Austin vs. Morris
Orig. Posting Date | User Name | Edit Date |
Feb 28, 2017 05:10PM | nkerr | |
Feb 28, 2017 11:55AM | Spitz | |
Feb 28, 2017 09:54AM | driftz | |
Feb 24, 2017 07:17AM | malsal | |
Feb 24, 2017 07:10AM | onetim | |
Feb 24, 2017 06:44AM | Spitz | |
Feb 1, 2017 04:54AM | Dan Moffet | |
Jan 31, 2017 08:50AM | kolsen | |
Jan 31, 2017 05:45AM | oldminimover49 | |
Jan 30, 2017 09:14PM | Rosebud | |
Jan 30, 2017 10:02AM | oldminimover49 | |
Jan 30, 2017 09:54AM | nkerr | |
Jan 30, 2017 08:17AM | Alex | |
Jan 30, 2017 08:08AM | Dr Mini | |
Jan 30, 2017 04:34AM | oldminimover49 | |
Jan 30, 2017 03:44AM | nkerr | |
Jan 30, 2017 12:06AM | Alex | |
Jan 29, 2017 10:39PM | Rosebud | Edited: Jan 29, 2017 10:43PM |
Jan 29, 2017 04:54PM | swindrum | Edited: Jan 29, 2017 04:55PM |
Jan 29, 2017 04:34PM | Spitz |
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it was British Leyland from '75 until '86 when it changed to Rover Group.
It was BLMC (British Leyland Motor Company), from '68 until the middle of '75.
The Ryder Report which prompted the change was published in 26 March of 1975, and then on 27 June the shareholders accepted the offer of the Government investment ("nationalization") and BLMC ceased to exist and the BL name replaced it.
So, if your mini was built after 6/27/1975 it would be BL.
Should say in the owner's manual, or the BMH certificate.
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"Everybody should own a MINI at some point, or you are incomplete as a human being" - James May
"WET COOPER", Partsguy1 (Terry Snell of Penticton BC ) - Could you send the money for the unpaid parts and court fees.
Ordered so by a Judge
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If in doubt, flat out. Colin Mc Rae MBE 1968-2007.
Give a car more power and it goes faster on the straights,
make a car lighter and it's faster everywhere. Colin Chapman.
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"Hang on a minute lads....I've got a great idea."
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Don't let that stop you, just keep feeding the "cars and coffee crowd" more Brit car Bull $hit, the guys in the Corvettes with the small peni (plural) will never know the difference. LOL
Big AL
Niagara Ontario Canada
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Sad but true Pity
Big AL
Niagara Ontario Canada
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Sadly, after the mid '60s there is more than enough blame to go around (here is a quick, and surely not comprehensive list):
a real lack of innovative new designs from engineering after the '60s (various interesting ideas were put forth, from the engineering side but...)
Lack of upper management vision to make the most of what design proposed, and a terribly complex number of factories, and product nameplates, which struggled to work efficiently with each other, and at times competed with each other. Old and out dated, inefficient factory layouts which made production of goods more wasteful than their competitors, which languished and mgmt. failed to update and economize.
Leyland came in and did everything they could to undermine BMC's resources and replace them with their own in an internecine and wasteful power / ego struggle which took years to clear up. Much of design's efforts (whether from BMC or from Leyland) were squandered through this. Then, since Leyland was a much smaller organization than BMC, became overwhelmed and failed to properly develop most of what they introduced from then on (engines and cars which failed with amazing regularity they seemed almost (!) as bad as Italian cars, but all for what often turned out to be pretty simple, careless things (undersized main bearings, insufficient oil supply, weak thrust bearings, inadequate cooling/overheating, poor rust proofing, and on and on), which classic car owners know about and easily remedy today).
Terrible labor relations, aggravated by unions and not helped by an often tone deaf sr. mgmt. Once the unions got started they became the self-destructive force which almost could not be reckoned with. Red Robbo was by far the worst, and it was documented that once he finally did something for which he could be fired the relations picked up and improved at that plant almost immediately.
