Working in the Automotive Industry in the 1980's

[Bobthebeard]

Anyone?

I worked for Lucas Automotive between 1987 and 1997. Worked on Rover R8 switchgear plus many others. Many tales to tell! Has anyone else any memories of the 'happy years'?

[Albert Ross]

Yugo/Dacia dealership in 1988, Land Rover dealership 88/89.. then just upwards from there on in.

[Anglevan]

Mitsubishi colt dealer 1985 to 1990 then bmw for 10 years. Preferred working at mitsubishi. Happy days

[carlo]

Worked from 1985 to 2001 in the motor industry and loved (nearly) every minute of it.  It's in the blood.

 

1985 - 88  Godfrey Davis Contract Hire

1988 - 2001 Peugeot dealers, three different ones inc. Watford, Slough & Uxbridge.

 

I loved my job as a buyer for Godfrey Davis, buying 100s of new Ford Granada Scorpios, Peugeot 305s and Austin Maestros!

[Guest Breadvan72]

I was an undergraduate from 1981 to 1984, and in 1984 my dad (ex Lucas, ex Rootes-Chrysler, and by then in BL) was posted to run a Unipart exhaust factory in my university town, which was about fifty miles from our home in Solihull.   He has many tales of 70s and 80s BL, knew Red Robbo, and got to know Michael Edwardes quite well. My dad and I shared many a beer and curry night while he was living in a Travelodge on the ring road and I was stressing about my exams.    He had a brown company Princess at the time.  

[Station]

Worked for a contract company assembling rear parcel shelf mounts with the speakers in (basically screwing the speakers in) and the rear side window rubbers for mk3 Astras in about 1993. I did it for a day. I folded the rubbers incorrectly and they all had to come back.

Also worked for Faurecia which assembled the seats for mk4 Astras in 2002 for a few weeks. Torqueing up airbags, checking forward/backward movement etc etc. I put a little green sticker with 'S' on for ones that passed.

True story(s).

Uncle worked for Vauxhall for decades in PR/Marketing.

[DVee8]

I worked for GKN auto parts from 1987-1989.Started as a stores pissboy,then one Friday the lad that was the paint mixer took the banking round to the bank on the way he popped in to the bookies and put the lot on a horse that didn't come in,neither did he.I was then promoted to paint mixer,sent to PPG in Birmingham to train in colour matching and mixing.

From 1992 to now team leader for a company  that produces  pressed steel panels for Nissan,Honda and Toyota. 

[Six-cylinder]

1979 to 1985 Managed Motor parts shops

1985 to 1996 Volvo, Citroen, Volvo, Vauxhall, Citroen dealers in that order. Always in sales, moved to Vauxhall for sales managers job. Best time a year on the 2nd Volvo dealers separate used car site, great boss I could drive anything I wanted just because it was there.

[simmo]

Peugeot dealer in  West Ruislip , early eighties

[Junkman]

I did an internship at BMW from 1980-84, then started distributing yank spares in Germany. That company morphed into a Corvette dealership and from the mid 80s we did serious development on those cars, some of which was incorporated into the regular production models by GM. I was a regular in the Bowling Green R&D facility in the late 80s. By that time I had started to hate the car industry, which IMO completely lost the plot after 1986. I left it from one day to the next in 1992 to do something completely unrelated and thankfully never looked back.

[plasticvandan]

i did  my work experience at Morgan if that counts? and was an apprentice for 4 years at Carmichaels,making fire engines

[Geep]

1977 started spannering in Ford dealership, was also Datsun and Chrysler before going Ford and other branches stayed Datsun. PDI's on MK 1 Granada's and MK4 Cortina's, plenty of Simca action and Chrysler Alpine tappets! Simca brakes were a nightmare. Had a series one landrover and trailer for recovery...on trade plates, natch. Saw the new fangled front wheel drive in the Fiesta, pushed a MK3 capri sport in to a venue under a cover for an early launch party and were on Police Call at a time when getting stuff out the way was the priority.

