The last episode of Top Gear, for this season, hit the nail on the head. They looked at classic British built sports cars and the continental built hatchbacks that replaced them. I particularly liked how they ridiculed them one by one; driving under a parked HGV, loading ridiculous large loads at garden centre, blowing up the Astra etc, etc, “They were know for that...”
However, the main point was that behind all the humour, the hardcore fact remains we have no car industry left and very little else. Clarkson banded lots of facts around in the humour; “….we imported 63 three cars, not thousand, just 63.…”
So where did it all go wrong? I’m guessing the communist trade union at Longbridge didn’t help and the fact foreign labour was cheaper. Maybe we should have had better quality control and stricter import regulations. Most early Japanese cars rusted away in months because they were not used to our climate. The lesson was soon learned and before long british cars were rotting and the Japs were rust proof.
Very sad state of affairs.
Stitched up by so called economics I think. It was and probably still is too expensive to make cars here by a British manufacturer anymore and the politicians are too spineless to step in to create the right conditions to make it attractive.
Basically, in the rush to reduce costs, particularly labour ones, it’s easier to roll all that and the union business into one package and shut it down and leave it to the Germans and the Japanese. There isn’t a businessman with the bollocks to start this type of thing up again.
What a shame about the TVR factory and Jensen. Such a heritage wasted by people who don’t care.
You are right – a very sad state of affairs.