Ping Dave Plowman

I saw that too - one of the papers?

It applies solely to one version, the Series 1 V8S. It is pretty well the same as other V8s, but came with a higher level of equipment as standard, including I think air-con.

I'd say the rarest of all in road going condition - MOT and tax - is likely the diesel.

Not sure of total numbers with MOT and tax, but somewhere over 500. With lots more on SORN.

Ah, ok. But still, what was the main cause of there being so few SD1s left? I worked for one of the contractors who built the new plant for the assembly of the SD1, so I have an interest.

Rot wouldn't surprise me. A friend's dad had a 2600 which started rusting within a year (fuel filler cap and arches IIRC).

Yup, rot. Shame. An otherwise excellent car.

They survive in similar numbers as a percentage of sales to other similar cars of that period. Like large Fords, Vauxhalls, etc.

Of course many have been robbed of the V8 engine to fit to other vehicles, which might have meant the early demise of some.

Yes. At the onset they used a new 'state of the art' paint process. Which was anything but. There were also problems with bodies in the white being stored outside and getting rusty before painting.

BL was in general an extremely badly organised company. Factories scattered all over the place. With no plans for when things didn't go the way they hoped/wanted. A prime example of how 'us and them' style of labour relations (on both sides) doesn't work.

Thanks. I was involved in commissioning the paint ovens in the plant, but not the spraybooths or the paint system. The first item to be baked in the Reflow oven was my Daimler SP250 exhaust manifold. Storing bodies outside is an absolute no-no, for sure, especially in England! Working at Solihull, you had to constantly be watching out for Land Rovers being driven around at breakneck speed, those drivers waited for no man. We did take the SP250 around the Rover test track one quiet Sunday afternoon...CCTV was still not the norm for factory premises.

Times gone by.

I remember reading somewhere they'd used the wrong polarity. The paint was meant to be attracted to the steel by some sort of electrostatic force, and that wasn't corrected for some time. I've often wondered if BL fell out with the equipment maker since support seemed so lacking.

Late P6 Rovers used the new paint process and it was equally as bad on them.

Not just England. We had the exact same problem in the late 70s with brand new Lancias. They had slug trails of rust on the bare metal before they were painted and it was our job to re-do the paint prior to customers taking delivery. There's no excuse for painting over bare metal that's already got traces of rust on it. I would imagine things are a hell of a lot better nowadays, though.

Found this a good read.

I chatted to a chap - long retired - who was a production engineer at BL back in the day. At a car show.

He told many a horror story. Like when they transferred the Triumph TR7 production line to a different factory and location. Zero training given to the workers - yet they were expected to produce the same numbers per day from the off. And of course who got blamed for assembly faults?

Things like doors often selective assembly. Yet only a fixed time allowed for this. Meaning you could only allow for a couple of tries in the time slot. No wonder panel gaps were hit or miss.

And many other such stories.

It also varied between factories in the group. Land Rover built all the V8 engines, and were generally left to their own devices. Meaning there were very very few quality problems with those.

Such a contrast from when the Japanese makers opened up in the US. If there was a problem on the assembly line, anyone could pull the cord to stop the line. It would not run again until the problem was fixed. Result: Quality cars. On one job at Toyota in Kentucky, we were tuning up one of the ovens, making adjustments to the zone temperatures and controller responses. For every change, we had to do a full test of the result, which took about an hour and a half each time. We could only go home when everyone was finally satisfied, and it was pronounced ready for production the next day.

Yes - the annoying thing is BL designed some rather nice cars. Had they been fully developed and well built, could have been world beaters. Instead they chose to partner with Honda and make some of the most dreary cars on the roads. Do wonder if BMW has been given decent government backing they could have turned it round - they made a decent start with the 75.

Maybe dreary but they had a better reputation than BL's own designs. If the BL was handed to Honda rather than BMW then we might still have BL.

BL was always going to fail with or without government backing. BMW lost a fortune, that tax payers would otherwise have lost.

Then of course some went back into UK ownership with aptly name Phoenix Vulture Holdings, of course supported by the UK government, so more money down the drain.

Perhaps if there wasn't a march through Birmingham against the Alchemy bid they might still be making family cars.

The real problem specifically with Austin Rover was unions hell bent on taking the company down. I never understood their hatred towards UK car manufacturing.

Really? My SD1 was replaced by the 800 series, basically a Honda. An inferior car in almost every way. Just another ultra bland FWD generic.

Ah - right. But you later state it was all down to the unions. ;-)

The mess that was BL was never going to be sorted without huge investment.

And yet those same workers now make Minis etc for BMW. In the same places.

Odd isn't it. Germany has a higher wage economy than the UK, yet manages to still make lots of cars. And compete against countries where costs are lower.

Are you saying German workers are simply better than UK ones?

BS. None of the original austin rover car workers were employed at the new Mini factory. BMW trained people from scratch.

Nissan similarly refused to employ anyone who had ever worked in the UK car industry. They employed local people and trained them in the Nissan-way from the outset.

Which eliminated anyone that worked to "British standard piss fit".

Norton forged crankshafts in one piece. Fully machined them in one piece. Then parted them in the middle to bolt a flywheel in. Put all the left halves in one bin and all the right halves in another bin, never the twain to meet again. Then they had to fit expensive "superblend" self aligning bearings to survive the out of true running.

Various stories exist across manufacturing industries with non-Japanese production lines purposely having to make designs that accepted wide tolerances, which worked, and were serviceable without having to going to the extremes of special working practices. That does have its advantages, particularly when some UK vehicles have an extended life abroad in the midst of basic tools and training.

However the Japanese like their fine production for performance and reliability, and a worker would strive to make parts to close tolerances, well within in the range of allowable.

In the west making a similar product we'd naturally and unhappily sail close to the tolerance limits of the range, and call it a day ... Then someone would have to implement even stricter tolerances and training over here, with expense, to manufacture equivalent products.

So different attitudes...

When Yamaha re-designed the Ford Kent into the Zetec to accommodate the sloppy tolerance of Ford's block machining line they had 20 main bearing shell thicknesses with the right tight running clearance. They couldn't stock undersize shells so the bottom end can't be repaired.