Failed attempts to crack the UK

[PhilA]

2 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

And talking of Jeeps, Mahindra had a go with their CJ5 replica

They tried selling them here but couldn't get type approval. "Off road only".

That was shortlived.

[5speedracer]

The most ill-conceived I can remember was the introduction of the Hindustani Ambassador to the UK market in the early 90's. Basically a Morris Oxford Mk3 made in India.

I remember reading about it in maybe, Autocar, but never saw one in the wild.

[inconsistant]

3 hours ago, goosey said:

I remember AWD Trucks which I believe were re-badged Bedfords,

there was an AWD Truck dealer near where I grew up but it very quickly became an LDV/DAF dealer

Some bloke (David Brown?) bought Bedford trucks but not the name, as GM kept that for the Rascal and Midi. I think Bedford having the army trucks contract and therefore lots of 4wd/6wd tech meant they went down that route for their USP, hence the name. They didn't last long and became/merged with Marshalls. My Uncle moved from Vauxhall to AWD  and like most of the workforce got properly shafted. Although I got lots of AWD brochures, which was nice.

[Soundwave]

5 minutes ago, 5speedracer said:

The most ill-conceived I can remember was the introduction of the Hindustani Ambassador to the UK market in the early 90's. Basically a Morris Oxford Mk3 made in India.

I remember reading about it in maybe, Autocar, but never saw one in the wild.

I believe the importers created a new brand name for it... I recall seeing the ads in Top Gear magazine for the "Fullbore Mk10", which AFAIK was just a mildly tweaked Hindustan.

 

[OM646]

19 minutes ago, PhilA said:

They tried selling them here but couldn't get type approval. "Off road only".

That was shortlived.

The roxor? It still exists, but got a new front end (FCA/Stellantis sued them up the arse) and lost part of the charm 

[anonymous user]

11 minutes ago, 5speedracer said:

The most ill-conceived I can remember was the introduction of the Hindustani Ambassador to the UK market in the early 90's. Basically a Morris Oxford Mk3 made in India.

I remember reading about it in maybe, Autocar, but never saw one in the wild.

I remember a dealer (possibly the importer) down in West Wales

[MiniMinorMk3]

A mid nineties import 

 

 

 

There's a bit of info on Honest John

 

Hindustan Ambassador - Classic Car Review - Timeline | Honest John

[sierraman]

19 minutes ago, 5speedracer said:

The most ill-conceived I can remember was the introduction of the Hindustani Ambassador to the UK market in the early 90's. Basically a Morris Oxford Mk3 made in India.

I remember reading about it in maybe, Autocar, but never saw one in the wild.

I’ve seen one, supposedly they used to rot like fuck. I have, somewhere, a top gear article when they road tested it against one of those Indian copy motorbikes. 

[bunglebus]

5 hours ago, DSdriver said:

HMC's reply reminded me that back in the 1970s one of our reps drove a Kubelvagen but had the good sense not to use it when going to see Jewish clients, that is a car that could qualify.

I'm nitpicking here but it probably wasn't a WWII era Kubelwagen - more likely  Trekker, either LHD 181 or rarer RHD 182

[martc]

25 minutes ago, inconsistant said:

Some bloke (David Brown?) bought Bedford trucks but not the name, as GM kept that for the Rascal and Midi. I think Bedford having the army trucks contract and therefore lots of 4wd/6wd tech meant they went down that route for their USP, hence the name. They didn't last long and became/merged with Marshalls. My Uncle moved from Vauxhall to AWD  and like most of the workforce got properly shafted. Although I got lots of AWD brochures, which was nice.

If I remember correctly the lorry division was bought from GM solely because of the lucrative MoD contract long enjoyed by Bedford. The TK derived MoD lorry was due for replacement and AWD were marketing a TL based successor. AWD promptly lost the contract to Leyland DAF or whatever they were called at the time for their much more modern T45.  AWD soldiered on for awhile but civilians at home didn't want a rehashed TK/TL and export customers finally got fed up with the TJ whose roots were firmly planted in the 1950's.

1959 Bedford TJ, one year into production.

1992 AWD TJ. Spot the difference.

 

[artdjones]

2 hours ago, sierraman said:

The guy across the road from us had one of these, now replaced by a Ssanyong. Don’t know if they’re any good?

Can imagine be no problem nipping in the factors on a Sunday to pick up a service kit for a Great Wall no problem...

The answer to your question is negative.

 

2 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

It took a few false starts, I understand - Toyota's first attempt to market the 1500cc Toyopet Crown in the US in 1958, priced in the same bracket as full-size Ford and Chevrolet models, failed hard. 