 

Moved on to Volvo, boring, Austn Rover where I used courtesy cars most of the time. Maestro and Montego mostly, some Metro's and even got to run in a new engine in a 2.0 SD1 for IBM as they didn't trust their people to treat it right. Still had big end failure after gentle running in! That was the third or fourth engine in that one. Then independents for a while and then my own place for a while. Slowed down these days due to a bit of mental breakdown and copd but still love to dabble,

 

Funnily enough, Ford's are the one car that don't excite me in any way. Had the MK1 escort...and hit a telegraph pole on the back lane coming back from office xmas party.    Had Capri's, 1600 and a 3 litre MK2 Ghia, used to hate Vauxhalls but now like them. Got a Frontera Sport (95), a Rover 400 (97) acting as a store and a Triumph Spitfire that every year I say I will make a start on in the garage. Bit of a Rover fan too, the 800 Vittesse saloon was a cracker

 

*Don't think I've ever typed so much about myself on the internetz ever!

[Timewaster]

1987 - Saturday job. Car accessory shop / factors.

1988 - Peugeot dealer. Snotty nosed parts boy. (Whilst still moonlighting at the factors)

1989 - Vauxhall dealer. As above (Bollocked for still moonlighting)

1990 - Car accessory shop / factors. Stayed on and off for 18 years.

 

The Peugeot dealer explains my love of 205s and 405s. We had a 305 parts van that sat folornly in the yard as the partsman (me) didn't have a licence

Time spent at the Vauxhall dealer when all Voxhalls R not sh*t. Mk2/3 Cavaliers, Mk2 Astras, Novas, Belmont shaped Carltons and Senators.

Boss had a Carlton GSi3000 and the service manager had an Astra LXi Estate.

Parts van was a KB pick up. I never went near it and was quite pleased about it.

 

Downsides, 1988 Peugeot dealers also had to supply parts for all the Rootes marques. Talbots, Hillmans, Singers and worst worst of all, Commer spacevans.

Whatever you think of this old chod, they were an absolute nightmare to get anything to fit them.

"You want brake parts.. well are they Ate, Girling, Bendix or Teves? Oh, well if you dont know I cant get it right."

"Forget the brakes, you want a set of points?.. Lucas, Sev Marchall, Ducellier or Delco?... FFS!"

"Ok, a carb gasket kit? Was it manufactured as GPO, British Gas, Electricity board or standard spec?....."

 

I thought I'd escaped all that when I went to Vauxhalls.

 

"Good morning sir, I'll just look up that Bedford CF wheel cylinder for you....................Oh FUCK!"

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I did a mechanical apprenticeship with Alfa Romeo 1985, bodywork one with Austin Rover in 1986 and then worked at a VW Audi bodyshop. Worked at my Dad's garage in early nineties, then a Mini specialist 1992/3. Did a bit of sales repping for Unipart in 1993/4 - a great job that I packed in to move to Aston Martin at Bloxham chucking DB7's together in a haphazard fashion - the very worst job I ever had, an absolute bunch of nasty, backstabbing wankers - that was just the miserable cunts from Coventry who couldn't cut it at Browns Lane being shipped over. The managers were worse.

Got fired on some jumped up disciplinary and, singing and dancing out the factory gates went straight into a pre arranged sales job at another Alfa dealership - 155's, 164's and such goodness.  Moved then to another Alfa dealer as service advisor and in 1997 went self employed. I do a bit of PAYE to keep $$$ rolling in.

[Guest Tony Hayers]

Anyone?

I worked for Lucas Automotive between 1989 and 1997. Worked on Rover R8 switchgear plus many others. Many tales to tell! Has anyone else any memories of the 'happy years'?

 

Hey BTB, did you do assembly or design? There was a Lucas plant near me (Ystradgynlais, S.Wales) that made wiring looms for the Rhonda joint venture.

 

I've worked on assembly lines for various companies including hub units for Toyota Avensis (T250)  and dashboard units for the Honda Civic 2006>

[solid61]

I started off in 1978 as a Bedford truck mechanic at a main dealers in luton,after leaving in 82 ive done just about everything to do with the motor industry,quite enjoyed it in the 80s/90s when my knowledge was worth something but since then the job gone down hill and in the last few years has changed so much in all aspects and im starting to feel like im just a miserable old sod that just harps on about the good old days,maybe I am but im happy to say I was there when it was good and you could get by with a tool box and not a computer,ill stop moaning now.

