At 10:42 PM 5/12/97 -0000, you wrote:
<snip>
>=80=80I know that BMC was taken over by Leyland Motors in May of 1968. But=
at
that time, BMC had become British Motor Holdings. When did this happen and=
why?
In 1966, Sir William Lyons decided to merge his Jaguar company into BMC.
Lyons was the co-founder, controlling shareholder, Managing Director, head
designer and Lord High Everything Else of Jaguar, but his only son had been
killed in an auto accident on the way to Le Mans in the '50s, and felt he
had no one to take over the company after him (in those less enlightened
days, he apparently felt that his daughter was incapable of taking over.
But I digress). There was one other big issue: Jaguar was totally
dependent on the Pressed Steel company for its supplies of bodyshells, as
Jaguar had never been big enough to buy in the huge presses and all the
other tooling needed to make its own bodies. Just before the War, the SS
Car Company (as Jaguar was then known - the company name was changed from SS
to Jaguar in 1945 for obvious reasons) had bought a body company (I can't
remember the name right now), but Jaguar's critical need for capital after
the War caused them to sell the body maker to pay for retooling and
recoversion from war production to civilian production. Jaguar and most
other British makers bought their bodies in from outside. However, in about
'64 or '65, BMC bought Pressed Steel. Although there were assurances that
Pressed Steel would continue to supply the independents, it made their
existence a lot more precarious. With the launch of the XJ-6 scheduled for
launch in 1968, and that car set to replace the 420, the 420G, the S-type
and 240/340 range of sedans, and most of Jaguar's captial tied up in the new
model, it was not a good time for there to be any uncertainty about body
supplies. So Jaguar and BMC merged to form BMH.
>=80=80When and why did Leyland Motors become British Leyland? Was it when
Leyland became nationalized?
Just over a year after the BMC-Jaguar merger, BMH and Leyland merged to
become British Leyland.
>=80=80When did Leyland Motors take over Standard-Triumph? And did S-T=
comprise
any other marques besides Standard and Triumph?
>My site is going to focus on MGs A-B-C models. I want to know what factory
options were available and for how much US$. I have the Original MGB (as I
own a B) and it lists what the options were, but I don't know how much the
costs were. I have NO detail on MGA options. Any US$ for the above models
would be appreciated as well.
>
>I would like to try to show what the original paint colors looked like (I
know there are inherent color-matching problems and unless everything is
properly calibrated, I will not get exact colors). Does anyone know of a
book or other publication (sales brochure perhaps) that had color chips or
at least representative colors?
>
>Doug Gaither
>
Hope the above history helps.
Mark Moburg
markmoburg@mindspring.com
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