British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate

formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd
(BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It was
partly nationalised in 1975, when the UK government created a holding company
called British Leyland, later BL, in 1978.[1][2] It incorporated much of the Britishowned motor vehicle industry, which constituted 40 percent of the UK car market,
[3] with roots going back to 1895.

Despite containing profitable marques such as Jaguar, Rover and Land Rover, as
well as the best-selling Mini, British Leyland had a troubled history.[4] In 1986 it
was renamed as the Rover Group, later to become MG Rover Group, which went
into administration in 2005, bringing mass car production by British-owned
manufacturers to an end. MG and the Austin, Morris and Wolseley marques
became part of China's SAIC, with whom MG Rover attempted to merge prior to
administration.

Today, MINI, Jaguar Land Rover and Leyland Trucks (now owned by BMW Group,
TATA and Paccar, respectively) are the three most prominent former parts of
British Leyland which are still active in the automotive industry, with SAIC-owned
MG Motor continuing a small presence at the Longbridge site. Certain other
related ex-BL businesses, such as Unipart), continue to operate independently.
BLMC was created in 1968 by the merger of British Motor Holdings (BMH) and
Leyland Motor Corporation (LMC),[5] encouraged by Tony Benn as chairman of
the Industrial Reorganisation Committee created by the Wilson Government
(19641970).[3] At the time, LMC was a successful manufacturer, while BMH
(which was the product of an earlier merger between the British Motor
Corporation and Jaguar) was perilously close to collapse. The Government was
hopeful LMC's expertise would revive the ailing BMH, and effectively create a
"British General Motors". The merger combined most of the remaining
independent British car manufacturing companies and included car, bus and
truck manufacturers and more diverse enterprises including construction
equipment, refrigerators, metal casting companies, road surface manufacturers;
in all, nearly 100 different companies. The new corporation was arranged into
seven divisions under its new chairman, Sir Donald Stokes (formerly the chairman
of LMC).
While BMH was the UK's largest car manufacturer (producing over twice as many
cars as LMC), it offered a range of dated vehicles, including the Morris Minor
which was introduced in 1948 and the Austin Cambridge and Morris Oxford,
which dated back to 1959. After the merger, Lord Stokes was horrified to find that
BMH had no plans to replace these elderly designs. Also, BMH's design efforts
immediately prior to the merger had focused on unfortunate niche market
models such as the Austin Maxi (which was underdeveloped and with an

appearance hampered by using the doors from the larger Austin 1800) and the
Austin 3 litre, a car with no discernible place in the market.
which at the time was the UK's biggest selling car). While these cars had been
advanced at the time of their introduction, the Mini was not highly profitable and
the 1100/1300 was facing more modern competition.

The lack of attention to development of new mass-market models meant that

BMH had nothing in the way of new models in the pipeline to compete effectively
with popular rivals such as Ford's Escort and Cortina.

Immediately, Lord Stokes instigated plans to design and introduce new models
quickly. The first result of this crash programme was the Morris Marina in early
1971. It used parts from various BL models with new bodywork to produce BL's
mass-market competitor. It was one of the strongest-selling cars in Britain during
the 1970s, although by the end of production in 1980 it was widely regarded as a
dismal product that had damaged the company's reputation. The Austin Allegro
(replacement for the 1100/1300 ranges), launched in 1973, earned a similarly
unwanted reputation over its 10-year production life.

1975 Austin 1800

The company became an infamous monument to the industrial turmoil that
plagued Britain in the 1970s. Industrial action instigated by militant shop
stewards frequently brought BL's manufacturing capability to its knees. Despite
the duplication of production facilities as a result of the merger, there were
multiple single points of failure in the company's production network which
meant that a strike in a single plant could stop many of the others. Both Ford and
General Motors had mitigated against this years before by merging their
previously separate British and German subsidiaries and product lines (Ford had
created Ford of Europe, whilst GM nurtured closer collaboration between Vauxhall
and Opel), so that production could be sourced from either British or Continental
European plants in the event of industrial unrest. The upshot was that both Ford
and Vauxhall ultimately overtook BL to become Britain's two best selling
marques, a title they hold to the present day. At the same time, a tide of
Japanese imports, spearheaded by Nissan (Datsun) and Toyota exploited both
BL's inability to supply its customers and its declining reputation for quality by
the end of the 1970s, the British government had introduced protectionist
measures in the form of import quotas on Japanese manufacturers in order to
protect the ailing domestic producers (both BL and Chrysler Europe), which it was
helping to sustain.

At its peak, BLMC owned almost 40 manufacturing plants across the country.
Even before the merger BMH had included theoretically competing marques that
were in fact selling substantially similar "badge engineered" cars. The British
Motor Corporation had never successfully integrated the former Austin and Morris
dealer networks, which had led to a plethora of badge engineered models of
otherwise identical cars so that each network would have a product to sell. This
meant that Austin and Morris still, to an extent, competed with each other and
meant that each product was saddled with effectively twice the marketing and
distribution costs that it would have if sold under a single name. BMC had even
carried out very little in the way of dealer rationalisation many small towns still
had separate Austin and Morris outlets, which were then joined by former rivals
such as Triumph and Rover once British Leyland was formed.

