wow, BMC was being a Sister of Charity. What happened to turning a profit? Or was SOCIALISM permeating into everything English, even their accountants? Lol! No WONDER the UK is B-R-O-K-E!
Better learn sound economics, fast. Lesson 1: Your costs should be LOWER than your selling price, not HIGHER .
yes it was them who built the car's and they were a bunch a slackers, and they did a very crap job at building the cars. i saw a vid somewhere, with a worker with a sighn "save our job's" lol
British leyland wasn't that bad if you know what cars to stay clear off... I mean the stag and spitfire where great I know cause I owned one. I also brought the original range rover and my favourite the TR7, I brought 2 and liked both of them. Also there was a concept car in British Leyland that would of beat everything... But they was to cheap to build it.
I'm from Sydney and I saw Rover 75 on the street only once in my life. God almighty that looks brilliant and everyone on the street was turning their heads!
Yes, the Rover V8 engine (as found in the Range Rover, P5/P6/SD1,MGB GT V8 as well as the Morgan and so on) was originally a Buick unit. Rover bought the rights to build it.
@blogegog "Maggies Hard Nuts" refers to the people that Thatcher put in charge of the motor industry. They were hardliners who tried to drag it into the modern era but failed. Under the left wing Labour Party the motor industry was plagued by strikes and because Labour was propped up by union money they could never tell them what to do. And under Thatcher's right wing Conservative party they just sold the lot off which, again, got us nowhere. And so endeth the British Motor Industry :P
Rootes had the Linwood factory near Glasgow, and Leyland Bus and Truck division had a plant in Scotland. Also many components suppliers such as Borg-Warner were based in Wales.
That's it. The interior of the Rover 75 ist ein Klischee. Driving one ein Brite muss feel like I felt in Disney Land Epcott Center in the "german" town.
But I like it from the outside. It reminds me of the Chrysler PT Cruiser, the cliché "American gangster" car - from the outside, inside the Chrysler is full of crappy plastic...
The Rover 75 definitively isn't/wasn't a bad car, too bad the Rover-BMW marriage didn't succeed.
Clarkson forgot to mention, like the Mini, the Land Rover Series/Defender was also kept in production (and still is to this day), through all the shit BL went through.
My Land Rover 109 has an Isuzu truck engine and gearbox, and is running on wide rims with mud tyres, but is otherwise completely stock. Apart from the curse of Lucas electrics, it goes perfectly. I give it a hell of a thrashing and it just keeps going, unbreakable, and unstoppable. Better offroad than anything its size, even the Land Cruiser. Boutique manufacturers such as Marcos and Noble use borrowed engines effectively. This must be the way forward-British style/handling and US (etc) Muscle
Robbo what a prat! You sell your labour and do as you are told for your wage! We seem to have forgotten this. Export or die ! Trouble is there is nothing left to export.
face it, crap cars that fell apart as soon as you got them out of the showrooms,is no way to make pple want your products...and as for the cars them selfs...
one of the troubles was the idea that the british public would buy any old tat as long as it was british was soon laid to rest...like layland..
It seems like General Motors and Ford still hadn't learned their lesson from British Leyland because their parallels are so closely similar and GM with its various makes are posting record losses compared to Toyota's profits.
Introduced the Astra in America just to entice sales since many Americans don't like domesticated cars anymore and now prefer European or Japanese styled cars.
Recent news- with gas going up to $4.00 and $5.00 a gallon, the economy bellying up, and nobody can afford new cars, Dodge is one of the first manufacturers said to be dismantled, along with Buick, Pontiac, and a couple possible other General Motors divisions. They're now using Vauxhall and other foreign car producers owned by General Motors to keep them afloat.
at 4:10 the person responsible for the decline of the British empire! is revealed of course at-least it got its own film
FalconswrathPB 2 weeks ago
5 people own a Rover 75
BayAreaOrBust 3 weeks ago
what's the tune at 3.27?
Samthebam4044 2 months ago
Hohoho good joke Sephirius! There were half decent English made cars though, none from BL it has to be said.
Paddy075 3 months ago
Lack of innovation can be deadly in the Automobile Business
especially if you don't treat your people well.
