Death by 1,000 cuts, the demise of the British auto industry.

I posted in another thread about the Argyll GT a link to http://www.aronline.co.uk/

On that site you can read about most British cars. One of my favorites growing up and a really good car that should have been even better is the Rover SD1. I know it was sold briefly here, but it was never a success. The link to the development story of that car is at http://www.aronline.co.uk/index.htm?sd1storyf.htm Read that and you'll see what a tragedy the British auto industry because. Here's a few choice tidbits:

one. Rover faced a political situation within the Specialist Division of British Leyland and it was decided to pitch the Rover at a price level comfortably below the “basic” XJ6, the 3.4 Series Two model in order to avoid internecine competition.
two. The actual launch was 30 June 1976 and in traditional British Leyland fashion, a dispute arose in the factory producing the new model over a raffle of five of the new 3500s involving assembly workers. Non-assembly workers objected and many staged a 24-hour strike. Then, a week later, a two-hour stoppage occurred involving 1770 workers, who complained of excessive heat in the factory. On 5th August, two workers were disciplined for poor punctuality resulting in a walkout by 300 paintshop workers - and this which halted SD1 production at Solihull for 24 hours.
three. Production of bodies for the 125mph saloon was as much as 50 per cent below target, although they were set by agreement with shop stewards. Nearly eight months after the car was launched, the assembly factory at Solihull was turning out fewer than 400 cars a week, mainly because of Castle Bromwich's failure to supply enough bodies.
four. The sitution was also excerbated by the BL-wide tool-makers strike in the early months of 1977, which began as soon as Castle Bromwich resumed normal working - domestic supplies were drastically cut, but more disastrously when the SD1 was put on sale in the EEC in March 1977,
five. By 27 June 1977, SD1 production was again at a standstill, following a walkout by twelve tool-fitters. Once this dispute was resolved, there was more bad news for Leyland Cars: 4000 men employed at Leyland's Rover plant at Solihull rejected company plans to introduce a night shift because they claimed night working disrupted family life and caused health problems. They rejected management's argument that night-shift working was essential if Leyland was to exploit the tremendous demand for the then European Car of the Year, the Rover 3500 executive saloon.
six. By October, SD1 production was again halted, this time the cause was a six-week strike by 57 axle assemblers at Triumph's Radford factory.
seven. And this one beats them all - In January 1978, SD1 production was again halted for 24 hours after six inspectors walked out in protest at the colour of their overalls (they were issued with brown overalls when they wanted white), and 40 other inspectors struck in sympathy.
eight. The tale of woe continued when at the end of the month it was reported that 2500 SD1s were stockpiled at the Solihull factory because of a shortage of components and exhaust emission testing equipment.
nine. In April 1978, production was halted for ten days in a dispute involving foremen and supervisors who had to provide cover for the staggered shifts intended to boost weekly production to 1800 cars per week. In June, a strike involving eighty drivers shut down the Solihull factory and cost BL some 3000 Rover cars in lost production. By now the Solihull factory was only operating at half its intended capacity of 140,000 cars per year and some industry observers took the view that the Rover SD1 was only marginally profitable for its manufacturer. By November 1978, it was reported that output was now 1500 per week, components shortages prevented the target of 1800 per week from being attained. 1978 Turned out to be the peak year of SD1 production, with 54,462 emerging from the factory.

Don't forget this was voted both British and European car of the year in 1977!! It's a wonder the car was as successful as it was!

edit to add #'s in text as the silly silly GRM software can't recognize numberd points. .

Now how did the British autoworkers organize? It was govt controlled someway and not actually a union was it?

This read so much like the issues American manufacturers have with the Unions where they have to ask for certain production levels, only certain people can do certain tasks or everyone gets their tits in a wringer, it's too hot in here, it's too far for me to walk, little Johnnie is working too hard and that's causing his stress levels to rise, etc., etc.

re #7:

"Now that's just silly..."

in a modern industrial society, a real labor union is only intermittently needed. Unless an egregious lack of concern is shown for employee well being, a mfr should be allowed to run their plant however they want. What happened in the late 70s has played out here in America too with the UAW squandering the resources of the American auto and MFG industry in general. I blame a lot of Americas economic problem on 1. the banking and financial industry, 2. the individual Americans and American businesses who refuse to take responsible action to protect themselves from being overrun by debt, and 3. the UAW, in that particular order.

carguy123 wrote: Now how did the British autoworkers organize? It was govt controlled someway and not actually a union was it?