Say what you will about unions, remember that the reason why they exist in the first place is because the workers don't have a voice. Note the (many) successful (some gigantic multinational corporations) today which operate without unions do so, successfully, largely because they are run in a manner which DOES give the workers an effective voice. That, then, points back at management as the root cause of "why unions".
The damage the unions were able to cause was manifold: lost work days and lost product to sell while the sun was shining killed desperately needed profits which could have been used to update product, also the unions were overwhelming management energy with labor issues which could have been spent on improving everything else from product, to planning, to factory layout and consolidation. The unrest in labor also contributed terribly to the poor assembly quality which led to the horrifically poor quality reputation earned through the '70s.
Each of the times BMC / BL was just beginning to make some money (a year in the black) they were hit by another recession which turned the following year deeply into the red. Each time (from the mid-60s on) that they should have been investing heavily on new product, or improving their plants (or both), the market would contract due to some international crisis of some sort, or by labor issues crippling one vital supply link or another. Reading through the annual financial reports through the '60s and '70s is like reading a poorly written disaster novel (every time the protagonist escapes from one crisis another erupts).
Strong competitors, like Ford UK, managed to make their way through all of the same economic and labor related issues while remaining largely in the black the whole time (and were then able to invest into product almost every year).
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"Retired: No Job, No Money, Wife and I! Will travel anywhere for Minis"
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Can we blame the Unions on any of this?
Big AL
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The Austin and Morris merger was in 1952. The overall company name became BMC.
More history:
When they bought Jaguar in 1966 the overall company name was changed to BMH (British Motor Holdings).
Leyland came along in 1968 and the overall company name was changed to BLMC (British Leyland Motor Company).
In 1975 the government took over the rapidly failing mess and the name was simplified to BL. In 1982 it was renamed the Austin Rover Group. In 1984 Jaguar was sold off to become private again. In 1986 the whole thing was privatized and sold to British Aerospace and it was renamed the Rover Group and they sold it all on to BMW who created the new Mini, kept the Cowley plant for it, sold off Land Rover to Ford and sold off the rest of it as "MG Rover", which failed and was shut down for good by 2005. A long, slow and sad decline, with some great high points along the way.
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Austin and Morris were two separate companies which came together under the BMC umbrella.
With two sets of dealerships operational, most cars produced after the merger were badge engineered and sold under both names from both dealerships - think Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth all selling the Neon.
After Leyland got involved, one of the massive mistakes they made was to amalgamate everything under one brand name which wiped out brand loyalty overnight and alienated all the faithful buyers, many of whom went to Ford...
The Mini was sold as both Austin & Morris from day one in 1959, and you bought according to brand loyalty or which grille you preferred.
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More info here
• 01/62 Austin Seven name changed to Austin Mini
• 10/67 Morris Mini-Minor name changed to Morris Mini
• 07/90 Rover Cooper RSP w/1275 introduced
Still, it remains a little fuzzy. It's clear there were "Austin" Minis beginning in '62. '67 saw the name "Minor" dropped, but was that the first appearance of the "Morris?" name. Not clear. '90 "Rover" Mini Coopers appears, but were there non-Cooper "Rovers" before then? Again, not clear. Maybe there's no real answers here.
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More info here
Sean Windrum
1996 MGF VVC
1970 1275 GT Racer
66 Austin Countryman
63 997 Cooper (Under Construction)
63 MG 1100
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I have a great chart of the hole BMC group on my work pc……..will post it tomorrow unless someone else posts it
"Everybody should own a MINI at some point, or you are incomplete as a human being" - James May
"WET COOPER", Partsguy1 (Terry Snell of Penticton BC ) - Could you send the money for the unpaid parts and court fees.
Ordered so by a Judge
Found 21 Messages