Now there is a new industry rule that all popular cars must look ugly
because they are going the way of the dinosaur and we don't want to miss them.
fjordland 3 months ago
The reason why Rover/BL failed was purely management. Lack of investment in all parts. Poor designs, poor engineering, etc. The factories were dumps, unmodernized and soul destroying to work in.
Unions were the symptom not the cause.
NearAbbeyRoad 3 months ago
The tunnel didn't exist when the austin 1800 was made, so that story is rubbish.
SIERRACOS 4 months ago
@SIERRACOS watch it again and listen carefully
SLADE330 4 months ago
@SIERRACOS He might've been talking about the 1975 Austin 18-22 series, which was known as the Austin 1800 before it became the Princess in 1976, he probably didn't mean the original ADO17 1800 Which was from 64-75, predecessor to the 18-22. The Tunnel was there when the Marina was getting designed in 1970 so that's what Jeremy's most likely on about.
Cheers
Samthebam4044 2 months ago
@SIERRACOS In fact it could very well be the 18-22 since it is according to Wikipedia 68.11 In wide whereas the original ADO17 1800 is only 67 In wide, don't know if that's absolutly accurate it is Wikipedia afterall. Not much difference I know but could've been enough that it wouldn't fit.
Cheers
Samthebam4044 2 months ago
British cars were betrayed same as the empire.
Capitancanguro1 5 months ago
I could do with an onion holder...
Llamarama100 7 months ago
The problem with british companies is that they expect people to work damn hard for a pittance.
arobekie 7 months ago
why he says that the rover 75's problems was coused by the bmw? and why bmws were sold great around the world and were all great cars(that time)? cmon clarkson you know that rover 75 was a s**t 'couse it was a rover
LordStiggy 8 months ago
@LordStiggy
The Rover 75 was designed during BMW. They did not want Rover cars to take market share from BMW, so designed them very different to Rover's disgust.
Rover was the same size as BMW on take-over. Rover were the only Euro maker increasing sales & had every type of car: off-road, front drive, small, limo, etc.BMW wanted that expertise. BMW ruined Rover, after Rover got its act together.
NearAbbeyRoad 3 months ago
Out of interest, what is the music being played at 2:20? I did think it was The Who but I'm probably wrong.
Lynxboy252 9 months ago
@Lynxboy252 The who
Teenage wasteland
MNExotics 8 months ago
@Lynxboy252 It's Baba O' Riley by The Who :p
Hanske90 8 months ago
@Hanske90: Thanks very much. Just been Googling this song and I now understand your ':P' after your comment :) I get more luck searching Baba O'Riley than Teenage Wasteland.
Lynxboy252 8 months ago
@Lynxboy252 Yea teenage wasteland is just the catchphrase that sticks in your head so that's what everyone calls the song :-)
Hanske90 8 months ago
@Lynxboy252 It is, it's The Intro to Baba O'Rielly brill tune.
Samthebam4044 2 months ago
Sounds like the Australian Car industry ,
in 1975 there were car factories all over the country by 2005 there were 7
and then Mitsubishi folded up leaving 1 Toyota plant, 3 Fords and 3 Holdens
Import taxes are so low that local manufacturing couldn't keep up and so we only now make about 6 models
again it's the stupid governments fault and the company CEO's
SonofthePhantom 9 months ago
What does say in 6:06 in the clip, ....... in the corner? Funny scetch though!
djchristian82 10 months ago
these videos explain to me why you dont see oily driveways in england anymore. no more british leyland.
andy86i 1 year ago
@andy86i My uncle' s Mk1 and 2 Ford Granadas leaked far more oil on the driveway than my dad's Triumph 2500PI and Rover SD1 ever did. Clarkson takes some journalistic licence here too - BL had two Mini replacements well into pre-production, first in the late '60s and again in the mid-'70s. Management canned them both, and what we ended up with (the Metro) derived ideas from neither.
turricaned 10 months ago
I see the same thing happening with ITV to an extent, and it's the same mixture of uninformed politicians, bad union practices and clueless businessmen that are responsible. Nope, Jezza is on the money here and that's before we even look at what happened to the Rootes group - later Chrysler controlled before Peugeot bought them all up - and those companies that ended up under the control of GM.
