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British Leyland Motor Corporation

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British Leyland corporate logo

old BLMC share
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old BLMC share

The British Leyland Motor Corporation ("BLMC"), was a vehicle manufacturing company formed in the United Kingdom in 1968. Ultimately it would become nationalised as British Leyland then known just as BL.

Contents

The History

BLMC was created in 1968 by the merger of British Motor Holdings (BMH) and Leyland Motor Corporation (LMC), encouraged by the Wilson Labour Government (1964–1970). The merger combined most of the remaining independent British car manufacturing companies and included car, bus and truck manufacturers and more diverse enterprises including construction equipment, refrigerators, metal casting companies, road surface manufacturers; in all nearly 100 different companies. The new corporation was organised into seven divisions under its new chairman Sir Donald Stokes (formerly the chairamn of LMC).

The company became an infamous monument to the industrial turmoil that plagued Britain in the 1970s. At its peak, BLMC owned nearly 40 different manufacturing plants across the country. Even before the merger BMH had included marques that were in theory competitors though selling basically similar cars. To this was added the competition from other marques Rover against Jaguar at the higher end, Triumph with its family cars and sports cars against Austin Morris. The result was a broad product range which was incoherent and full of duplication. This, combined with serious industrial relations problems (principally, the company's relations with hard-line trade unions of the time), the 1973 oil crisis, the three-day week, high inflation and ineffectual management meant that BL became an unmanageable and financially crippled behemoth whose bankruptcy in 1975 was inevitable.

Sir Don Ryder was asked to undertake an enquiry into the position of the company, and his report, The Ryder Report, was presented to the government in April 1975. Following the report's recommendations the organisation was drastically restructured and the second Wilson Labour Government (1974–1976) took control by creating a new holding company British Leyland Limited (BL) of which it was the major shareholder. The company was now organised into the following four divisionsBL Booklet - Graduate opportunities with British Leyland:

*Construction Equipment - Aveling-Barford, Aveling-Marshall, Barfords of Belton and Goodwin-Barsby
*Refrigeration - Prestcold
*Materials Handling - Coventry Climax (incorporating Climax Trucks, Climax Conveyancer and Climax Shawloader)
*Military Vehicles - Alvis and Self-Changing Gears
*Print - Nuffield Press and Lyne & Son
  • Leyland International - responsible for the export of cars, trucks and buses, and responsible for manufacturing plants in Africa, India and Australia, employing 18,000 people
    • In 1984 Jaguar Cars became independent once more, through a public sale of its shares. In 1986 BL changed its name to Rover Group and In 1987 the Trucks Division merged with the Dutch DAF company to form DAF NV, trading as Leyland DAF in the UK and as DAF in the Netherlands. Also in 1987 the bus business was spun-off into a new company Leyland Bus, the result of a management buyout.

    In 1988 the remaining Rover Group business was sold by the British Government to British Aerospace (BAe).

    Many of the brands were divested over time and continue to exist to this day. The heir to most of the volume car business was MG Rover which collapsed in April 2005.

    Timelines

    British Leyland The rise and fall of British Leyland - the car companies and the brands ([ edit])
    1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2006
    SS Cars Jaguar Jaguar BMH British Leyland Jaguar Ford
    Daimler BSA BSA
    Lanchester
    BMC[1] Austin Rover BAe BMW BMW/MINI
    Riley Nuffield
    Organisation         		BMW
    Morris Garages (MG) BMW MGR Nanjing
    Morris Morris
    Wolseley[2]
    Austin Austin
    Vanden Plas Ford [3]
    Rover Rover BMW/MGR [4]
    Land Rover Ford
    Alvis[5] BAE Systems
    Standard Standard Triumph Leyland BMW/Triumph[6]
    Dawson Triumph
                                                                                                                                                                        
    [1] The BMC trademark is registered (1564704, E1118348) to MG Rover Group Ltd in the UK. BMC is also the name of a commercial vehicle manufacturer in Turkey, formerly the Turkish subsidiary of the British Motor Corporation. It is belived that Nanjing Automotive may have purchased this from MG Rover, however the brand has not been re-assigned as of 17 July 2006.

    [2] The Wolseley trademark is registered (UK 1490228) to MG Rover Group Ltd for automobiles only. It is believed that Nanjing Automotive may have purchased this from MG Rover, however the brand has not been -reassigned as of July 2006 to a different company. The UK building materials supplier Wolseley plc owns the rights to the Wolseley name for all other purposes. Wolseley plc is a descendant of the original Wolseley company.

