Food for thought

Scary is the truth Dimi. The cars are but only one product wasting away, major household appliances and big screen televisions are two others that are massively overproduced but easier to deal with.
 
A few years ago the big car manufacturers were getting the dealerships to register cars even though they were unsold in a bid to boost the vehicles apparent popularity in the best sellers surveys. These were then flogged off cheap to the large lease hire brigade who resold them on the second hand car market with less than 100 miles on them.

Bob
 

Keith

Moderator
It is weird economics but isn't new. For my sins, I once worked as a welder for the Ford Motor Company. I was part of a small team that made the left hand side jacking bracket assembly for the (then) new MKII Cortina which consisted of 4 operations and a 3 man team finishing up with a tube welded to the assembly (my job). We made 660 per shift as piece work had been abandoned in favour of set production numbers. In 6 days of 24 hour working (we rested on the 7th day), we produced 7,920 units. In the approximately 52 weeks I worked there, we made 411,840 units.

When I left the facility on Croydon Airport, I happened to venture across an aircraft hangar stuffed floor to ceiling with crates of parts. Every single one of the parts we had made the previous year was sitting there in this shed. They were still there when the MKII was phased out and the MKIII production was started with a different jacking and non interchangeable system. This was in around 1968. I'll bet they are still there now.

How these manufacturers ever make money is beyond me.
 

Keith

Moderator
Believe NOTHING you hear and only half what you see. The truth is of course, somewhere in the middle. Take a trip to Southampton Docks and see for yourself. :)

Better yet, if I'm over that way this week I'll take some actual pictures for you...

I think car mountains are at least as old as wine lakes and butter mountains, both of which existed, as you know.

Shortly before BL went tits up for the final time, they were making 800 Mini Metros a week. A week!

Who the heck bought them? The worst car ever to be inflicted on an unsuspecting public.
 

Keith

Moderator
Haha you won't get me like that matey. They wus built by Reliant... yes the old three wheeler company, and the engine (developed by Williams) was 2 cylinders short of a Rover with DOHC heads, so yes, exactly like the BL Metro, not...
 
Haha you won't get me like that matey. They wus built by Reliant... yes the old three wheeler company, and the engine (developed by Williams) was 2 cylinders short of a Rover with DOHC heads, so yes, exactly like the BL Metro, not...

Its a fair cop govner. Was it not the jag 220 lemans winning engine wedged in the back of them courtesy of Tom Walkinshaw?
 

Keith

Moderator
Indeed and it was another incarnation of the Metro 3 litre 6R4 NA engine but with twin turbos.

I think your 700hp is a little bit fanciful - the standard 'International spec' motor gave out 385 hp but they probably got 450 by the time the engine was fully developed...
 
700hp sounds good down the pub though innit. Its a shame really because BL did have some very futuristic stuff on the drawing boards but the clowns in management just could not see the light. Its downfall was put at the feet of the unions but churning out dated crap year in year out was in my opinion responsible for its demise. MG and Jaguar had some really nice looking prototypes but they never saw the light of day.

Bob

Have a look in here but you need to remember that most of this was on the drawing board n the early seventies

http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/mg-xpower-sv/the-cars-mg-xpower-sv-development-history/
 
Last edited:
Back
Top