Oh, and don't kid yourselves that it couldn't happen anywhere else but in Britain.
mistie710 1 year ago
@mistie710 To be fair, Chrysler royally fucked up Rootes. Humber's in particular were decent cars.
myintegraisonfire 6 months ago
@myintegraisonfire You could say there that Chrysler and the British components thereof went the same way as BL, just at a different pace and without the painful nationalisation bit in the middle. You could also say the same of Ford except that they didn't really start off as British. Each of the big players in the British motor industry went through the same thing, really.
And yes, I liked the Humber, though I preferred the Minx. It's what I grew up with, I suppose... :)
mistie710 6 months ago
All right all right...but can i still get a Realiant Robin or a Reliant Reagal?
thehornypuppy 1 year ago
Comment removed
omsct 1 year ago
yeah but its happening still to royal mail theyre gonna get theyre way soon i work for them but its going tits up all over good old blighty
sparge2 1 year ago
Ah man, what a sad story.
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despinapjr 1 year ago
If BMC never had purchused Pressed Steel to form British Leyland than maybe British Car Makers would have remianed pretty competative eager to keep up with each other and foreign companies, making commercially viable vehicles, while BL was Nationalised for example I woulden't be surpised if they didn't worry to much about sales etc, since at the end of the day the state will prop them up anyway, then if BMW didn't sell, Mini, Land Rover then MG Rover would have been able to sell more cars
LightningT5 1 year ago
i could see this happening to the american motor industry with in the next ten years
DrewDew13 1 year ago
@DrewDew13 but where suffering for from job loss look up detroit's gettos on youtube and just see what happens when gm goes down.
elefantboys 1 year ago
The Mini! :D I think it makes up for all the bad cars British Leyland made. Even if it did lose money. :)
Mthtmty 1 year ago
The idiots never heard of 'partners' and 'unity' (not that there was any). Excuse my French: How the FUCK do you let sister companies, EFFECTIVELY under the same ownership, get as fucked-up and out-of-hand as Leyland!? SURELY there had to be SOME form of restraint on what company had the rights to which other? Apparently, British motoring died at the hands of self-serving bigots and foreign eyes...BOLLOCKS to them ALL! That's why Jaguar is under ownership of a manufacturer FROM A FORMER COLONY!
KaleunMaender77 1 year ago
Comment removed
omsct 1 year ago
"Maggie hard nuts" = Margaret Thatcher. Served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990.
alexthe22 1 year ago
British Leyland simply made shitty cars, so it failed
Lanciarules 1 year ago 5
@Lanciarules: funny how free trade works we give our Headache industries to lesser countries, I don't see sexy fat defense contracts going the same way.
fjordland 1 year ago 5
@Lanciarules Yep, they made some shitty cars. What you should ask, however, is why they made them. After all, if you go back to the pre-nationalisation era, BMC were making cars that were streets ahead of much of the market. Then, between the former owners, the government, the managers and the workers, they slowly flushed it down the crapper along with rather a lot of taxpayer's money. This show gives an excellent perspective of the whole shitty mess.
mistie710 1 year ago
Despite the failure of the mass produced car business, Britain still leads the world in specialised cars for racing. No-one else comes close.
Gruntol5 1 year ago
Comment removed
omsct 1 year ago
@omsct Red Bull racing is based in England and has an English manager and technical manager.
plaidzinc 1 year ago
Haha, that half mini has been around.
richardmaudsley77 1 year ago
It's amazing how BL lasted as long as it did.
TheZanipolo 1 year ago
The management were 1 of the crucial problems... major pay rises for themselves, pitiful ones for the workforce. If the top brass of BL had focused each maker against a specific market rather then let them rival each other BL would've been a success
Suprahampton 1 year ago
@Suprahampton isn't this a microcosm of what's been happening around the world? All the screw ups were stemming from improper decision making at the top and the finger pointing was always in a downward direction. Once the cluster fuck at the highest echelon was stabilized suddenly it became "I got mine; don't bother me with your problems now and walk it off".
briquetaverne 1 year ago 2
@briquetaverne You're quite right, thats generally what happens when the accountants take over a motor manufacturer... rather then passionate people.
We see it everywhere, the biggest prob with BL was that they were too large, all the companies within the BL fold competed with each other rather than rival firms
Suprahampton 1 year ago
Comment removed
CrazyStingbee 1 year ago
whats the song at 2:22 ?
CrazyStingbee 1 year ago
teenaged wasteleand, the who
amerbritcan 1 year ago
@amerbritcan - it's actually named "Baba O'Rielly", but you got the band right.
