Reliant documentary 1997

[Richard_FM]

The amount of bike licence owners dwindled over the years as cars became more affordable, so the Reliant customer base faded away.

GRP was a blessing & a curse, as it didn't need expensive press tools, but is labour intensive & hard to scale up for pass production.

[High Jetter]

27 minutes ago, barrett said:

You have to remember that at its peak, I guess the early 1970s, Reliant was the second-biggest British car maker after BMC. They literally couldn't build Robins fast enough so high was the demand, and the Scimitar was pretty much universally praised by the press and owners (albeit at a time when 'being British' was enough to convince a lot of people of a product's merits), plus lots of lucrative GRP work for other firms, prototyping, council contract work with TW9s, external market production etc. Even in the 1980s they were still riding a high - think how ubiquitous the Rialto once was - so it's easy to see why the people involved couldn't understand why they'd gone from global success to dismal failure in such a short space of time. The things they were building had been massively lucrative for 40 years and they had a captive market all to themselves. Fifteen years is a long time in the car industry, but it wasn't like one of those slow, painful declines to the people working there. One day everything was great, and the next it was totally fucked. It was never going to survive, but I can understand the reason why people tried.

Yup. Back then, the 3 wheelers were a route from bike, or bike-and-sidecar, to a moggie, mini, or something popular.

[D.E]

2 hours ago, Dobloseven said:

I suppose the market for three wheelers was unique to the UK 

We had similar rules regarding three wheelers and allowing to drive them with a motorcycle license (and on top of that they were inspection exempt), I can remember the Rialto was fairly common. 

 

[Dobloseven]

A lot had a bike licence, but couldn't or wouldn't pass a car test. We have a friend who drove Reliants for many years on a bike licence, eventually moving on to French microcars until he retired . Try as he might, he was unable to pass a car test. 

[grogee]

Just watched it. A few observations:

- Nice to see a documentary format where the subject matter is allowed to 'breathe'. No fast paced jump cuts or fake jeopardy.

- Can't believe how well it's transposed from VHS! Amazing how good that format got before it died. 

- The whole Reliant operation looked horribly amateur. I know it had been shuttered for months but those old boys in the shop hand-making everything... What a waste of time. 

If it had been for an interesting, desirable, functional or fashionable product it might have worked. Ironically the Reliant that has aged most gracefully is the Scimitar (the first one). What a great idea - low slung but practical. 

The three wheeler on the other hand... An anachronism. It belonged in the post-war austerity grind, not the eighties and definitely not the nineties. It has no place on the public road. Unsafe, impractical, slow, noisy and unreliable. It has no redeeming features whatsoever. 

I think similarly about Land Rover [Defender & earlier], except they do have a purpose. IMO that purpose isn't on the road - they're also slow and pretty dangerous. But as a farming utility tool they're great, and I can see the market need. 

Reliant could have had a future. It's so frustrating because there wasn't much wrong with any of their products except the three wheeler, and that's the one they persisted with. 

[Richard_FM]

I like the Scimitar, mostly due to the Dad of one of my friends owning one, but they were looking a bit out of date by the mid 1980s.

The SS1 was a nice idea, but they struggled in the era of hot hatches, especially as fuel injected Ford engine wouldn't fit & they had to use a Nissan unit.

[barrett]

4 hours ago, grogee said:

Just watched it. A few observations:

- Nice to see a documentary format where the subject matter is allowed to 'breathe'. No fast paced jump cuts or fake jeopardy.

- Can't believe how well it's transposed from VHS! Amazing how good that format got before it died. 

- The whole Reliant operation looked horribly amateur. I know it had been shuttered for months but those old boys in the shop hand-making everything... What a waste of time. 

If it had been for an interesting, desirable, functional or fashionable product it might have worked. Ironically the Reliant that has aged most gracefully is the Scimitar (the first one). What a great idea - low slung but practical. 

The three wheeler on the other hand... An anachronism. It belonged in the post-war austerity grind, not the eighties and definitely not the nineties. It has no place on the public road. Unsafe, impractical, slow, noisy and unreliable. It has no redeeming features whatsoever. 