    [3] The Vanden Plas trademark is owned by Ford (through Jaguar) for use within the USA and Canada, and as (UK 1133528, E2654481) to MG Rover Group Ltd for use in the rest of the world. It is belived that Nanjing Automotive may have purchased this from MG Rover, however the trademark has not been recorded as reassigned as of 17 July 2006. This is why Jaguar XJ Vanden Plas models are branded as Daimlers in Britain. The last Rover to use the Vanden Plas name was the Rover 75 Vanden Plas, a long wheelbase limousine model.

    [4] The Rover trademark is owned by BMW and was only licenced to MG Rover Group Ltd. BMW has indicated the Rover brand name is for sale and there is speculation that Nanjing or Chinese rivals SAIC wish to purchase the brand outright.

    [5] Alvis was purchased from British Leyland by United Scientific Holdings plc in 1981, in 2002 Alvis merged with part of Vickers Defence Systems to form Alvis Vickers which was purchased by BAE Systems in 2004. BAE Systems did not acquire Alvis through their ownership of Austin Rover Group / Rover Group in the early 1990s. Production of Alvis branded cars ceased in 1967. The trademark is owned by Alvis Vehicles Ltd

    [6] The use of the Triumph name as a trademark for vehicles is shared between BMW and Triumph Motorcycles Ltd. The former for automobiles and the latter for motorcycles. The motorcycle and car business separated in the 1930s.

    Note: The car brands of BSA were divested, BSA was not merged into Jaguar.

    Merged Companies

    The car firms (and car brands) which eventually merged to form the company are as follows.

    The dates given are those of the first car of each name, but these are often debatable as each car may be several years in development.

    Other Merger Events

    Several of these names (including Jaguar, Land Rover and Mini) are now in other hands. The history of the mergers and other key events is as follows:

    History of Divestments

    • 1975 Innocenti passed to Alejandro de Tomaso
    • 1978 Land Rover separated from Rover to form a separate company, still part of BL
    • 1979 Collaboration with Honda begins, sacking of Derek Robinson ("Red Robbo")
    • 1978 Closure of Triumph assembly plant in Speke - production moved to Canley
    • 1980 Closure of MG and Triumph assembly plants in Abingdon and Canley
    • 1981 Closure of Rover-Triumph plant in Solihull
    • 1981 Alvis sold to United Scientific Holdings
    • 1982 Michael Edwardes steps down as Chairman, British Leyland renamed Austin Rover Group (ARG)
    • 1984 Morris Ital goes out of production, signalling the end of the Morris badge
    • 1984 Jaguar floated off (including Daimler and the US rights to Vanden Plas); bought by Ford in 1989
    • 1986 Austin Rover renamed Rover Group, Austin badges disappear the following year
    • 1986 Leyland Trucks & Vans sold to DAF. Vans became independent LDV in 1993, and Trucks became Leyland Trucks. Leyland Trucks was taken over by US giant PACCAR in 1998 and integrated with Foden.
    • 1986 Leyland Bus floated off; bought by Volvo in 1988
    • 1987 Unipart, BL's spare parts division acquired by management buy-out
    • 1988 Rover Group privatised; sold to British Aerospace
    • 1994 Rover Group sold to BMW; collaboration with Honda ends
    • 2000 BMW decides to break up and sell the Rover empire; Land Rover sold to Ford
    • 2000 BMW MINI, Triumph, and Riley trademarks retained by BMW, but BMW's other interests sold off
    • 2000 Remainder of company became independent as the MG Rover Group
    • 2005 MG Rover goes into administration with huge debts, and production of all vehicles at the Longbridge plant is suspended.

    List of notable BL and BMC and related models (up to 1986)

    Competing models

    In some cases, British Leyland continued to produce competing models from the merged companies at different sites for many years. However, any benefits from the broader number of models were far outweighed by higher development costs and greatly reduced economies of scale.

    Badge-engineered models

    In contrast to the continued development of competing models, British Leyland continued the practice of badge engineering of models which had started under BMC; selling essentially the same vehicle under two (or more) different marques.

    See also

    • Other nationalised industries

    Notes

    External links

    • Model-by-model history http://austin-rover.co.uk
    • http://www.team.net/www/morgan/history/linage.html
    • http://www.mgxtreme.co.uk/history/history.php
    • http://www.alvis.plc.uk
    • http://www.ownajag.com/jaguar-history.html
    • http://members.fortunecity.com/routeman68/history.htm - Leyland Truck & Bus
    • http://www.dloc.org.uk/ - Daimler, Lanchester and BSA

     

    From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
    All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

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