Oh Britain, what have you done (part ∞+21)?
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Enfield boy
pfm Member
Riley 4/72 or 4/68?My father had one of these, in the same colour
http://i66.tinypic.com/sov1mt.jpg[/IMG]
Plush interior. Handy starting crank for those flat battery moments (frequent) Twin carbs mind.
A beautiful car, ok based on the Morris Oxford but such style. A tragedy these were replaced by the Marina.
Tony L
Administrator
My father had one of these, in the same colour
Plush interior. Handy starting crank for those flat battery moments (frequent) Twin carbs mind.
What date was that? To my mind it long predates the British Leyland shark-jump. I’d file that with the Mini, Morris Minor etc as being a very decent car of its era. It all turned to crap with the Marina, Allegro etc and from there fell off a cliff.
stephen bennett
Mr Enigma
To be fair, lots of '70s Euro cars were rust buckets and pretty horrible. Plenty of rubbish Renaults, Fiats and Pugs. I remember my neighbours Datsun being a revelation.
Anyhow, British manufacturing isn't coming back.
Someone in my local paper blamed the EU for foreign ownership of UK car manufacturers and other UK companies and services.
Boy, are they in for a shock under a Rees-Mogg/Crosby/Johnson Brexit.
Which is the only one on offer and the only one likely to be implemented.
Stephen
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
If the U.K. wants to get back into manufacturing, it should look at investing in production of green tech such as solar power generation, and energy efficiency. The planet is going to have to do a bit of downsizing and decluttering, so investing in the means to make more ‘stuff’ probably literally has no future.
We have some of the best academics, and have always been technologically very innovative. We could seriously make ourselves a real and secure niche in those fields. Given the current impetus for climate change mitigation, that’s going to have to be where the serious action happens for the next couple of decades, at least.
We have some of the best academics, and have always been technologically very innovative. We could seriously make ourselves a real and secure niche in those fields. Given the current impetus for climate change mitigation, that’s going to have to be where the serious action happens for the next couple of decades, at least.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
About 1971 I think- it was s/h when he bought it, eventually with Flintstones style holes rusted in the floor pan. Had bur walnut fold down picnic trays on the front seat backs.
stephen bennett
Mr Enigma
Great idea, one problem.
A Tory/UKIP/NewKip Government until 2022 or longer.
Stephen
Swamp Thing
Remainiac Terrorist
Austin Princess, gollywogs on jam jars, rickets, ginger beer, diphtheria, Hitler, Biggles, institutional child abuse, Vera Lynn, Spam, rationing, slums, street parties, jumpers for goalposts, urchins, poor houses, the light programme, casual racism, chemical castration for 'deviants', menial work for women until marriage, no blacks, no Irish, church on Sunday, no NHS, no universal education, no elfin safety, chimney sweeps, smog, teenage prostitutes, flogging, shellac, pipe smoking...
Back to when Britain was great. Before the EU, which is simply beastly.
russel
./_dazed_and_confused
Solar power panel production is highly automated, so few jobs, it also needs cheap power and access to markets, so until nuclear fusion is here and Britain joins a large trading block it's not looking a good bet unfortunately.
Nick_G
pfm Member
Swampy, what you are describing is the Free United Conservative Kingdom of English Democrats. Coming to you soon when Jacob Rees-Mogg becomes the Übergammonreichenführer, I mean Prime Minister, of this once great land...
wyjsar
Nothing but heart
Fried spam, in fact it needs to be well fried, isn't half bad (though I've not had it for about 20 years). Lay off the spam!
I was all ready to sign up, and then you went and mentioned Vera Lynn so I'm out.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
Is this the draft programme for the 2022 Festival of Britain?
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-festival-of-creativity-and-innovation-to-be-held-in-2022
droodzilla
pfm Member
PsB
Citizen of Nowhere™
Iron blocks? Push rod OHV? It was like the UK bike industry repeated 20 years later... Triumph, Norton , BSA etc had leaky, vibrating, slow and unreliable machines and just rested on their laurels whilst the Japanese brought out 4 cyl bikes with OHC, oil tight, very reliable etc.
BL were just the same "let's make a modern shiny new car for the future! Of course that old iron block push rod engine will do...."
The All agro was especially terrible.. my parents bought a new one and the engine fell out! Sump on the deck and pretty much held in by the drive shafts after all the engine mounts snapped!
It doesn't mean of course that a nationalised car maker couldn't be successful in the future.. now what we need is a peoples car
IMHO who owns the shares and assets is not necessarily the problem. The state only became involved in Leyland because the businesses were doing badly under private shareholders, and Rootes was always in private hands. Both went down the drain, regardless of ownership. Rootes was under good ole American ownership (Chrysler) when it went really south. Chrysler applied the same stale, failed recipes to Simca in France, with the same awful results. After that brilliant European episode they then committed hara kiri in the US, before being picked up by Fiat...
My uncle was a moderately successful car dealer in Lancashire. He originally had the Rootes line (Sunbeam, Hillman etc.) and seemed happy enough with those cars, even though there were problems. The company was undercapitalized and made a couple of bad product decisions, then Lord Rootes was replaced by Lord Rootes Jr. who soon sold out to the Americans. Under Chrysler the quality of the product got steadily worse and there was zero innovation. Ancient engines, rear wheel drive, leaf springs... At some point in the late 60s, my uncle dumped them and became a Toyota dealer. Oh, how we laughed. Japanese cars! Dinky Corollas and Celicas. He kept insisting "you know, the quality is actually very good" and when he gave us kids a ride in the big Toyota Crown he swaned around in, I started to see what he meant. Bit of a visionary, my uncle. He did well with Toyota in the 70s.
MikeMA
pfm Member
Spam should be deep fried in batter.
PsB
Citizen of Nowhere™
I don't think one can dissociate engineers from managers that neatly. In industry, most managers are engineers. Engineers are in charge of quality, manufacturing processes, all that "implementation" stuff. Ultimately, if the engineers/managers are rubbish, or if they're competent but the shareholders (state or private) refuse to invest enough in expensive things like R&D, manufacturing and distribution, the company will fail (or be sold by Lord Whatsit). IMO the tragedy of much of British industry has been that financial considerations have tended to dominate decision making, all in the name of rational and disciplined capital allocation of course. "Sweating the assets" almost killed the US auto industry in more or less the same way. Great return on capital, much better than what those dumb Japanese or Germans were achieving in the 70s and 80s.
MikeMA
pfm Member
We, or rather my dad, had a slightly less posh Austin Cambridge A 60 in the 1960s. I think it cost about £600 new. In those days maintenance was a major thing, even on a new car, and I remember my dad spending a significant proportion of his spare time under the car with a grease gun. I inherited, and still use, the ancient remnants of his huge tin of Castrol grease.My father had one of these, in the same colour
http://i66.tinypic.com/sov1mt.jpg[/IMG]
Plush interior. Handy starting crank for those flat battery moments (frequent) Twin carbs mind.
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