The situation in England was far different then it is here. If you want to
know what was wrong read a book called *The End of the Road: The Rise and
Fall of the Austin-Healey, MG, and Triumph Sports Cars,* by Whisler. It was
published by the University of Illinois Press. My local Public Library got
it for me as an interlibrary loan.
Austin and Morris were both self made men and had contempt for anyone who
didn't get rich as they did. *"I made it, if you didn't you are lazy and
stupid". *When the shop stewards ran the floor everything was great. When
these self made men decided that the workers were too stupid to know how to
do their jobs, and took over the floor there was nothing but labor strife.
We don't have that in the US. We do have management that is more interested
in their own benefits rather than the company.
Another problem, one that we did have in Detroit was mistrust of other
desighners. Being self made, A&M would not hire trained mechanical
engineers. Only folks who came up through the apprentice system were
accepted. Look at what they did to the MG as a result of US crash and
emissions standards. In the US, those mechanical engineers who ran the show
ignored the electrical engineers who said they could improve the cars. Only
when they became desperate as a result of mandatory US emission standards
did the electrical engineers get a hearing.
Whisler tells of the arrogance of Austin in an anecdote about a model that
wasn't ready to go on the market. When told of this Austin said to sell it
anyway and let the customers find the problems. (Say, doesn't that sound
like Microsoft?} Austin sales plummeted.
Interesting factoid. Longbridge was hghly mechanised, Abingdon depended on
teams of workers pushing the cars from station to station to get the job
done. Whisler points out that Longbridge produced better numbers, but
Abingdon better quality. In his book Geof Healey said that he was concerned
when Austin Healey manufacturing moved from Longbridge to Abingdon, but he
soon leaned that there was no decrease in quality standards.
Jack
Abingdon built
1960 Austin Healey 3000
1969 MGC
1972 MGBGT
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