Government owned. The Union (workers) had no perceived (by themselves) ownership stake. They just thorught they could do what they had always dobe and that they would be taken care of.

I don't think that unions are always and necessarily the "good guys." They're needed when conditions are crap and there aren't any laws or the company isn't providing what they need. And I don't mean "we don't have xbox live in the lounge," but "peoples' arms are coming off in the machinery every hour on the hour." People can get greedy. I'd love to have made $20/hr when I washed cars. Didn't mean that I was some sort of Saint. If people get too greedy they are going to put themselves out of work permanently. Overalls? Are you kidding me? And I don't think people realize that it's a risk when they say they are not coming in to work and won't do their job. Yes, you're free to do it, but there's no guarantee that the company won't fire you. You're telling your employer you are not going to do your job - don't take it lightly.

I'm guessing Government Motors ought to look at the British auto industry as a warning. We've had ample proof the govt can screw up any kind of business and Unions only add fuel to the flames.

The entitlement that some people possess is mind-boggling.

MitchellC wrote: The entitlement that some people possess is mind-boggling.

qtf

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-pratttrial.artdec22,0,708474.story

I'm living it now though..

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-pratt_lawsuit_green_1222.artdec22,0,1005197.column

The Germans seem to know how to run an automobile company, this is off topic, but they do. Look at what Audi has done with Lambo, VW with Bentley, Porsche with Porsche before this new guy who came in who doesn't like racing. BMW keeping to itself and building a driver's car.

The Brits built some beautiful to look at cars back in the day but from what my old man and other people say, they were the biggest headaches mechanically.

If the US doesn't learn to pay attention, the US Auto industry will go the way of the British Auto industry.

It's a good thing the US doesn't repeat the same errors over and over, like the lessons learned at Vietnam, um Korea, hang on, Desert Storm ......errr never mind

Watching wheeler dealers on HD theatre right now and it's hillarious how much they talk smack about the "dodgy" american electrics in the C4 corvette....what about those Jags with V12s of the same era? HA

The home of the Prince of Darkness talking smack about electrics...too funny

DirtyBird222 wrote: Watching wheeler dealers on HD theatre right now and it's hillarious how much they talk smack about the "dodgy" american electrics in the C4 corvette....what about those Jags with V12s of the same era? HA

Who said it, Mike or Ed? Mike doesn't seem that knowledgeable about what goes on underneath a car. Ed on the other hand is pretty knowledgeable about history and mechanicals. I haven't worked on a C4 before, but I have worked quite a bit on the C3. The electrical system isn't that bad. It's easy to work on, parts and information are as common as dirt and water, and I haven't had any reliability problems with it.

Some of the problems were quality control issues also. If you need to either rebuild or replace an engine or transmission before 100k miles there is something wrong with what you are building. I don't know about the british wiring, but that sounds mostly like user ignorance rather than outright incompetance.

If mercedes built cars that had to be rebuild every 100k miles they'd be out of business by now. Mercedes is unionized also, so that isn't the problem.

My uncle is a union boss and only will buy union built cars and he's gotten a fair share of crap from ford and dodge.

"....if Mercedes built cars that had to be rebuilt every 100K miles...."

Several years ago, the British magazine CAR had a feature story on the poor assembly quality of Mercedes (Mercede's?) cars. It seems that many had to be pulled from the assembly lines near the end of their assembly to have numerous problems rectified. The article said that Mercedes had about the longest assembly times per unit because of this. In other words, Toyota took, say an hour to build a Lexus "from scratch" while Mercedes took nearly 2 and a half hours to build a car. Obviously, things have improved, somewhat, for Mercedes, tho the first series of MLs threw the quality rep for German cars for a loop.

In the '70s, ALL British workers, not just those at British Leyland, or Ford or Vauxhall, would strike, quite literally at the drop of a hat. Because this country was caught up in it's own problems (Vietnam winding down and rampant inflation), we weren't too concerned about what was happening in the "old country".

I've said here a few times that the American/domestic manufacturers run the risk of repeating the mistakes that occured in Great Britain. The near bankruptcy of GM follows, in many respects, what happened to BL. Both companies built shoddy cars and blamed customers for shrinking sales. Both had only middling quality standards from their suppliers, and as a result, the vehicles they built fell apart quickly. And both companies treated workers like "redheaded stepchildren".