[Des]

 

1988 - 2001 Peugeot dealers, three different ones inc. Watford

That would be Hortons, I went for a job interview there about 1994-ish, before the elegant Victorian houses on site got knocked, saw the owner, I was quite skilled and unfazed with job interviews at that point and wowed him with my recent Pug dealer experience in that London, all went well until he mentioned it was a 6 day week and I was out of there like a shot.

[oldford]

1985 - 88  Godfrey Davis Contract Hire

I did a course at Europcar in 1986 at Bushey House next door to where you must have been working, was it Twyford House?, and has it been demolished now?  We got into the board room and had a cup of coffee with our feet on the table.

 

I worked in car hire 1982 to 1998, full and part time with Europcar and Eurodollar, helping to make used cars.

[Doctormop]

Worked in the parts department of a Rootes main dealer straight after leaving school, best advice I got during first week there was to keep a stop/tail bulb and an Imp throttle cable in my work coat pocket as 'we sell so many of them you will save yourself a pair of boots a month running up and down the racks picking them to order'

Proved to be 100% correct as well.

[Barry Cade]

Youse are all old- in the 80's I was still painting Dinky's with Humbrol.

[Des]

Can't sleep so I'll have a go at recounting my career with da motaz. About '84 I was in final years of college, one of the tutors told me of a garage that had been in touch with a vacancy, Devon Service Centre in Watfords lower High Street, went along for the crack and got a job there, didn't last long as it turned out to be some kind of a front for a special needs daycare centre and couldn't handle anything not Ford. Went up the road to a small outfit called T.S. Motors, nice place to work, normal people capable of actually repairing cars, vintage Rover specialists so lots of delights rocking up, left there to do my own thing / bum around for a bit and went into a partnership sort of a ballyhoo with a panel beater called Basil, next to the railway lines near Watford Junction which was gr8 for squashing pennies. Basil was a strange guy, very good at the paint but couldn't be trusted with a dozer, one day when my friend popped by with his Mini Basil had a problem with him just for being black, which was quite strange as Basil was black himself. I left him to it and went to work at a place near Rickmansworth called PDS, two guys, one nice one nasty, didn't stay long, and moved on to a small place in Rickmansworth, John Hornes Garage, finally happy working with decent honest good people, only left because I went and took myself to that London, while there I got through a very short stint in an absolute scumhole called ASK Garage, then to North Eastern Motors, a black cab garage of about a dozen railway arches and really disgustingly filthy, when I could take no more, to Woodseer Garage near Brick Lane, a wonderful old place dating back to the twenties now sadly demolished. Onto Queensbridge Motors the UKs first Toyota dealer and absolutely shit, proprietor retiring and his two sons enthusiastically taking over and destroying the business, then Specialist Cars, a garage that actually managed to be up itself,  proper ideas above your station full of shit.

On being asked by the old boy, I went back to Queensbridge for a while, they had now managed to lose the Toyota franchise and were slumming it with Nissan, then onto Warwick Wright Pug, very busy place with the bonus thing, I'd often double my wage, Had a knob called a 'Master Technician', I think he was just there for entertainment, I used to enjoy his misdiagnosis, dropping cars from ramps and general twattishness.

Later, the Limehouse link opened and overnight my wonderfully deserted Docklands roads were jammed every morning and evening with cunts, I'd grown used to regularly exceeding 100mph, was running an XJS like some flash London wanker in those days, average speed plummeted to 10mph thanks to all the Essex now using my 'private' route to access the A13, also South London bastards gridlocking their way to the Blackwall, meanwhile the quiet area I lived in rapidly filled with the worst kind of chavscum so it was back to shitty Watford for me. Worked at Bob Harmen Performance, was mostly fun but I still got bored and went to work for a car dealer, did the workshop thing there all on my own but was getting pissed off with the motor business in general, left and tried an awful Vauxhall main dealer for a couple of weeks and that was the end of my spannering days, ran away screaming. Cars were becomming quite shit at that time, but nothing to how shit the punters now were. It's a thankless task fixing cars anyway but to do it for mouth breathing scum who don't deserve a car just hurts. I got out in good time, my memories are of fixing carbs and doing heads, cranks and gearboxes on proper cars owned mostly by nice people, I dodged the lambadas and obidobi diagnostic load of old cheesy cock bollocks by the skin of my arse. The motor trade was quite ace up to the early nineties, RIP, sorely missed, meh.

