× 1-800-946-2642 Home My Account Social / Forum Articles Contact My Cart
Shop Now
Select Your Car Type Sale Items Clearance Items New Items
   Forum Width:     Forum Type: 

Found 21 Messages

Previous Set of Pages 1 | 2

 Posted: Feb 28, 2017 05:10PM
Total posts: 654
Last post: Dec 20, 2017
Member since:Sep 24, 2011
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
Who built your '75?  It will depend on what day it was built:

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.

 Posted: Feb 28, 2017 11:55AM
Total posts: 13978
Last post: Jan 15, 2024
Member since:Jan 22, 2003
Cars in Garage: 4
Photos: 381
WorkBench Posts: 1
CA
Leyland I think

 

"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

 

 

 

 Posted: Feb 28, 2017 09:54AM
Total posts: 70
Last post: Dec 3, 2017
Member since:Mar 17, 2015
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
so curious my 1975 Canadian mini, is that a bmc? a blmc? rover? austin?.... or just mini

 Posted: Feb 24, 2017 07:17AM
Total posts: 8382
Last post: Jan 13, 2022
Member since:Feb 7, 2006
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
Yes onetim the MG name was sold off to the Chinese.

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.

 Posted: Feb 24, 2017 07:10AM
Total posts: 1007
Last post: Jul 19, 2022
Member since:Jul 24, 2014
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
I was spending some time in Lima Peru, And saw a Morris Garages dealership, they are selling a sport utility as a MG , Chinese?

 Posted: Feb 24, 2017 06:44AM
Total posts: 13978
Last post: Jan 15, 2024
Member since:Jan 22, 2003
Cars in Garage: 4
Photos: 381
WorkBench Posts: 1
CA

 

"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

 

 

 

 Posted: Feb 1, 2017 04:54AM
Total posts: 9528
Last post: Mar 27, 2024
Member since:Aug 14, 2002
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
CA
AL meant the Corvette guys, not their cars...

.

"Hang on a minute lads....I've got a great idea."

 Posted: Jan 31, 2017 08:50AM
Total posts: 371
Last post: Apr 20, 2023
Member since:Sep 6, 2015
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
Image Gallery
Excuse me, Corvettes and what?
My cars might take that personal!

 Posted: Jan 31, 2017 05:45AM
Total posts: 2515
Last post: Dec 14, 2021
Member since:May 28, 2012
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
CA
Rosebud:

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

[email protected]

Niagara Ontario Canada

 Posted: Jan 30, 2017 09:14PM
Total posts: 1368
Last post: Jul 20, 2023
Member since:Jul 15, 2008
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 117
WorkBench Posts: 1
US
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rosebud
What year did in Austin Mini become a Morris Mini…
Thanks all for the history lesson and the interesting reading. I was hoping for a short answer that would satisfy my Cars & Coffee buddies. After explaining that… "not all Minis were Coopers," I thought perhaps I could give them a little more detail about the product line. The British auto industry is messier than I had imagined.

 

Michael, Santa Barbara, CA

. . . the sled, not the flower

      Poser MotorSports

 Posted: Jan 30, 2017 10:02AM
Total posts: 2515
Last post: Dec 14, 2021
Member since:May 28, 2012
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
CA
And with the advent of the Japanese imports, the Fat Lady started to sing

Sad but true Pity

Big AL

[email protected]

Niagara Ontario Canada

 Posted: Jan 30, 2017 09:54AM
Total posts: 654
Last post: Dec 20, 2017
Member since:Sep 24, 2011
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
Who do we blame? 


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). 


 Posted: Jan 30, 2017 08:17AM
Total posts: 10232
Last post: Mar 26, 2024
Member since:Mar 24, 1999
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
GB
I dunno, Red Robbo and his (Russian supported - fact, not alternative fact) cronies certainly played a large part in the downfall, and were directly responsible for the closure of the Speke plant and the loss of the TR7 Lynx.

 Posted: Jan 30, 2017 08:08AM
Total posts: 7048
Last post: Jan 29, 2024
Member since:May 23, 2002
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
The biggest problem was the bureaucrat bean counters who didn't understand automobiles and brand loyalty. Not a union problem.

"Retired:  No Job, No Money, Wife and I!  Will travel anywhere for Minis"

[email protected]

 Posted: Jan 30, 2017 04:34AM
Total posts: 2515
Last post: Dec 14, 2021
Member since:May 28, 2012
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
CA
British mis-management at its worst

Can we blame the Unions on any of this?

Big AL

[email protected]

Niagara Ontario Canada

 Posted: Jan 30, 2017 03:44AM
Total posts: 654
Last post: Dec 20, 2017
Member since:Sep 24, 2011
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
x2 what Alex said


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.

 Posted: Jan 30, 2017 12:06AM
Total posts: 10232
Last post: Mar 26, 2024
Member since:Mar 24, 1999
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 0
WorkBench Posts: 0
GB

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.

 Posted: Jan 29, 2017 10:39PM
 Edited:  Jan 29, 2017 10:43PM
Total posts: 1368
Last post: Jul 20, 2023
Member since:Jul 15, 2008
Cars in Garage: 0
Photos: 117
WorkBench Posts: 1
US
Quote:
Originally Posted by swindrum
Austin and Morris Minis were produced at the same time…
More info here
Austin AND Morris Minis were produced at the same time? Now I'm really confused. According to our host's article "Mini Production Timeline" [here], these seem to be the significant dates: 

• 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.

 

Michael, Santa Barbara, CA

. . . the sled, not the flower

      Poser MotorSports

 Posted: Jan 29, 2017 04:54PM
 Edited:  Jan 29, 2017 04:55PM
Total posts: 1456
Last post: Jan 31, 2022
Member since:Sep 8, 2003
Cars in Garage: 1
Photos: 186
WorkBench Posts: 0
CA
Austin and Morris Minis were produced at the same time, I have a 63 Morris Cooper and a 62 Austin 850, slightly later, Wolseley and Riley variants were introduced. all under the blanket of BMC, then British Leyland. In 1968 the names were dropped and Mini became the Marque, rather than the model...

More info here

Sean Windrum

1996 MGF VVC
1970 1275 GT Racer
66 Austin Countryman
63 997 Cooper (Under Construction)
63 MG 1100

 

 Posted: Jan 29, 2017 04:34PM
Total posts: 13978
Last post: Jan 15, 2024
Member since:Jan 22, 2003
Cars in Garage: 4
Photos: 381
WorkBench Posts: 1
CA
69 I think it was Morris and Austin came under the Leyland label

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

Previous Set of Pages 1 | 2