I have read many epitaphs over the years to the British car industry. This one presents some new insights and had me cringing and grief stricken to the end. Articles like these should be compulsory reading for British students, as should be articles for Germans about Hitler. It is painful to understand the extent of crippling myopia of all stakeholders to that doomed carmaker. It's surprising that the demise took as long as it did. As consumers we had to put up with decades of automotive shit until the Japs arrived.
The British motorcycle industry failed due similar reasons and equally as painful to accept.
And all consistent with an Empire in decline.

Peter, Auckland, NZ

piece work - poor discipline - abdication of "leadership" (except in design) to shop stewards - and bad mergers ruined it all. Had Leyland stuck to mergers and rationalisation in trucks, buses, and engines - that could have done well. EFTA released into the UK better built and designed from their tough conditionins at home SCANIA and VOLVO in trucks/buses/engines. The ridiculous roads prevented trucks/buses from developing enough.
In cars, complacency - Lucas - failure to gain feedback from export markets - not enough concern with quality control nor backup. Internal jealousies. Bad old factories. "Development Certificates" instead of taking the people into new homes in greenfield sites. Failure to abandon smaller cars to the Continent and Japan.
Had in cars there had been less demarcation disputes, and merger (with rationalised modular engines and transmissions and components out of sight) at the prestige end (where the profits exist) of \
RR,Bentley,Jag,Rover,Triumph,MG - great

Donald MacDONALD , BRISBANE , Australia

This is a sad account of events that have happened during my lifetime, that I had no idea about.

Back in the days when few of us thought of owning a car, the few people who could buy a new card had one which proudly displayed 'Austin of England'.

We've lost that pride in England, our country, its workforce, its traditions of excellence. People now contemptuously talk of 'the UK', a term I hate.

My husband, in his career in engineering sales, saw British industry go down the pan exactly for the reasons stated - no one cared enough about it. Governments haven't given 'tax breaks' to our own industries, concessions that other countries give to their own but our government to give to foreigners. They're willing to 'sell us down the river'. Now we have people like that Japanese businessman recently who demanded that we join the euro or he'll pull out - 'I thought the UK was part of Europe'.

Austin and Morris made mistakes but they must be spinning in their graves now.

Margaret Stoll, Rochford, Essex

From my bedroom I could see Longbridge (if it was not for the houses in between).
Fortunes were made at L`bridge, by succesive "Bosses" some tried hard.others not so hard. It was a gravytrain that but for political cowardice should have vanished by at least the 80`s.
One small eg. The car bodies were made at Oxford then transported the 70 odd miles to L`Bridge on barely A class roads;( Woodstock:Stratford on Avon) parts of which have since been designated "Scenic routes".
The sight of the Directors filling ALL their Company Cars with petrol at the L`Bridge pumps prior to a weekend or Bank Holiday was akin to the trek of the wildebeest on the Masi Mari.

Peter Bolt, Redditch, UK

steve london....yes royal mail is next and red robbo is alive and well look on a web site www.hellmail.co.uk and read the forums there.its independant and other like minded people like yourself have said the same.

david p fitzgerald, coventry, england

Its not true that Rover cars were rubbish. Remember all the fun and frolics about Skoda ? Well, they made aircraft engines for Hitlers Luftwaffe, not much wrong with Messersmitt 109 engines was there ? Look at Skoda today, one of the best made and well designed cars on the road.

What was wrong with Rover cars was that they had the wrong name. If they had stuck a BMW or a Mercedes badge on the bonnet they would still be in business. Before you start to scoff just ask someone who owned a Rover 600 and ask them what they think. I owned one and after 9 years the only rust was round the rear wheel arches, and the car at 170,000 miles on the clock went like the clappers.

If BMW had chosen a new name for the quality car they produced in Birmingham instead of calling it the Rover 75 they would still be in business today. There is nothing wrong with the Rover 75, 44 mpg from a 2000 cc engine. If people hadn't been so predjudiced against it, but people are predjudiced aren't they ?

Phil de Buquet, Newport, England

What you're looking for is not 'caring' but 'joined-up thinking', requiring a character trait long bred out of English DNA.

Another factor in the final demise of Longbridge was the commitment to the idea that an assembly line, whose efficiency relies on uniformity of parts, could be successfully adapted to customisation.

Rob Riches, Croydon, UK

just what is the argument? that we should keep something going 'for old time's sake'? what is so great about 'industry'? Many jobs in industry were monotonous production type ones... how were they any better than the jobs people have now? And if we were to reintroduce 'industry' it would have to compete with the industry of Asia and the employees therefore would have to be on the same terms and conditions... no pensions/sick pay/ holiday ... would that be a step forward for the UK?

Lisa, Milan, Italy

We have a short memory! Why would anyone want to support a plant that failed to perform thanks to the ineffeciency and bloodymindedness of union practices. The chickens came home to roost and they have only themselves to blame.

It happened to the Liverpool dockers, it happened to the Miners. Next stop - Royal Mail !

Steve, London, UK

While there may be some merit in suggesting that a bit less self-interest on the part of workers in the early days of Longbridge's demise might have saved the company and the jobs of their successors, the suggestion that "voters, consumers [and] politicians" should have waded in is a nonsense. It is not the place of politicians to throw good (taxpayers') money after bad, in a bid to replace market forces with state subsidies and at the expense of schools and hospitals; nor is the job of responsible voters to attempt to compel them to do so. And as for consumers, after a house, a car is the largest purchase most of us will ever make, and I'm blowed if I'm going to knowingly chuck a large proportion of my annual salary at an inferior product simply through some misplaced notion of national pride. If Rover wanted to sell more cars, they should have tried making something that people wanted to buy, rather than expecting British taxpayers to bail them out (again).