Look at BL's products before they died....just like GM in the '80s and early '90s: several divisions building nearly the exact same car....just SLIGHTLY different sheetmetal and interior trim.

Benzbaron said: My uncle is a union boss and only will buy union built cars and he's gotten a fair share of crap from ford and dodge

well good thing for him the U.A. effing W. has gotten its tentacles into pretty much every avenue of American manufacturing, so any cars built in the states - including for foregin companies - is union built. He can have his pick. Tell him to pick soon though, the UAW will eventually drive all domestic American manufacturing to india and mexico, so then he will have to wait for the UAW to start ruining international economies before he can buy another union made car.

The problem with English electrical systems is:

1. Fuses cost money, so they seem to have left them out. Sure, you can run the biggest circuits in the vehicle with no fuse at all. Just wire it directly to the battery. No problem.

2. Those little button connectors they used. 90% of the problems with things not working can be traced down to a corroded connection inside one of those button thingies.

3. Absolutely zero QC or process improvement. If you have a problem with your product and everyone else in the world doesn't, it's pretty obvious where to look for the solution. Just fix it instead of denying the problem exists.

Unions were involved in the problems. You can't source better components because the union that makes the crap ones will strike and your union will strike in sympathy. So you keep putting the same crap in. If the whole plant can shut down because the inspectors didn't get the right color overalls, well, that's not a good thing.

Line from that Walter Matthau movie I.Q. (from memory, go rent the movie for the exact wording):

Man sitting in a MGTD or something similar, broke down: What's wrong with it?

Mechanic: Well, the problem is the English would rather spend money glueing wood on the dashboard than designing an electrical system that works.

JeepinMatt wrote: Who said it, Mike or Ed? Mike doesn't seem that knowledgeable about what goes on underneath a car. Ed on the other hand is pretty knowledgeable about history and mechanicals.

It was Edd. I literally busted out laughing when he said that. We all have our cultural biases, I guess.

Floating around in torrent-land is a series called "Clarkson's Car Years" that he did about 10 years ago. One episode is about the demise of the British auto industry. Being Jeremy, you always have to watch with a wary eye since he is more of an entertainer than a journalist, but I found it interesting.

How true. People will buy a dog turd if it can be made shiny enough. Style will always win out over substance.

aussiesmg wrote: If the US doesn't learn to pay attention, the US Auto industry will go the way of the British Auto industry.

Not to be alarmist or anything, but US auto manufacturers have already followed the brits down the drain. As a matter of fact, they followed the exact same path to get there!

What you are seeing now is three corpses running on life support and whatever momentum is left from a nostalgic past.

I'm deliberately keeping out of the Union as good/bad in this but a couple of points.

1. The British unions in the 70's were very very militant and had no perception of ownership. Like it or not the UAW DOES have a very real ownership stake in 2/3's of the Domestic manufacturers and very much realize their tenuous position.

2. People keep talking about the Germans and how they know to build cars. The Mercedes issue has already been pointed out, but also Porsche used to almost rebuild every 911 at the end of the line they were so bad. Also realize that the labor movement is so strong in Germany it's almost impossible to lay people off. The unions are very very strong over there and have a massive ownership stake in VW particularly.

Dr. Hess wrote: Man sitting in a MGTD or something similar, broke down: What's wrong with it? Mechanic: Well, the problem is the English would rather spend money glueing wood on the dashboard than designing an electrical system that works.

Wasn't the dashboard in a TD actually wood, not metal with wood glued to it? I have more glued-on wood in my US and German cars than in all my British ones

I think there was one really big plus to Lucas: standardization. Wiring colours were consistent from car to car and so were many parts like lights, switches and wiper motors. There's no reason for every model year of every car to have unique light assemblies, it just drives up design, production and parts costs. Does anyone care that an Aston Martin DB6 and a farmer's Land Rover used the same turn indicator and headlights?

There was an episode of Fawlty Towers where Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) is reading the newspaper and the headline is about an auto plant strike. I was unable to find the exact quote, but it went something like this:

" Ahh, I see the auto workers are on strike again. If they're so unhappy assembling automobiles, why don't they explore other avenues of employment, such as designing bridges, or composing symphonies? I can see it now- the British Leyland Concerto. It would consist of 4 movements, each of them deliberately slow, with a half hour break for tea in between each one."

Argylle GT:

SD1:

In case you were wondering what they looked like, like I was. They also looked like this: