A great topic, after WWII through the mid fifties Britain was on top of the
car manufacturing world, the Jag XK120, Healey 100, and Triumph TR2
outperformed other sports cars and other cars for that matter at anywhere
near the price, Rolls Royce and Bentley really were the best luxury cars in
the in the world, Jag sedans not far behind. A contemporary road test of
the TR2 said it would outdrag any Aamerican car from a stoplight, and
American car magazines spoke of the quality of British manufacturing and
engineering.
The very nature of the cottage industry (compared to the US) of British car
manufacturing helped them move fast with new models after the war and they
were at the top of their game.
But the Americans started making thin wall casting lightweight V-8s and
horsepower shot up, the Italians and Germans started making overhead cam
motors and more sophisticated suspensions, and use of aluminum alloy in
engines for their mainstream cars, while the bread and butter British sports
cars and sedans soldiered on with the live axles, lots of cast iron, and the
same motors for years.
The Mini, MGB, and E-type were the last hurrahs of the of Great Britain's
motor industry, the B maybe not as modern as the other two, but certainly
well designed, built and engineered.
Another of the real killers was unibody construction, which cost so much
more to tool up for, the small cottage industry, relatively low production
nature of the British industry which had been a boon after the war, where a
few blokes with some know how and tools could put together an awfully good
sports car (Donald Healey) suddenly became a problem, as the capital needed
to design and manufacture unibody cars and update them on a regular basis
was just not there. The Spridget and MGB are good examples, yes they were
nice unibody sports cars, but between the fact that they continued to sell,
and the fact the retooling for a whole new design was so expensive, both
cars remained in production for practically ever.
The whole BMC/BL idea was probably a good one if Britain wanted to stay in
the game as a major power in auto manufacture, and not a country of small
limited production builders like Lotus, Aston and TVR, but it was either too
late (similar to the consolidations of some of the non big three
manufacturers in the states in the 50s) or poorly executed (certainly) and
failed.
Greg Lemon
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