JBofBrisbane 1 year ago
the TUC were looking for higher wages, then a black man giving off in the background, no bride in there work, extra tea break, the us and them thinking. tea breaks, the black man over from kingston,
TheLongfords 1 year ago
I like old British cars, but I've never owned one. Sad that British Leyland never got it's act together and gave Toyota, Nissan, VW and the other makers of small cars in the 1970's a real run for the money. Had the government stayed out of it and the unions had been told "NO!" at least once and a while, Britain could have been one of the major world auto producers. I fear that GM here in the US is slowly going the way of BL, however. If I'm wrong, tell me how so.
70Kenny 1 year ago
@70Kenny according to part 2, the unions were reacting to horrible management, and the blame would be shared between them. if you look at honda and toyota, they have totally different management styles (ie they actually listen to the workers from time to time).
phdecora 1 year ago
And now Umerica has gone and done the same ting! Or is Fiat not going to buy Chrystler? The unions are of couirse not the problem, nor is some of management.
;PS: For those of you that don't know UMERICA is pronounced Uhmerica.
HJMC3345 1 year ago
Andrew Marr summed it up nicely in his History of Modern Britain ... "Britain wasn't producing enough well-made, properly priced goods to earn the standard of living its people thought they deserved." Plenty of blame to go around for management, labor and government across all industries.
jerryg1964 1 year ago 2
3:27 What Music Is That??
Anybody knows?
caio20v 2 years ago
sounds like the theme from the "A-team" show.
RomanJockMCO 2 years ago
Ha! the mini did battle through everything that was thrown at it!
thesupahfly 2 years ago
The loss of the car industry is the fault of all. The senior mgt until the mid/late 70's was dire and the unions operated like gangsters and bullies - they intimidated the workers. Everyone just gave up in the end. Why bother making an effort if you just got a kick in the nuts for your efforts.
The majority of workers/mgt were just decent guys who wanted to do a good job, get paid and go home to the wife and kids.
They didn't stand a chance. Longbridge is like a ghost town now.
Tancred66 2 years ago 3
who put BL out of business, the union's and the BL workers, who striked,and striked and striked, British Leyland workers were a bunch of slackers, and the cars that were produced were crap in realiabilty, well done BL worker's you set the standards world wide for dedicated and good workforce, not.
bikersrule07 2 years ago 5
@bikersrule07 What about the management? Who designed the cars? It wasn't the workforce who came up with the Quartic steering wheel. It wasn't the workers who sold whole ranges at a loss for years. Yeah, the Unions have to shoulder some of the blame, but the management and the government have to shoulder their share too.
potstillbill 1 year ago 2
Good call Clarkson.
BL was a rolling fuck up on every key dimension: corporate direction [it didn't exist], product design, production engineering, model range balance, customer after sales, inept management, and a unionised "work" force that struck over every trivial matter.
At the same time the Japanese and Germans were setting the standard for the customer - both in Britain and in BL's crucially important export markets.
lovemorembigi 2 years ago 16
and china !
atreewithnolife 2 years ago
He forgot to mention the Japanese.
During the strikes Japan took advantage of the lack of car productions in the UK and flooded the market with cheap but more reliable cars.
27twentyseven27 2 years ago
if you think of it bl was started over an argument
EXTREME4YEARSTOCOME 2 years ago
That hardly surprises me. It takes a village to take care of a child, and unfortunately, that village was refusing to take care of the child, which in this case, was the auto industry. It's bullshit.
Seattlecarnut 2 years ago
El caso de España es mejor todavía, porque nuestra industria de automóviles, motos y camiones se fue a la mierda a pesar de las restricciones a la importación impuestas por Franco.
pegaso3055 2 years ago
I'm a former Austin-Healey 3000 owner, and an American, we used to have a saying in the '70s:
Q. Why do the British drink warm beer?
A: They all have Lucas refrigerators.
nomadmac 2 years ago
Q. Why don't the British make Computers?
A: They couldn't find out how to make them leak oil.
