10:51 Speke closure film clip

[ACW30445]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBokyZ0wOmc

I don't know if anyone has posted this or not...was put on youtube in Dec. 2009.

My car was built there...oh joy! But it seems to have held up pretty well. It guess it was somewhat hit or miss depending on exactly when your car came down the assembly line.

It was built in July, 1977. My car has had some GOOD owners though. When I read about many walk outs they actually had, it was amazing to me they got ANYTHING built at all. The strikes didn't help. It's amazing how little British Leyland reinvested in the company however in the years preceding. You can't just blame the workers alone.

"We're determined to fight it, even if it means sitting in there until the place closes down completely or someone else takes over"


@ 4:07 "and at the bottom of the Leyland league and that's saying a lot"

After listening to the guy's in the pub talk about all the things they had to repair on the assembly line....gasp!!!!

Anyway after 30+ years a lot of the quality control issues have been worked out long AFTER leaving the plant!


http://www.gla.ac.uk/centres/mediagroup/industrial.htm

"The Ryder Report on Leyland commissioned by the government, showed that between 1968 and 1972 the company had distributed 95% of its profits as dividends. In these years Leyland had made £74 million in profits; of this only £4 million was retained for re-investment, while £70 million was distributed as dividends. Leyland had more obsolete and worn out machinery than its competitors. The most important effects of this were that cars cost more per unit to produce and also that such machinery was likely to break down. In 1975, the managements own figures showed that they were losing more through ineffective machinery, and factors such as management errors, than they were losing through strikes at Leyland. At this time Leyland was a hotchpotch of all the different parts which had been absorbed into it and different sections actually produced models which were in competition with each other. Management and organisational structure were obviously chaotic."

[PeterTR7V8]

uskiwis=PeterTR7V8.

Leyland were arm-twisted into opening the Speke plant in the first place. It would be great to go back in time to see how things would've gone if TR7s were made in Canley right from the start & if the Sprints, DHCs & TR8s had been produced from the start & if ... Well, never mind.

[prlee]

Yes I have seen it, noted the number of non BL cars turning up at the factory despite company discounts (perhaps sold at a profit). My wifes uncle used to work at the Austin factory at Longbridge, he told me how the management engineered strikes as a way of cutting back on over production without costs in the early seventies. Although proud of working for Austin, don't remember him ever driving one of their products, only complaining about them

On my high horse, if Leyland had never been forced to take over the ruins of BMC they could still be here today, Lord Nuffield lost interest, Leonard lord had no understanding of accounting manageing to make a loss on an incredibly successful car, the mini, nobody managed BMC in the sixties, Issigonis ignored sales and marketing hence the Maxi. They created a company capable of producing a million cars a year without a product.

Longbridge was a long term problem, it cost BMW over a billion pounds and produced their first loss, Triumph was advised to close it in 1969!

If only.......

Austin and Longbridge means something to me, I grew up down the road and could smell the paint shop (more often I could smell chocolate from the Cadbury factory, much better), it employed 25000 people in the seventies directly, most of my friends parents worked there.

My affection for Triumphs comes from studying manufacturing in Coventry. I have suceeded in never working in the automotive industry, although I am still very much involved in manufacturing in the UK.

I will now have a lie down, sorry.

Pete
81 DHC (Undergoing minor body repair)
79 Spitfire (Current Main drive)