Trouble at the Top - Reliant Motors

[RedSparrow]

Alright.

I've just re-uploaded this to YouTube, for those of you who haven't seen it.

 

http://youtu.be/Cm3RgR9-91M

[Leyland Lawrence]

Great viewing just in time for my tea!

[chrisjvm]

TV gold ! Son of great Jaguar man inherits farm but not dads talent and risks his inheritance so that he can realise his dream and eventually produce an E Type Pig  ....

 

If Autoshite owned a car company etc etc ... 

[Tayne]

It's a shame that Reliant have now gone.

They had the capacity to make almost everything on house so could have produced so much...

 

I'm going to send my £2 cheque to BBC Education for that chart now.

[garethj]

Orsum!  I remember seeing this when it was on TV originally.  A few years later I worked for a company that supplied radiators to Reliant, because they'd gone bust before the normal 60 days credit arrangement was changed to "when your man comes to collect the radiators, he pays cash there and then".

 

For bonus chod-bothering, keep an eye open for Tim Bishop who imported Tatras into the UK in the early '90s

[michael1703]

I believe that "new scimitar" became reality but made in India and called a San storm

[Paul Dupart]

Enjoyed the film, how much longer did they last?

[Jim Bergerac]

Parts business is still going as far as I know, they stopped producing the Robin around 2000 or 2001.

 

Great video, enjoyed it last night. Thanks for sharing it.

[jakebullet]

I wonder what happened to farmer giles?

[inconsistant]

Didn't Princess Anne used to own Reliant?

[garethj]

I've just finished watching this, across lunchbreaks this week.  I wonder what happened to the sports car idea, and Reliant in general.  Was there some kind of MG Rover dodgy deal?

 

Jonathan Heynes is now importing these microcars from France, obviously fibreglass gets under your skin

[inconsistant]

At 28:55 there's a discussion about using a 'chopper gun'(?) to build the glass fibre bodies.
What's one of them and what does it do?

[Heidel_Kakao]

http://www.fibreglast.com/category/Fiberglass_Chopper_Gun_Roving

 

A faster way of laying down fiberglass it seems. I did wonder what they were talking about during the video as well.

[chrisjvm]

^^

[Mr Livered]

Those interested in this can apparently get a book about this period of Reliant Motors' history.

 

From http://www.rumcars.org/forum/index.php?topic=3199.0

 

 

 

Over the years Reliant buffs have often pondered what exactly happened before, during & after the Jonathan Heynes era of 1996-1999, perhaps the most important name in the whole Reliant saga after Tom Williams, Ray Wiggin & Tom Karen. Having saved the factory from oblivion after the third bankruptcy, what were the true & full details behind the purchase? Who was involved & why? How did the Reliant Motor Company come to be “sold twice†at this time? Who really signed the death warrant on the Two Gates plant & why? What was the six-figure court case battle which could not be aired on the 1997 “Trouble at the Top†TV programme? And above all, why did Heynes depart the company in 1999?  For the very first time, all these questions, and more besides, are answered in full with a world-exclusive 14-page chapter penned by Jonathan Heynes himself.

[ProgRocker]

I remember seeing this when it was broadcast. Hoped Reliant would have had a future. If only they weren't charging Fiesta prices for their 3 wheelers.

[Grundig]

Enjoyed watching that, shame he couldn't make a go of it as he seems a decent sort of bloke - also I thought his Mrs was quite enchanting   

[Stixy]

A friend of mine used to work there in the late 60's   and he was telling me the other week that Ford refused to supply them with new esses V6 engines for the Scimitar  and all the V6's were factory recon engines bought through Rugby Autocar .

 

The factory was only about 3 miles away from me when i was a kid  and when i moved in with my wife in the mid 90's our first place was only over the road from it  

[coalnotdole]

 

Ford refused to supply them with new esses V6 engines for the Scimitar  and all the V6's were factory recon engines bought through Rugby Autocar .

 

This is 100% bollocks, Firstly all scimitar engines had the first letters of the engine number as SC (Scimitar) this was stamped on there as part of the manufacturing process at Dageneham. Also in the early 70's its highly unlikely that an engine reconditioners could supply Reliant with even a fraction of the number of engines required. Ford supplied engines and gearboxes direct to two gates, I've even got a magazine article that mentions Scimitar production being disrupted by strike action at Ford's.

 

There is a rumor that Reliant wanted to fit the Rebel with an 1100/1300 crossflow and that Ford refused fearing that it would compete too directly with their own cars which is perhaps the source of the confusion.

 

Reliants late history is a fascinating one, they were essentially in permanent decline from the mid 70's onwards but had a few determined attempts to revive their fortunes... some of which only hastened their decline (SS1.) The fate of the firm was probably set long before Haynes took control of the company. For years they had been chasing an ever decreasing number of people who had the cash and the desire to buy a new 3-wheeler. I think a lot of the sales in the late 80's and 90's must have come from loyal Reliant buyers who were taking their redundancy / early retirement money and buying themselves a "last car" - hardly an ideal market for future growth.

 

On top of that a string of bankruptcy's and administrations had seen ownership of the factory pass to the creditors and subsequently to a property developer. At the time that the trouble at the top documentary was filmed i think they were already leasing the factory. A few years later and the property company essentially pushed them out. My guess would be that Haynes finally decided to cut his losses and get out it must have been clear that there was no way back by then.... Two gates went on to become another generic housing estate and there's little left there to mark the factory site apart from a few naff street names.

[Lukas]

Some "very british" looking people in this video...

[steve_earwig]

Didn't Princess Anne used to own Reliant?

She did indeed, I suspect she had more than one. I think there's a pic of Her Royal Horseness with one in the bird+motors thread (along with one of Maggie Thatcher )

 

And where was I on 9/11? Why, I was with a mate driving an RS3.1 spec SE5a Scimitar "chod" up from Devon to Norf Lundun, complete with massive fuel leak and tappets that needed adjusting in some Halford's car park because they were getting so loud. We weren't even certain London was still going to be there when we arrived.