Sephirius 2 years ago 53
Good one! Reminds me that Malcolm Forbes was a Harley-Davidson fan and had a huge hot air balloon made in the shape of Harley. Harley-Davidson used the photo image in a print advertisement with the caption, "Thank God they don't leak oil anymore".
nomadmac 2 years ago
expet most of the microchips and components were designed and built by british engineers.
daryl4classic 2 years ago
@Sephirius thats very funny except that billions of cellphones use the ARM microprocessor architecture, which comes from the British.
phdecora 1 year ago
So that's why my handset always gets oily easily!
@Daryl
I'm not American.
Sephirius 1 year ago
@Sephirius We did make computers. Better computers than anyone else in the world, actually. Sadly everyone wanted what the yanks had and Acorn went under.
richardmaudsley77 1 year ago
@richardmaudsley77 Acorn wouldn't have gone out of business (they weren't bankrupt) had they not trusted their future to Stan Boland and his venture capitalist weirdos who only wanted Acorn for its major share in ARM. Up until then they still had new designs coming through but they killed the company just as they were about to go public with the followup to their successful RISC PC. They were literally days away and had orders on the books! Asset stripping at its worst.
mistie710 1 year ago
@mistie710 Ahh, the Pheobe. But I didn't know that they still had money at the time they were killed off. Something similar happened to Commodore. One million A1200s sold, 100,000 CD32s, then shut down by april. Bastards.
richardmaudsley77 1 year ago
@richardmaudsley77 I have one of the unfilled Phoebe cases sitting around somewhere. Shame about Commodore too. I might have been an Acorn user at the time but you couldn't ignore the Amiga and all that was done with it.
mistie710 1 year ago
@mistie710 Yeah, I heard about them selling of all the Pheobe cases. What motherboard standard is it? If I had one I'd fit one of the newer acorn compatables.
I have an A1200 with a brand new ACA1230 processor card (28Mhz, 64mb) and a 4GB CF card fopr a hard disk, it's going online soon. What's your Arc setup, if you have one?
richardmaudsley77 1 year ago
@richardmaudsley77 It was based on the early ATX form but modified to allow for the podule bay that the Phoebe was supposed to have (there is a prototype knocking around somewhere but I've never seen it in the flesh). There was a guide showing how to fit a RISC PC inside though it did need a little cutting around, though I'd expect that an Iyonix board should go in without too much of a problem. If you can find one, of course.
mistie710 1 year ago
@Sephirius brilliant!
jerryg1964 1 year ago
@Sephirius But if it wasn't for us Brits, you wouldn't have been able to post this comment on the Internet.
GDWGlos 8 months ago
we have one to.
Q. How do you convince americans to get involved in a war?
A. Tell them it's nearly finished.
daryl4classic 2 years ago 5
If British Aerospace sold Rover to the Japanese, Rover would still be around. If Japan can do better than what Europe do like how they succeeded in making a proper british sports car then they can surely make a british car manifacturer succeed.
MG/Rover or Roewe is now under the chinese which is close but.....
mondeost2202008 2 years ago
What are you talking about?!
1958plymouth440V8 2 years ago
Well the Japanese have contributed a lot of things in the motoring industry like how they showed the europeans reliability so if a Japanese company have purchased Rover (like Toyota for example), they could still be with us.
but because I just brought the Japanese into the topic and they never had any relations with the british motoring industry, this is a bit of a nonsense so let's just forget about what I said.
mondeost2202008 2 years ago
My 2002 Honda Civic Si was designed and built in Swindon.
I miss that car, it was a joy to drive. 26mpg on regular fuel. A slick gearbox with a shift lever that came out of the dash. A hatchback that could accommodate my folding ladder. It's what the Fit should have been modeled on.
nomadmac 2 years ago
Well the fit is good as it is. I like the fact that it's a small 5 door hatchback. A bit girlish but nice. They were planning on a different kind of car when they were doing the fit. The current civics are far from compact I must say. Small cars seem to be getting bigger every year. Just look at the mini compared to the original Mini Cooper.
mondeost2202008 2 years ago
@mondeost2202008 small point to consider old son after ww2 AUSTIN sold Nissan
tooling and car conponents to make their own cars...
grahamkeithtodd 1 year ago
@grahamkeithtodd And they did the manufacturing better XP
mondeost2202008 1 year ago
@mondeost2202008 strangely not quite so,but they did slowly improve on the basic design and in the end started making their own cars entirly in house!
grahamkeithtodd 1 year ago
The only reason the gov sold loads of car firms, was for them to say 'It wasn't me, we didn't do it'
hamsterdance4lyf08 2 years ago 2
BL = bust
GM = bust
FMC = going bust
however...
