Once upon a time there was a huge car making industry in the UK. It once stood at 500 companies strong but has now shrunk to only 35 and few of those are owned whole by British concerns. Of these few are actually making cars for the family or general market. TVR, Ronart, Noble and Morgan (who have been going since 1910) all produce top end sports cars or others like AC (the longest still in existence starting in 1908) have moved from providing the affordable general car to the luxury sports to survive. There is innovation as well in the shape of the Welsh based Riversimple group who are pioneering the use of hydrogen cell technology to build sustainable lightweight two-seater vehicles.
The loss of the British Car industry is debated the length and breadth of the UK even now some 30 years after it fell to the levels that we have today. What we have maintained is the need for qualified mechanics to complete the yearly servicing and Gloucester MOT needs such as 123carandcommercial There are many theories as to why it happened, and a lot of that opinion falls on what side of the political spectrum you sit. The harsh reality (according to some) that few want to accept, or acknowledge, is that the only people responsible for the demise of the British Car industry are the British people themselves. They didn’t buy the cars that the companies produced, the management where short sighted and were happy to sign off any old rubbish and the workers were too greedy, so they went on strike all the time.
There are other factors outside of that popular view. At the end of the nineteen sixties the UK had produced the Mini which was taking the world in sales by storm. Finally, the world had a nippy reliable little car much better than a Fiat 500 or the Citroen’s 2CV and Renault Four. In the luxury car market, the Rover 2000 dominated the executive car fleet and BMW were certainly taking notes. The Jaguar E type could easily match a Ferrari for looks and speed plus it cost nowhere near as much as the Prancing Pony were charging.
It was not just the British. The market we could sell cars to was smaller as we had been vetoed twice from entering the common market which would have opened up a whole new set of countries in Europe for British car manufacturers to sell to.