BMH and Leyland Motors had expanded and acquired companies throughout the
1950s and 1960s in order to compete with one other, with the result that when
the two conglomerates were brought together into BL there was even more
internal competition. Rover competed with Jaguar at the expensive end of the
market, and Triumph with its family cars and sports cars against Austin, Morris
and MG.

Individual model lines that were similarly sized were therefore competing against
each other, yet were never discontinued nor were model ranges rationalised
quickly enough; in fact the policy of having multiple models competing in the
same market segment continued long after the merger for instance BMH's MGB
remained in production alongside LMC's Triumph TR6, whilst in the medium
family sector, the Princess was in direct competition with upscale versions of the
Morris Marina and cheaper versions of the Austin Maxi, meaning that economies
of scale resulting from large production runs could never be realised. In addition,
in consequent attempts to establish British Leyland as a brand in consumers'
minds in and outside the UK, print ads and spots were produced, causing
confusion rather than attraction for buyers.

BL marketing and management attempted to draw more obvious distinctions

between the marques most notable was the decision to pitch Morris as a maker
of conventional mass-market cars to compete with Ford and Vauxhall and Austin
to continue BMC's line of advanced family cars with front-wheel drive and fluid
suspension. This resulted in the Morris Marina and the Austin Allegro. The policy's
success was mixed. Since the dealership network was still not sufficiently
rationalised it meant that Austin and Morris dealers (which had, in BMC/BMH
days, each offered a full range of cars both advanced and traditional) had their
product range halved and found that they could no longer cater to many
previously loyal customers' tastes. The policy was also carried out hapzardly: The

advanced, Hydragas-sprung Princess began life in 1975 sold as an Austin, a

Morris and a Wolseley before being rebadged altogether under the new Princess
name. The Princess (and the Mini, which BL also turned into a marque in its own
right) was sold across the Austin-Morris dealership network, making any
distinction between the two even more vague to many customers.

These internal issues, which were never satisfactorily solved, combined with
serious industrial relations problems (with trade unions), the 1973 oil crisis, the
three-day week, high inflation, and ineffectual management meant that BL
became an unmanageable and financially crippled behemoth which went
bankrupt in 1975.

1970s restructuring[edit]

1976 Leyland National

Sir Don Ryder was asked to undertake an enquiry into the position of the
company, and his report, The Ryder Report, was presented to the government in
April 1975. Following the report's recommendations, the organisation was
drastically restructured and the Labour Government (19741979) took control by
creating a new holding company British Leyland Limited (BL) of which the
government was the major shareholder, effectively nationalising the company.[6]
Between 1975 and 1980 these shares were vested in the National Enterprise
Board which had responsibility for managing this investment. The company was
now organised into the following four divisions:[7]

Leyland Cars (later BL Cars) the largest car manufacturer in the UK, employing
some 128,000 people at 36 locations, and with a production capacity of one
million vehicles per year.
Leyland Truck and Bus the largest commercial and passenger vehicle
manufacturer in the UK, employing 31,000 people at 12 locations, producing
38,000 trucks, 8,000 buses (including a joint venture with the National Bus
Company) and 19,000 tractors per year. The tractors were based on the Nuffield
designs, but built in a plant in Bathgate, Scotland.

British Leyland 270 tractor fitted with aftermarket loader in the USA.
Leyland Special Products the miscellaneous collection of other acquired
businesses, itself structured into five sub-divisions:

Construction Equipment Aveling-Barford, Aveling-Marshall, Barfords of Belton

and Goodwin-Barsby
Refrigeration Prestcold
Materials Handling Coventry Climax (incorporating Climax Trucks, Climax
Conveyancer and Climax Shawloader)
Military Vehicles Alvis and Self-Changing Gears
Print Nuffield Press (which printed the company's publications) and Lyne & Son
Leyland International responsible for the export of cars, trucks and buses, and
responsible for manufacturing plants in Africa, India and Australia, employing
18,000 people

1977 Rover SD1

There was positive news for BL at the end of 1976 when its new Rover SD1
executive car was voted European Car of the Year, having gained plaudits for its
innovative design. The SD1 was actually the first step that British Leyland took
towards rationalising its passenger car ranges, as it was a single car replacing
two cars competing in the same sector: the Rover P6 and Triumph 2000. More
positive news for the company came at the end of 1976 with the approval by
Industry Minister Eric Varley of a 140 million investment of public money in
refitting the Longbridge plant for production of the company's "ADO88" (Mini
replacement) model, due for launch in 1979.[8] However, poor results from
customer clinics of the ADO88, coupled with the UK success of the Ford Fiesta,
launched in 1976, forced a snap redesign of ADO88 which evolved into the "LC8"
project eventually launched as the Austin Mini Metro in 1980.

In 1977 Sir Michael Edwardes was appointed chief executive[9] by the NEB and
Leyland Cars was split up into Austin Morris (the volume car business) and Jaguar
Rover Triumph (JRT) (the specialist or upmarket division). Austin Morris included
MG. Land Rover and Range Rover were later separated from JRT to form the Land
Rover Group. JRT later split up into Rover-Triumph and Jaguar Car Holdings (which
included Daimler).

BLCV[edit]