[Guest Breadvan72]

My dad arrived in the UK from Dublin the 1950s.  He went from the Building sites (he worked on Junction 1 of the M1) into Lucas in Birmingham.  He started as a labourer, and was successively Lathe operator, tool setter, and tool maker.  He was a shop steward for a while.   I can recall the Christmas party for workers' children at the factory, and later the works Panto trips.  

 

Lucas funded my dad  to go to night school and take exams, and he moved to the white collar world as a time and motion guy, and carried on as an Industrial Engineer.    This meant a pay cut, obviously!  My uncle was a tool setter at Jaguar and wore bespoke suits, played golf, and changed his car for a new one every year.  My dad was now in management and wore off the peg suits, had no time for hobbies, and drove the shittiest old cars imaginable.  

 

My dad moved to Rootes, then located near the BSA factory in Small Heath, Birmingham.  He worked on the design of the dashboard of the fastback Sunbeam Rapier.  Then he left to run an electrical business.  That failed after the oil crisis when banks called in small business loans, and he went back to his old job at Rootes-Chrysler.  He was sent to Linwood as part of a trouble shooting team, and commuted at weekends by BAC 111. Soon afterwards he moved to BL, and worked in all divisions except for Land Rover (even though we lived a few hundred metres from the Land Rover factory) .  He briefly ran a factory making foam for seats.  

 

My dad confronted Red Robbo and the two almost came to blows.  Robbo was a heavy hitter, but my dad had boxed as a youth and was a fast puncher (he moonlighted as the bouncer at a big and rough Indian restaurant in Yardley, where I was the barman, aged fourteen, and dad regularly had to deck three or four pissed Brummies in one session).

 

My Dad was appointed as a management lecturer at BL's staff college.  That was his favourite job.  He was headhunted from there by Michael Edwardes to be part of a roving trouble shooting team of managers.  My dad blames Lord Stokes, the pre Edwardes senior managers, and Thatcher for the collapse of BL.   He says the unions took the piss, but the bad management was worse.

 

By the 80s, my dad was running a factory making exhausts.  He was made redundant and immediately given his job back as a self employed consultant.  He finally left the car trade and went to run a pub.  His last ever job was as warden at accommodation for people rehabilitating from prison, mental illness, and drug abuse. 

 

Now he is retired in Birmingham, of very modest means, and is not well, but he is still full of stories.   He loves cars. He can no longer work on them.  He has a 2009 Fiesta with an autobox that is surprisingly good, except uphill. 

 

My dad and mum had left school at 13 and 14.  They had four sons.    We were the first of our family to go to university, and ended up as doctor, barrister, PR guy and IT guy.  

[garethj]

I did an HND in Automotive Engineering at Coventry Poly in about 1992, transferred onto a Mechanical Engineering degree just as it changed to Coventry university.  At the time my dad was working for a wiring harness company, they supplied into AB Automotive in Cardiff who were an OEM supplier to Jaguar (XJ40 era), Land Rover (P38 era), Rover (R8, R3) and Saab.

 

Somehow he got me an interview for summer work in AB's design office and when I graduated from uni they took me on as junior design engineer.  They had design and manufacture at the site so I could see how the whole company worked, I learned more in the first 3 months there than in the previous 2 years at Uni!  I worked in a pretty minor capacity on the Rover 25 cruise control switches and radio switches on the steering wheel, lots of the switchgear on the P38 Range Rover as well as the BeCM and quite a bit for Cadillac on their Catera, the US version of the Opel Omega.

 

The P38 system was flawed from the start, it was based on the Jaguar XJ40 system of low current switching.  Apparently someone at Jag said that his home computer (which must have been some kind of 286 PC back then) had switches which never went wrong, why not use the same low current system on cars?  From that, the XJ40 electrical system was born, and ABs made the dashboard, J Gate console and underbonnet bits like the alternator suppressor.

 

The flaw in Jag's argument was that switches need a decent amount of current to keep the contacts clean, to break through the surface corrosion or dirt build up that always occurs no matter what kind of plating you use.  Automotive environments are tough, the vibration and heat are killers to connectors so making that a weak point wasn't a good idea.  And of course XJ40s aren't known nowadays for their electrical robustness.

