Hi Team,
I recently attended a swap meet where bought a group of BMC's old "Safety
Fast" magazines, and the May 1968 issue included a separate folder that was
titled "Birth of a Giant." I thought that the historians among you might
find this of interest, as I did. I'll paste in the text below (I hope it's
not so long that it gets truncated.) I think it offers some insight to the
times and circumstances of the creation of BLMC (and the end of BMC), and
the slightly desperate tone was, as subsequent events would bear out,
prophetic.
Reid Trummel
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BIRTH OF A GIANT
On 14 May 1968 the British Leyland Motor Corporation became fact. At the
same time it became the most important single factor in Britain's economic
recovery, now so urgent and necessary.
The new Corporation is the result of this country's biggest ever merger -
between British Motor Holdings and the Leyland Motor Corporation.
It is the second largest motor manufacturer outside the United States, with
export sales of #300 million, current total sales of over #800 million, and
a labour force throughout the world of some 200,000.
So much, and a great deal more, is already known to anyone who reads a
newspaper. Yet it is all merely the foreword to a new chapter in British
industrial efficiency.
None could deny that this country's economic future is in hazard. And our
economic future, let there be no mistake, depends not on professional
economists and politicians, but fairly and squarely on those who make and
sell goods. That is the reality of national economics.
Britain won world leadership because her industries were more efficient than
any other. She lost that leadership. Today many countries are more
efficient. Our difficulties are formidable, but far from insurmountable.
This is a small island with a large manufacturing economy dependent on
overseas supplies for most of its raw materials and much of its food. Those
commodities have to be earned, in the main with finished goods. Yet in true
wealth it is second only to the United States.
Brain drain or no brain drain, our designers can hold their own against all
comers. Our craftsmen and technicians have none to equal them. The
ordinary man on the British shop floor is still the steadiest and the most
dependable of his kind.
Given modern and efficient factories, tools, equipment, and virile
management and marketing techniques they shall once again show the world.
That is the real meaning of British Leyland.
The new Corporation is no loose association of semi-autonomous companies.
For months before the new organization came into operation there took place
a comprehensive study of integration on a scale and depth never before
attempted in British industry.
As a result, British Leyland is a fully integrated, streamlined company with
the power, energy, and purpose to compete successfully with the biggest
names in the top league of vehicle manufacturers. The battle is joined for
survival.
Increasingly the giant American firms base their operations on a global
strategy. Our European competitors have been no laggards in the
reorganization of their enterprises on the most modern lines.
Clearly, only a British company with considerable scope for rationalizing
production facilities, big enough to command resources for development and
research, and financially strong enough to maintain a distribution and
servicing organization of vast proportions can hope to match the need.
British Leyland is big enough. From top to bottom it is fired with
determined confidence in its ability to meet whatever is in store.
It is out to win. For Britain.
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