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BL/Rover What Went Wrong?


sierraman

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One of BMC / BLMC’s strengths had been it’s dealer network: every little town had a place where private buyers could pop in and order a new Morris or whatever. Part of how the 1100 was top seller for years.

Then they started to rationalise into bigger dealerships. My Uncle John had one of these and began to be pressured by BL policy to hold more and more stock of competing BL models, to set up for servicing the whole catalogue, to train and employ blokes who could fix everything from a V12 Jaguar to a 3 year old Minor. And to finance and hold all of the spares.

Eventually they pissed him off once too often and he turned the premises into a Honda dealership, when there was just the Mk1 Civic.
Down to 2 employees, no debt, faultless supplier support. Happy customers, happy dealer.

Made a fortune.

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3 hours ago, Asimo said:

One of BMC / BLMC’s strengths had been it’s dealer network: every little town had a place where private buyers could pop in and order a new Morris or whatever. Part of how the 1100 was top seller for years.

Then they started to rationalise into bigger dealerships. My Uncle John had one of these and began to be pressured by BL policy to hold more and more stock of competing BL models, to set up for servicing the whole catalogue, to train and employ blokes who could fix everything from a V12 Jaguar to a 3 year old Minor. And to finance and hold all of the spares.

Eventually they pissed him off once too often and he turned the premises into a Honda dealership, when there was just the Mk1 Civic.
Down to 2 employees, no debt, faultless supplier support. Happy customers, happy dealer.

Made a fortune.

A lot of small de-franchised BL dealers seemed to start selling a Japanese cars.

It wasn't until the mid 1970s that the BL dealerships were fully merged, & the Wedge was relaunched as the Princess after being sold for a few months under the Austin, Morris & Wolsley brands.

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3 hours ago, Asimo said:

One of BMC / BLMC’s strengths had been it’s dealer network: every little town had a place where private buyers could pop in and order a new Morris or whatever. Part of how the 1100 was top seller for years.

Then they started to rationalise into bigger dealerships. My Uncle John had one of these and began to be pressured by BL policy to hold more and more stock of competing BL models, to set up for servicing the whole catalogue, to train and employ blokes who could fix everything from a V12 Jaguar to a 3 year old Minor. And to finance and hold all of the spares.

Eventually they pissed him off once too often and he turned the premises into a Honda dealership, when there was just the Mk1 Civic.
Down to 2 employees, no debt, faultless supplier support. Happy customers, happy dealer.

Made a fortune.

Good point. Also 'traditional' Morris car dealers  ran out of cars to sell. Whereas in the 50's and 60's they had a range - the Isis, Minor, 1100, 1300, 1800 and Oxford to sell, by the 70's they were down to just Marina.

Why they never sold the Wolseley 1500 in a down-spec Morris spec like in Australia who knows - they had a prototype - because in effect they had a Marina type car to sell in 1958 onwards. Just muddled thinking...

And why no hatchback on the Marina Coupe...it was exactly the right shape...they could have even have done it as a 1200cc shopping car...

20180718_214731.jpg

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Here is the Morris prototype - a bit plain-jane, by with a different colour grille and some chrome round the headlamps wd have been ok.  Intended as the Minor replacement but with the 1500 could have been a stand-alone model perhaps. I suppose at the time they could sell everything they made but as a rugged basic conventional car they had it in 1958 but reinvented it with Marina for the 70's with new management  after the fwd interlude. All very muddled. 

Screenshot_20210402-121639.jpg

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I don’t think the great British class system helped much. Huge class rift between management and the shop floor for most of the 20th century which exacerbated terrible industrial relations.  It also led to many British car brands trying to trade on silly class distinctions that the rest of the world neither knew nor cared about. 

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1 hour ago, Skut said:

I don’t think the great British class system helped much. Huge class rift between management and the shop floor for most of the 20th century which exacerbated terrible industrial relations.  It also led to many British car brands trying to trade on silly class distinctions that the rest of the world neither knew nor cared about. 

I suspect that Riley and Wolseley fell very neatly into that non-niche... the differentiation between the two never seemed to make much sense, nor did letting them stumble on for quite so long.

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2 minutes ago, morris_ital_lover said:

I suspect that Riley and Wolseley fell very neatly into that non-niche... the differentiation between the two never seemed to make much sense, nor did letting them stumble on for quite so long.

Yet about the time they started to give up on them, Ford was coming up with their GXL/E/Ghia derivatives which the public seemed to like, posh versions of regular models. I always think of Austin and Morris as L models, Wolseley as XL/GL with wood and leather, MG as GT/S with extra power and dials and Riley as GLS/GXL/E with the power, dials and wood/leather. Nowadays sub brands seem to be a thing again, with Abarth, DS, Cupra etc. Leyland gave up on the Cooper and Healey names because they had to pay a small royalty on each car sold. Mind, Citroën has recently stopped using the Picasso name for the same reason,so who knows? 

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I often wonder why people discuss the finer points of the demise of BL Rover - it's really nothing to do with Unions, bastardy management, terrible cars  - or even a combination of those factors. 

Put simply, Britain de-industrialised after the war. We invested the Marshall plan money in housing (and our entire economy is now based upon that and the service sector). The Germans used the money to invest in industry and the rest is history. Coal, steel, ship building, car manufacturing have all seen massive decline.

True there were many dreadful jalopies on the roads in post war years - the introduction of MOT tests was really motivated by getting rid of those - so there was a surge in demand for British cars for a decade or so, and then the manufacturers on the continent began to export to the UK in dead earnest. 

The number of old crumblies who would only buy British declined with natural wastage and the passing of the years. 

Add into that the 1976 arrival of the MK1 Accord and the Renault 20 - like, you know, affordable cars with decent parts availability, that would actually start every morning, and had more gadgets as standard than you could have as paid for extras in a top of the range Rover VDP or Jag.......and you can see where BL fell down

So by the time the 1980s came round, who in god's name would choose a Metro over a Renault 5? An SD1 over a R30? A Montego over a Peugeot 405? A Maestro over an Escort?

I could go on and on, but BL Rover survived many many years after it's time and should have died without Government bailout in 1980, and the money spent on the pits.

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15 hours ago, Skut said:

I don’t think the great British class system helped much. Huge class rift between management and the shop floor for most of the 20th century which exacerbated terrible industrial relations.  It also led to many British car brands trying to trade on silly class distinctions that the rest of the world neither knew nor cared about. 

Very good point and very well made. 

It would appear that some* industries still have this problem:

http://saferoxfordstreet.blogspot.com/2020/07/stopkillingbusdrivers-whos-listening-to.html?m=1

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