Westfield = not bust
Caterham = not bust
Morgan = not bust
The bigger they are, the harder they fall, if morgan, a small company, loose money, it's not a disaster, but when GM did...
daryl4classic 2 years ago
Lotus, Aston Martin, RR, TVR and Marcos are small manufacturers and they all almost went bust (TVR and Marcos are now gone). Size doesnt matter, but the the product they sell does. If it was not for the type of cars they sold, tthey would never survived.
gentil79 2 years ago
Comment removed
omsct 1 year ago
So they take our money to bail 'em out.
Lamnont 2 years ago
Now Land Rover and Jaguar is falling down to tata
Mini is bmw hands
Rover is a japanse car maker
dddddddgggggggggg 2 years ago
Rover is chinese
daryl4classic 2 years ago
oops! sorry i alwayes say that
dddddddgggggggggg 2 years ago
Rover a japanese carmaker? where did you hear that?
gentil79 2 years ago
And by the way, Tata will never be able to sell anything under its own name in the USA.
Say "tata" here and people will think you're talking about those certain pair of...ahem...in the female anatomy.
71TR6Guy 2 years ago
IDK, a pink nano will be in every teen girls parking spot.
Lamnont 2 years ago
Jeremy should really make up his mind... When the Rover 75 was first brought out, he said it was brilliant! If I'm not mistaken, he even said he'd rather have that than the Jaguar S Type...
6devilishangel6 2 years ago
I dont think he said the overall car was brilliant. Its exactly as he said there its not a bad car i.e. the quality of the build but its like driving round in a bettys tea room its not what modern britain wanted and i agree the s type wasnt better but the brand was and the brand sells the car.
smilersmiling 2 years ago
That is absolutely right. However, when the car was launched, James May had severelly critisized the car, but years later said it was his favourite british car...
gentil79 2 years ago
At least we now have Aston Martin back. Screw BL a true British Embarrasment.
zepsterboy 2 years ago 2
Oh, so the government DID own BMC? Well, that explains everything - governments cannot do ANYTHING right. And you Brits are stuck with government care, but no manufacturing base! Ha ha ha!
(Why am I laughing? The US is in the same situation now under Il Duce! AAArrrrgh!)
ftorresgamez 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
BMC was losing money on every Mini? I heard that was the case with every Austin 1100/1300, at 10 BP per car - since they shifted 1,000,000 of them, that is a LOT of money down the drain! Wow, BMC was being a Sister of Charity. What happened to turning a profit? Or was SOCIALISM permeating into everything English, even their accountants? Lol! No WONDER the UK is B-R-O-K-E!
Better learn sound economics, fast. Lesson 1: Your costs should be LOWER than your selling price, not HIGHER
ftorresgamez 2 years ago
BMC was losing money on every Mini? I heard that was the case with every Austin 1100/1300, at 10 BP per car - since they shifted 1,000,000 of them, that is a LOT of money down the drain! Wow, BMC was being a Sister of Charity. What happened to turning a profit? Or was SOCIALISM permeating into everything English, even their accountants? Lol! No WONDER the UK is B-R-O-K-E!
Better learn sound economics, fast. Lesson 1: Your costs should be LOWER than your selling price, not HIGHER .
ftorresgamez 2 years ago
"Strikes were the exception rather than the rule"
What a hypocrite! Shyster, nincompoop, liar!
ftorresgamez 2 years ago
Remember an irish(?) comedian when I was a child...Dave Allen at large...imitating british cars: Triumphphphph
N9155E 2 years ago
many people say the union's killed british leyland, what killed british leyland was the fact the car's were a bunch of crap,whitch broke down alot.
bikersrule07 2 years ago
who built the cars? union controlled strikers.
unigateman 2 years ago 2
yes it was them who built the car's and they were a bunch a slackers, and they did a very crap job at building the cars. i saw a vid somewhere, with a worker with a sighn "save our job's" lol
bikersrule07 2 years ago
British leyland wasn't that bad if you know what cars to stay clear off... I mean the stag and spitfire where great I know cause I owned one. I also brought the original range rover and my favourite the TR7, I brought 2 and liked both of them. Also there was a concept car in British Leyland that would of beat everything... But they was to cheap to build it.