Jonny, London,

Why should we care. A company made poor products for years and consumers stopped buying them.

There is no economic rationale for the continuance of a company that is unable to sell its products. Stating the UK companies are being 'picked off' misses the point that UK Plc continues to purchase companies overseas. Yes the dynamics are changing, but at least our economy is dynamic.

Bad companies must fail - it is a poor allocation of resources to prop them up, and the UK benefits from a generally laissez-faire free market approach.

If you have any doubts - look at the number of very large multi national French companies and compare them to UK owned / domiciled UK ones. We have almost four times as many - so the reference to Renault above is effectively a red herring as well.

Adrian, London, UK

The unions alone were responible for the destruction of the car industry in the UK! the communists had but one desire and that was to destroy the UK to bring about a soviet type "workers paradise" When you think about the damage the socialists have done to our industrial base it should make you cry! The car industry,the aircraft industry,the shipping industry,the coal industry,the steel industry and many more all sacrificed on the alter of marxist/socialist dogma! shame on them! shame on us for allowing it to happen? And where are the soviet quislings/traitors now? Well i'm glad you asked! they are all doing very well thankyou! nice pensions cushy union jobs Etc If we had any sense we should hunt these people down and put them on trial for what they did! The UK could well have been the richest and most productive country in the world if the socialist/marxist/communists had not been allowed to infiltrate the unions and still today they do damage where the can. Shame on them and us.

stephanie clague, Larnaca, cyprus

In Britain, we are able to choose what to buy, and as far as cars go, we have a huge choice. For a mass of reasons, cars made at Longbridge were a long way down the list of desirable options. The market decided the fate of Longbridge. But that was after decades of political fighting over who really 'owned' Britain's car industry, and all those red Robbos and the politicians they were in conflict with ultimately threw out the baby with the bath water. The unions involved (like the Miner's union) now have the satisfaction of knowing that they defended their industries to the death. Unfortunately, the wrong entities died.

clive, surrey,

I drove and worked on many of British Leyland [as it was then] cars. I just got fed up of the continual need for maintenance. The only cars that I needed to summon a breakdown recovery service for were BL/Rover. I later bought an old and rusty Honda Accord. I thought I had died and gone to Heaven.
No wonder Rover failed. I am sorry for the workers but the cars were rubbish.

Charon, Axminster,

In my time at longbridge (20 years ) I had lots of contact with Red Robbo as a shop steward. He was nothing less than an extention of management..He even had his car serviced in the corporate
grade car pool. All he ever done was play to the cameras in cofton park.

LEW LEWIS, pershore, worc's

'wpo', if only it were so simple. Some cultures do care more, the French and Italians for a start. Their populations, and their governments, have backed their home-grown car industry when they were doing badly, with the result that they still have a domestic car industry. For good or bad, our consumers and our govt take a much more hard-headed approach.

JJW, Rome, Italy

One other thought - just about the only thing that was British about Rover towards the end was its workforce. If British people really want to save British manufacturing jobs (and buy a decent product into the bargain) they should be buying the Hondas and Peugeots that are built over here.

Jonny, London,

The point being made is that Longbridge died because the British public did not and does not have the sense of national pride, the French do. French cars as pointed out were certainly no better than British cars produced at Longbridge, but unlike the French who support their car industry to the hilt by buying French, (just look at how many Renault's, Ctroen's and Peugeout's you see on the road in France), we in Britain do not and then act surprised when the industry fails and outraged it's fallen into Chinese hands.

Derek Bargh, Leicester,

Graham has a point and I say that as a Midlander who did care !!

Ian Payne, LICHFIELD - STAFFS, ENGLAND

Some of us do care but neither Govt nor the City bothers to listen.

The de-industrialisation of the UK is almost complete. I get the feeling neither the Govt nor the City will be content until it is.

Dick, Aberdeenshire,

Sorry to introduce a contrary point of view, but seems to me that all of this about the nation caring more is just plain silly, this whole subject is about markets, people buy some stuff and walk past other stuff, we all understand why, its about value for money. Seems that these vehicles which were on offer, well, they failed to cut he mustard.

wpo, warsaw, N.Y.

The British have a great apathy towards their industries. I cannot for instance imagine the Italian Government letting FIAT go somehow. When i go to europe i notice that most countries (that make cars) tend to buy their own produce. I remember in the 80s i was amazed that in France there seemed no desire to buy foriegn at all. Maybe in these countries they recognised that although some of their national brands weren't necessarly the best they had a duty to invest in their own country's economy.

david, edinburgh, uk

The last dramatic government intervention to support British manufacturing was in 1971 with Edward Heath's rescue by nationalisation of Rolls Royce - which now of course is in private hands and flourishing. Renault now flourishes as State/private partnership. But Chancellor Lawson opined nearly 30 years ago that Britain was a "post manufacturing economy" - other countries could get their hands dirty making the odious "widget" . Mrs Thatcher welcomed the arrival of foreign car manufacturing plants - objections that they were simply screwdriver operations were silenced with the thought that a job was a job - irrespective if designer or spot-wleder.

New Labour effectively completed the move to passivity, inaction and defeatism over the Britsh motor industry.

Bob T., London, UK

Renault is still no better today. Look at how Nissan quality has declined since the Renault tie-up. And yet they survive. Why?

Richard Clarke, Chicago IL, USA