 

I was much more involved in the P38 Range Rover, Pegasus.  I did a few trips to Solihull to see the prototypes being built, assembling prototype switches that we'd been drilling and glueing the night before in Cardiff.   The Range Rover suffered similar issues to the Jaguar, but mechanically the parts were pretty tough.  We had the whole wiring loom laid out in a lab, nailed to huge bits of board for development work.  The hardware and software guys were very talented to get such a complex system to work, far cleverer than the mechanics would be who had to work on them.  Fault finding something so complex was probably the main issue I think.

 

I left ABs to work for Serck Marston's OEM division.  Having mostly owned aircooled cars up to this point, it was strange to work for a radiator company.  They were pretty small so couldn't get a foot in with the large manufacturers, but smaller places like JCB, Caterpillar, LTI, TVR (that wasn't one of mine!) and Perkins were all customers.  Probably the biggest project I was involved with was Perkins up in Peterborough with the 103 and 104 engines for gensets.  The 3 cylinder engines were pretty ropey; the injector pump wasn't very accurate so you never really knew when it would fire, that made for a very lumpy engine and the radiator locating brackets with AV mounts came in for a proper hammering.

 

After that, the late 1990s I moved to design other things, expensive home hi-fi, gaming equipment, industrial stuff and now telecoms.  I'd love to get back into an automotive company and occasionally I send my CV off, but they pay is often shit and with a family I can't afford to indulge myself with a low paid job.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

My dad arrived in the UK from Dublin the 1950s. He went from the Building sites (he worked on Junction 1 of the M1) into Lucas in Birmingham. He started as a labourer, and was successively Lathe operator, tool setter, and tool maker. He was a shop steward for a while. I can recall the Christmas party for workers' children at the factory, and later the works Panto trips.

 

Lucas funded my dad to go to night school and take exams, and he moved to the white collar world as a time and motion guy, and carried on as an Industrial Engineer. This meant a pay cut, obviously! My uncle was a tool setter at Jaguar and wore bespoke suits, played golf, and changed his car for a new one every year. My dad was now in management and wore off the peg suits, had no time for hobbies, and drove the shittiest old cars imaginable.

 

My dad moved to Rootes, then located near the BSA factory in Small Heath, Birmingham. He worked on the design of the dashboard of the fastback Sunbeam Rapier. Then he left to run an electrical business. That failed after the oil crisis when banks called in small business loans, and he went back to his old job at Rootes-Chrysler. He was sent to Linwood as part of a trouble shooting team, and commuted at weekends by BAC 111. Soon afterwards he moved to BL, and worked in all divisions except for Land Rover (even though we lived a few hundred metres from the Land Rover factory) . He briefly ran a factory making foam for seats.

 

My dad confronted Red Robbo and the two almost came to blows. Robbo was a heavy hitter, but my dad had boxed as a youth and was a fast puncher (he moonlighted as the bouncer at a big and rough Indian restaurant in Yardley, where I was the barman, aged fourteen, and dad regularly had to deck three or four pissed Brummies in one session).

 

My Dad was appointed as a management lecturer at BL's staff college. That was his favourite job. He was headhunted from there by Michael Edwardes to be part of a roving trouble shooting team of managers. My dad blames Lord Stokes, the pre Edwardes senior, managers, and Thatcher for the collapse of BL. He says the unions took the piss, but the bad management was worse.

 

By the 80s, my dad was running a factory making exhausts. He was made redundant and immediately given his job back as a self employed consultant. He finally left the car trade and went to run a pub. His last ever job was as warden at accommodation for people rehabilitating from prison, mental illness, and drug abuse.

 

Now he is retired in Birmingham, of very modest means, and is not well, but he is still full of stories. He loves cars. He can no longer work on them. He has a 2009 Fiesta with an autobox that is surprisingly good, except uphill.

 

My dad and mum had left school at 13 and 14. They had four sons. We were the first of our family to go to university, and ended up as doctor, barrister, PR guy and IT guy.

Ur dad is a LEGEND. Cheers for that, good read.

