Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadeTreeMech
Are you certain that BL didn't take his brilliant design and ruin it? I've heard a couple horror stories concerning british leyland in the 70s and 80s
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When Issigonis was developing his cars (the Mini, 1100 and 1800) he was working for BMC which despite being the UK's largest car company also didn't spend enough time on testing and development especially when you are making something off the map. The same problems of lack of testing caused Citroen to go bust after introducing the brilliant Traction Avant, or NSU with the Ro80.
BMC also miscalculated the sales prices of these models so BMC made a loss of 30 pounds per Mini sold and had a lot of warranty issues. The other models also had issues, the 1100 rusted before delivery, the 1800 front suspension at launch (later modified) could be bent in a pothole, the Austin 3-Litre was a disaster, the MGC not as good as it should be. Eventually they ran out of money, hence BL.
BL's woes were much more difficult to explain. They also had no money (except what the government 'invested') to do development and had too many cars from different companies - BMC, Triumph, Rover, Jaguar, Land Rover etc. to put together. They needed to rationalise but that meant job losses and factory closures but the unions were too strong and the unions financed the Labour party government at the time so BL got no support from there except money. There was also a lot of infighting, Lyons (Jaguar) for example vetoing a lot of sports cars such as the mid-engined Rover BS because they might compete with his cars.
Issignonis was sidelined by 1970 and worked on other projects which never saw the light of day including the brilliant 9X (google it) which could have been the original supermini far ahead of any European or Japanese competition in terms of design and engineering - OHC engine (most others were OHV), independant suspension (Japanese still used live axles) front wheel drive and even a reliable CVT. BL were happy just to let him stay out of their way.
At the same time his most well known design (the mini) lasted until 2000. One of those national icons we tend to build up over here. The BMW one has nothing in common with it.
The quote I give from Issigonis about the Marina is quite ironic. In 1945-47 he developed the Morris Minor. When he looked at the Marina being developed in 1970 he was astonished to find that the same front suspension he had designed for the Minor was being used unmodified at the front of the Marina - complete with trunions and greasing nipples. BL had no money to do anything else.