The Decline and Fall of the British Motor Industry

Описание: The decline & fall of the British Motor Industry.

The MOTOR CAR still remains a powerful
influence in modern society.

Today there are very few BRITISH OWNED Motor manufacturers
left, even though FORMULA ONE racing keeps the performance
end of the industry very much alive.
The most recent development being the float of ASTON MARTIN
on the London stock exchange - a marque closely linked to 007
in the Bond movies, with important connections to F1 racing but
so far NOT DOING VERY WELL.

After the Second World War Europe was in ruins so the America Motor industry dominated the automobile world.
In 1951 Britain’s two leading Motor manufacturers, Austin &
Morris merged to form the British Motor Corporation,
immediately catapulting BMC into third place among the
world’s Motor manufacturer’s behind America’s General
Motors & Ford with Chrysler in fourth place. Here was agreat opportunity for the British Motor Industry to consolidate
it’s position in the world.

General Motors famous marques were dripping with chrome
& great ‘gas guzzlers’ at the high water mark of the ‘American dream’ in the 1950’s, even as the Cold War took hold under the threat of the Atomic bomb!

At that time BMC (Austin, Morris, Wolseley, Riley & MG) exported
most of their cars to America while selling at a premium through their extensive network of distributors & dealers in Britain, soon
to be grouped under the banner of ‘creative engineering’.
BMC then held 50% of the UK market, but were in competition with
Ford & GM (Vauxhall) + home grown manufacturers Rootes Group (Humber & Sunbeam), Rover, Jaguar & Triumph + a host of lesser marques including Rolls Royce & Bentley.