ProGamer456 2 years ago
"what killed British Leyland was the fact the car's were a bunch of crap [...]"
. . . Built by Union workers.
ftorresgamez 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
what a shit program. clarkson is a cunt.
fleetwoodsucks 2 years ago
England must have the laziest car designers in the world. Damn design some new cars.
ScLeCo 2 years ago
If that were the case, Volkswagen Audi, Renault and so on wouldn't design cars in England...
SirJiveBunny 2 years ago 3
Damn you know so much! nice
Maxmulham 2 years ago
I'm from Sydney and I saw Rover 75 on the street only once in my life. God almighty that looks brilliant and everyone on the street was turning their heads!
igotnoideawhattoput 2 years ago
the unions killed british motor industry
the rover 75 was a decent car
Turismo87 2 years ago 2
Weak management and government meddling were equally to blame though.
SirJiveBunny 2 years ago 2
Let us hope that a simular fate is not waiting in the wings for the American auto industry....but it is getting mighty close.
eldorado62 3 years ago 2
The original Range Rover had a Buick V8 engine in it. Never knew that 'till now.
Maxmulham 3 years ago
Yes, the Rover V8 engine (as found in the Range Rover, P5/P6/SD1,MGB GT V8 as well as the Morgan and so on) was originally a Buick unit. Rover bought the rights to build it.
SirJiveBunny 2 years ago 2
Why does he mention 'Maggies hard nuts' twice? Does that mean something different in the UK than it does in the states?
blogegog 3 years ago
I think it's a Gender thing from People who lived through the 1980s in the UK
fjordland 3 years ago
Comment removed
alexthe22 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@blogegog "Maggie hard nuts" = Margaret Thatcher. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990.
alexthe22 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@blogegog "Maggie hard nuts" = Margaret Thatcher. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990.
alexthe22 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@blogegog "Maggie hard nuts" = Margaret Thatcher. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990.
alexthe22 1 year ago
@blogegog "Maggies Hard Nuts" refers to the people that Thatcher put in charge of the motor industry. They were hardliners who tried to drag it into the modern era but failed. Under the left wing Labour Party the motor industry was plagued by strikes and because Labour was propped up by union money they could never tell them what to do. And under Thatcher's right wing Conservative party they just sold the lot off which, again, got us nowhere. And so endeth the British Motor Industry :P
swanseajackthe3rd 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
what episode is this from
clingo316 3 years ago
There was no British motor industry-It was all in England.......still is!
BillDFC 3 years ago
Rootes had the Linwood factory near Glasgow, and Leyland Bus and Truck division had a plant in Scotland. Also many components suppliers such as Borg-Warner were based in Wales.
SirJiveBunny 3 years ago
Ah yes who could forget the Hillman IMP!
fjordland 3 years ago
6:00 - 6:24
Jeremy is damned right.
sey are laiking se loo sieling, se wood, se lezzer
geil !!!
typically british, in the same way, the germans wear leather shorts and green hats
Mmh, ya !
Just remember the opening event in the Munich Stadium at the football championship in '06
old cliches and prejudices will never pass away
@volkskraft: entspann dich, junge.
blaumaxxx 3 years ago 2
You gotta love the quotes in this show.
fjordland 3 years ago
Maybe you wanna check out, what your countryman "Eltfell" has to say about the issue...
@blaumaxxx: Älä ole liian ylpeä ja itsevarma.
Volkskraft 3 years ago
That's it. The interior of the Rover 75 ist ein Klischee. Driving one ein Brite muss feel like I felt in Disney Land Epcott Center in the "german" town.
But I like it from the outside. It reminds me of the Chrysler PT Cruiser, the cliché "American gangster" car - from the outside, inside the Chrysler is full of crappy plastic...
The Rover 75 definitively isn't/wasn't a bad car, too bad the Rover-BMW marriage didn't succeed.
robivankenobi 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Don´t mock on Germans, you fucked up your car industry and so on...
Volkskraft 3 years ago
Well they had a chance to save Rover and they failed...
but your right the Germans so know what theyre doing when it comes down to cars
StuRaz 3 years ago 2
Well the German factories were rebuilt using post-war aid money - our money. The British factories were mostly much older.
Then there's the small fact that VW was run by the British Army until 1954...
SirJiveBunny 2 years ago
this is like the team from Fawlty Towers making all the British cars
fordlandau 3 years ago 3
Managers who could not fix a puncture in there motorbike. Good old Anthony wedgewood Benn. LOL.
elli1898 3 years ago 3
Comment removed
N9155E 2 years ago
Affirmative: Probably the most accurate definition of a MBA ;-)
N9155E 2 years ago
I still like the Rover 75 interior though.
paulthebassguy 3 years ago 2
Clarkson forgot to mention, like the Mini, the Land Rover Series/Defender was also kept in production (and still is to this day), through all the shit BL went through.
kazimann 3 years ago
My Land Rover 109 has an Isuzu truck engine and gearbox, and is running on wide rims with mud tyres, but is otherwise completely stock. Apart from the curse of Lucas electrics, it goes perfectly. I give it a hell of a thrashing and it just keeps going, unbreakable, and unstoppable. Better offroad than anything its size, even the Land Cruiser. Boutique manufacturers such as Marcos and Noble use borrowed engines effectively. This must be the way forward-British style/handling and US (etc) Muscle
2pintsplease 3 years ago
The Rover 75 had been concieved by Rover on independently. It hadn't been concieved by BMW, they just used BMW's money.
Pieschetsrieder was sacked because of the Rover mishap, by the way.
eltfell 3 years ago 2
Does anyone what the song is from 2:20??!!
gweengiant 3 years ago
The Who - Teenage Wasteland
robome5 3 years ago
It's "Baba O'Riley" by The Who. The most populaer Who song on iTunes at the moment and the theme to CSI:NY
CANBERRAphotographer 3 years ago
I think BL cars of the 70's were good, we had the SD1, Dolly Sprint and Princess, they all have character and a sense of occasion to them.
polobuzzin 3 years ago
YOU JUST QUOTED WHAT JAMES MAY SAYD IN TOP GEAR, why cant you made up your own sentence?
VoxSangui 3 years ago
ok captin slow.
spitfire2002 3 years ago
Sadly you'd be better off getting China to turn out some classics.. they have all the plans after all and tools. Final Assembly & Trimming in the UK
for old time sake.
Otherwise they would simply cost too much to make.
fjordland 3 years ago
someone should fund and bring british leyland back but get better workers to make the cars reliable
faceman95 3 years ago
Erm.... not thought that one through eh kids??
darrowby1972 3 years ago
Robbo what a prat! You sell your labour and do as you are told for your wage! We seem to have forgotten this. Export or die ! Trouble is there is nothing left to export.
tinaandvince 3 years ago
face it, crap cars that fell apart as soon as you got them out of the showrooms,is no way to make pple want your products...and as for the cars them selfs...
one of the troubles was the idea that the british public would buy any old tat as long as it was british was soon laid to rest...like layland..
grahamkeithtodd 3 years ago
british motor industry was subsidised,purely to grab votes in key marginal seats to keep labour in office.gerrymandring @it's finest!
alanridgley 3 years ago
Sounds like something Monty Python used on one of their skits.
odentroll 3 years ago
Does anyone know what the background music is at 04.00? It's really good and suits the ironic and sad waving!
petersfield209 3 years ago
I don't know the actual name of the tune but it used to be the theme tune for a 70's ITV quiz show "Sale of the Century" hosted by Nicholas Parsons.
cushy1900 3 years ago
*I was told that the Japaneese Government heavily subsidise their motor Industry due to National Pride.. But that's just hearsay as far as I know.
fjordland 3 years ago
It seems like General Motors and Ford still hadn't learned their lesson from British Leyland because their parallels are so closely similar and GM with its various makes are posting record losses compared to Toyota's profits.
betatalk357 3 years ago
Introduced the Astra in America just to entice sales since many Americans don't like domesticated cars anymore and now prefer European or Japanese styled cars.
betatalk357 3 years ago
Recent news- with gas going up to $4.00 and $5.00 a gallon, the economy bellying up, and nobody can afford new cars, Dodge is one of the first manufacturers said to be dismantled, along with Buick, Pontiac, and a couple possible other General Motors divisions. They're now using Vauxhall and other foreign car producers owned by General Motors to keep them afloat.
betatalk357 3 years ago