I think similarly about Land Rover [Defender & earlier], except they do have a purpose. IMO that purpose isn't on the road - they're also slow and pretty dangerous. But as a farming utility tool they're great, and I can see the market need. 

Reliant could have had a future. It's so frustrating because there wasn't much wrong with any of their products except the three wheeler, and that's the one they persisted with. 

Reliants aren't slow. Excellent power-to-weight ratio, revvy little engine and rwd means they're surprisingly brisk off the mark. They'll do the legal speed limit and more. Not sure I'd agree with unsafe, impractical or unreliable either. Seems strange to say that a rubbish old car has 'no place on the public road' on a website dedicated to rubbish old cars.

[ETCHY]

10 hours ago, grogee said:

Just watched it. A few observations:

- Nice to see a documentary format where the subject matter is allowed to 'breathe'. No fast paced jump cuts or fake jeopardy.

- Can't believe how well it's transposed from VHS! Amazing how good that format got before it died. 

- The whole Reliant operation looked horribly amateur. I know it had been shuttered for months but those old boys in the shop hand-making everything... What a waste of time. 

If it had been for an interesting, desirable, functional or fashionable product it might have worked. Ironically the Reliant that has aged most gracefully is the Scimitar (the first one). What a great idea - low slung but practical. 

The three wheeler on the other hand... An anachronism. It belonged in the post-war austerity grind, not the eighties and definitely not the nineties. It has no place on the public road. Unsafe, impractical, slow, noisy and unreliable. It has no redeeming features whatsoever. 

I think similarly about Land Rover [Defender & earlier], except they do have a purpose. IMO that purpose isn't on the road - they're also slow and pretty dangerous. But as a farming utility tool they're great, and I can see the market need. 

Reliant could have had a future. It's so frustrating because there wasn't much wrong with any of their products except the three wheeler, and that's the one they persisted with. 

With all that's going on in the world I'd say small economical cars like Robins etc are what we need.

3 wheelers weren't unsafe if driven accordingly. Drive it like a mini or a total wanker you'll be in trouble,  otherwise you're fine.

I think 3 wheelers are charming.

[dollywobbler]

On 2/23/2022 at 10:00 PM, barrett said:

You have to remember that at its peak, I guess the early 1970s, Reliant was the second-biggest British car maker after BMC. They literally couldn't build Robins fast enough so high was the demand, and the Scimitar was pretty much universally praised by the press and owners (albeit at a time when 'being British' was enough to convince a lot of people of a product's merits), plus lots of lucrative GRP work for other firms, prototyping, council contract work with TW9s, external market production etc. Even in the 1980s they were still riding a high - think how ubiquitous the Rialto once was - so it's easy to see why the people involved couldn't understand why they'd gone from global success to dismal failure in such a short space of time. The things they were building had been massively lucrative for 40 years and they had a captive market all to themselves. Fifteen years is a long time in the car industry, but it wasn't like one of those slow, painful declines to the people working there. One day everything was great, and the next it was totally fucked. It was never going to survive, but I can understand the reason why people tried.

Bit late there. The late 1960s were boom time for Reliant. The Regal 3/25 and 3/30 sold in vastly higher numbers than the Robin - the latter not helped by a horrific recall early on, which saw steering boxes detach themselves from the chassis... In fact, the Regal 3/25 sold 50,000 units in just six years. That's almost double the total number of Robin Mk1s.

I think that's a reflection on the change in owner - Regal owners would almost certainly have started with motorbikes, but perhaps by the 1970s, more people made the jump straight into car ownership. I guess the move away from microcars also had an effect - people were more used to 'proper' cars like the Mini than crude three-wheelers.

[Richard_FM]

Before than there was a move away from motorbikes & sidecars towards microcars in the 1950s.

[JimH]

Just in case we haven't had this before

 

 

[scruff]

Trouble At The Top was a great series, throughly enjoyed watching that again 

[scruff]

Interesting read on the Heynes era here with some mag cuttings etc 

 

http://davidtearle.com/reliant-motors

[wesacosa]

just watched the documentary. I don't remember seeing the Bond Bug concept before.