[hennabm]

I started on the spanners in a Ford truck shop in 77. The V4 Transit was still seen as was the MkII with the cross flow and the York diesel. The D series was replaced by the Cargo. There were several A series that were regular customers as well. In fact on the 6 cyl diesel (just a bigger York engine) Ford fitted happy gas as standard (Start pilote) to get them to go!

 

I also spent time on the cars for a few years as well as cost clerk and recepionist.

I saw the intro of the Fiesta, Sierra (disaster) as well as "Erica" the Escort (MkIII code name).

The first XR3 (not i) were terrible compared with the handling of the MkII RS Escorts. The RS1600i was the first Ford without a distributor.

 

In 84 I went to work for a company called Fleur de Lys building reproduction vintage vans. These were based on Ford running gear and the body, chassis etc were all built in house. My job was to assemble them after they came out of the fabrication and paint shops.

This included not only mechanical skills but woodworking as well. One job was to lay the ribbed rubber matting on the marine ply floor. This involved using evostick within the confines of the vehicle - happy days!

 

They were a premiuim price - memory tells me that a standard Transit was around £6k but an FDL was around £16k.

 

I was there until chassis number 18 and in 85 I left the spannering.

[bigstraight6]

Great thread this! I started my time 'in the trade' at the Plymouth branch of Partco in 1986 as a parts boy/delivery driver, I seem to remember we did a roaring trade in Cortina void bushes at the time, and thrashing the life out of MK3 Escort delivery vans!

 

In early '87 I went to Renwicks who were the VAG main dealers in Plymouth, this was in the parts department but I recall not enjoying this time much having to deal with clueless punters on the retail counter and even worse the chinless wonder types wanting accessories for the brand new VW or Audi just purchased. Then there would be the odd occasion somebody wanted parts for an NSU Prinz or RO80, nightmare!

 

November 1988 saw a much needed move and slight change of direction where I went to work within the parts department of Wessex Leyland DAF in Heathfield near Newton Abbot, I really enjoyed my time here only dealing with operators/repairers of commercial vehicles who knew what they were talking about and no more 'Joe public' types on the front counter! I stayed here until 2001 by which time I was the parts sales rep, I can still remember DAF part numbers to this day!

 

I left Wessex to work at Hendy trucks in Exeter, the Iveco main dealers selling new/used commercials. Big mistake this and I hated every minute of the 12 months I was there, utterly shite product and dealer! After this experience I vowed never to return to the motor trade, but an unfortunate turn of events last summer meant I did, albeit briefly and I will elude to in another thread later!

[Fat_Pirate]

In 1985 I was working at an Austin Rover dealer in Kings Lynn.  Myself and another guy spent at least 75% of our time processing warranty claims - that's right, 2 people, small Norfolk town, yet that much warranty work.  Metros were no trouble, but Montegos... I can recall the chassis prefix for a 1.6L even now.  Top of the shit tree was the Range Rover though, often needing several days of PDI rectification.  

 

Moved to Citroen in '87, spent maybe 10 minutes a month doing warranty claims!

[carlo]

That would be Hortons, I went for a job interview there about 1994-ish, before the elegant Victorian houses on site got knocked, saw the owner, I was quite skilled and unfazed with job interviews at that point and wowed him with my recent Pug dealer experience in that London, all went well until he mentioned it was a 6 day week and I was out of there like a shot.

 

Yes, Hortons of Watford, was there from '88 to '89.  Lovely old place, was my first car selling job and everyone was really friendly.  Very fond memories of that time for a variety of reasons.

[carlo]

I did a course at Europcar in 1986 at Bushey House next door to where you must have been working, was it Twyford House?, and has it been demolished now?  We got into the board room and had a cup of coffee with our feet on the table.

 

I worked in car hire 1982 to 1998, full and part time with Europcar and Eurodollar, helping to make used cars.

 

That's right, GD Contract Hire was actually in a blue and white building next door called Tryford House.  Then it moved over the road to a newer glass building around the early nineties I think.  All swallowed up by a bigger comapany now, Lex?

[Guest Breadvan72]

Ur dad is a LEGEND. Cheers for that, good read.

 

 

Thanks!  He is a top bloke.  He was a bit too outspoken to make it to the top.  He has always been one to call a cunt a cunt.