Reliability and comfort while cruising at highway speeds just weren't there, it was seen as overengineered and underpowered, and when the Big Three US manufacturers launched a raft of their own compact models in 1959 to challenge these imports - Ford's Falcon, Chevrolet's Corsair and Chrysler's Valiant - the writing was on the wall, leading Toyota to beat a strategic retreat from the passenger car market in 1960.

After switching their focus to selling Land Cruisers and growing their dealer network that way, the compact Corona RT40 was introduced in 1964 and, once fitted with an automatic transmission specially developed after intensive research on the US market, sales finally started to take off.

TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION GLOBAL WEBSITE | 75 Years of TOYOTA | Part1 Chapter2 Section9 | Item 5. Passenger car exports suspended (toyota-global.com)

Crown sales in the US picked up a little from the mid-60s, when the S40 version began to be imported. This drew heavily on both the Falcon and Valiant's styling, in an effort to make the cars appeal to American buyers.

So yes - carefully tailoring their offerings to the target market is what laid the ground for Toyota's eventual success, whereas other European manufacturers trying to flog their wares stateside seemed to think that a new set of badges and some fake wood should be good enough.

I believe they originally intended to call them the Toyolet.

[backache]

3 hours ago, martc said:

Again Moskvitchs sold quite well, according to this article they sold well over 14,500 https://www.lancasterinsurance.co.uk/news/2017/september/01/do-you-remember-the-moskvitch-412-1/ . Rot did for a far few - I remember the van version was used on Hull docks as general runabouts, the rust on them had to be seen to be believed.

But what really killed them was a poorly researched article by the 'Consumer Association' which condemned them as death traps, this was jumped on by the media, and sales crashed. Of course they were no worse than many other late 60's/early 70's car.  Nowadays we no longer suffer from poorly presented and poorly researched consumer advice which is jumped on by the media.

Satra, the importer, did indeed replace the Moskvitch with Ladas.

I saw a 1972 K reg Moskvich van in the destruction derby at Aycliffe stockcar stadium in 1975.  Probably failed its 1st MOT !!

 

[CreepingJesus]

There was Hino too: spectacularly successful in a wide variety of markets all across the globe, popular in Ireland where CKD kits were assembled for decades, but here? Nope. Daewoo and Nissan trucks managed much the same, and Daewoo even came back for a second bite at the failure cherry with the Czech built Daewoo Avia puddle jumpers. 

[sierraman]

20 minutes ago, CreepingJesus said:

There was Hino too: spectacularly successful in a wide variety of markets all across the globe, popular in Ireland where CKD kits were assembled for decades, but here? Nope. Daewoo and Nissan trucks managed much the same, and Daewoo even came back for a second bite at the failure cherry with the Czech built Daewoo Avia puddle jumpers. 

The Hinos did ok as tippers, Lafarge and Tarmac ran them. Basic though by all accounts but quarry work requires something strong and simple, manual shift etc. 

[jon.k]

1 hour ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

A mid nineties import 

 

 

 

There's a bit of info on Honest John

 

Hindustan Ambassador - Classic Car Review - Timeline | Honest John

There’s a good “big car” video on this on YouTube.

[MiniMinorMk3]

This one failed to crack anywhere

A Renner Wind Gordon yesterday

 

[CreepingJesus]

1 hour ago, sierraman said:

The Hinos did ok as tippers, Lafarge and Tarmac ran them. Basic though by all accounts but quarry work requires something strong and simple, manual shift etc. 

Given their success elsewhere, it was notable how far they didn't get, here. Remember having this discussion on the Truck Shite thread, and I agree now as I did then, that they should've been just the ticket. That discussion was kicked off when I posted a pic of a Hino artic I'd spotted working, and that was properly into the realms of hen's teeth and rocking horse shit! It was one of a pair, and I don't think many others came to light.

[egg]

Microcar/Ligier sold MC1/2 etc, and are still here, but not sure we can say they cracked the UK market.

http://micro-car.co.uk/

[Noel Tidybeard]

i think the Hino downfall was due to emmisions regs and their big capacity n/a engines not complying

[willswitchengage]

Mk1 Twingo. They didn't even bother selling it as a RHD, so the similar Ka became a runaway success story instead.

Renault itself has now pulled most of its cars from the UK.

[sierraman]

I never knew the Mk1 Twingo was sold in U.K.?

[CreepingJesus]

19 minutes ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

i think the Hino downfall was due to emmisions regs and their big capacity n/a engines not complying

I could be wrong, but I don't think so. They were involved in a collaboration with Cummins and Bosch (which tangentially involved Scania before the VAG buyout) for that reason. That certainly torpedoed Nissan and Daewoo, because the huge V8s they were running (and again I may be wrong, but istr Daewoo's one was something like 21L N/A) were acceptable in third world countries, but not in Europe. Hino's engines latterly at least, were sensibly sized 24v turbo sixes. Besides, Japan domestically is pretty much on par with emissions regs anyway.

Fundamentally, they weren't flash enough, and they didn't shell out to bag a marquee deal with a really big fleet. *cough* Scania *cough* Eddie's Go karts *cough*

[Dobloseven]

29 minutes ago, sierraman said:

I never knew the Mk1 Twingo was sold in U.K.?

Don't think it could be engineered for RHD. A garage near Porthmadog used to import a few unofficially though. 

[martc]

Shanghai pick ups anyone? No? Well they tried, sort of. The Shanghai Auto Works wanted to extend the life of their ageing saloon by making a pick up variant a la Peugeot's 504. The development work to convert it was outsourced to Locomotors here in the UK. Shanghai had plans for exporting the pick up as well as monopolising the home market. Exporting it to Africa, Asia and Europe including the UK. With that in mind it was designed to take a Ford Sierra engine. As we all know the exports never happened, but there were at least 2 UK registered prototypes -

https://chinacarhistory.com/2018/12/23/the-shanghai-pickup-trucks/

Of course we've not heard the end of Shanghai Auto Works, now known as SAIC. Just have a close look at the etchings on a modern MG's window...

[Spottedlaurel]

7 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

A bit like the rest of the Eastern Bloc cars of the 1980s, I reckon part of Dacia's problem was that because they were cheap to buy new people didn't tend to take very good care of them - even less so once they entered the secondhand market.

Being very obviously a rehashed Renault 12 didn't exactly add to their appeal, though Lada and Yugo managed to sell their superannuated Fiats alright.

Here, have a terrible photo of the last 'old school' Dacia I managed to spot in the wild - a pickup in Norfolk, in summer 1996.

Great photo! Looks like they were popular with 'budget conscious' (A.K.A. tight-fisted) motorists here in Norfolk, as I've seen a couple of others on local plates:

 

Have we had Mahindra yet?

Or the Cherry Europe / Alfa ARNA?

 

[lesapandre]

Lancia and Chrysler - who were quite widely sold in the UK but in the end had to withdraw because of poor sales, dented reputations and the high on-costs of keeping the rhd market happy.

[artdjones]

3 hours ago, CreepingJesus said:

There was Hino too: spectacularly successful in a wide variety of markets all across the globe, popular in Ireland where CKD kits were assembled for decades, but here? Nope. Daewoo and Nissan trucks managed much the same, and Daewoo even came back for a second bite at the failure cherry with the Czech built Daewoo Avia puddle jumpers. 

Ireland was a lot poorer than the UK 40 years ago, so the low first cost with Hinos probably told. Weren't they rather poorly braked?

[CreepingJesus]

22 minutes ago, artdjones said:

Ireland was a lot poorer than the UK 40 years ago, so the low first cost with Hinos probably told. Weren't they rather poorly braked?

I couldn't speak on their driveability, especially the older models, but yes that was the winning formula: cheap, tough, and easy to work on. That Harris Bros built the kits well, and weren't cowboys probably helped a lot too. 

[egg]

I had to dig about a bit, but yes, Lloyd 600's were sold in the UK. I have no idea about the success of that venture

http://www.lloydselig.com/autocar030857-lloyd.pdf

[Zelandeth]

8 hours ago, goosey said:

Didn’t they also produce Coaches?

a Bus company I used to deal with years ago would joke BMC stood for badly made coaches 

Yes.  They were absolute complete piles of crap.

This thing has to be one of very, very few vehicles that I've ever driven which I would say had absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Bloody horrible thing.

Seem to recall it was built onto a heavily hacked about version of some ancient truck chassis.

Bluebird were also mentioned.  In contrast to BMC, their product was pretty decent - though so utterly different to what the UK market was used to that it was doomed to failure.  Plus they never made any real effort to ensure they had the parts supply network in place - which is kinda important for a vehicle like a bus.

So this poor thing spent nearly its entire life sitting in the yard.

Which is a shame...not so much for the potential passengers but because it's an absolutely cracking thing to drive.

Thankfully it did find its way into preservation at least - with something like 50K km on the clock, which for a bus is ridiculous!