COMPANY OWNERSHIP
What goes around comes around, as an American once said, wisely if obliquely. The Indians were building temples and the Chinese were inventing gunpowder while the Brits were painting themselves blue and eating mud. Then the Brits got their turn. They – or at any rate the Scots – invented the modern world, kicked the poo out of everybody else and ruled the roost for a while. Now the Indians and Chinese are on the way up again, and the Brits are in post-imperial decline.
This is a natural macro- organic process, much like autumn, and there’s nothing you can do to change it. That's why assorted foreigners whose economies are currently on the rise have been trampling around the undefended treasure store of automotive Blighty and looting it. Rolls-Royce and Bentley, Triumph, Morris, Austin, Riley and Wolseley went to the Germans (and with the exception of Rolls and Bentley now sit gathering dust in a Bavarian trophy cabinet), MG went to the Chinese, Jaguar and Land Rover went to the Indians.
And we are not alone. Think Skoda, Volvo and SEAT, for example... And while Fiat bucked the trend by taking over America's Chrysler, the Italian empire had its rise and then its Decline and Fall 2000 years ago so when the Indians decided they wanted Pininfarina, the current Romans couldn’t do much about it. That last one did actually made sense, though. Pininfarina were losing money and needed a cash injection, perhaps not surprising given that Italy was trapped in the Eurozone fiscal mire, and Mahindra’s unusually hideous SSangyong brand visibly needed some design input from Italians. The Ssangyong company was originally South Korean, but the styling looked more North Korean. Trabant and BMW Rolls-und-Royce may also have been design influences.
Some Ssangyongs don’t look too bad however, because they look like a Mercedes. Likewise the Mahindra jeep looks fine because it is a replica of the WWII Willys Jeep. The Indian motorcycle industry has also produced some goodlooking bikes – their Enfield Bullet is the old 1950s British Royal Enfield. The ancient manufacturing machinery was flogged off to the subcontinent after the end of British rule, and leaky, smelly, underpowered 1930s British motorbikes thumped on decades past their sell-by date with resolute period charm. They still do – current Enfields are still visibly classic British bikes albeit with an ever increasing number of modern bits added, which by the way is a fine idea.
Not that I am suggesting these new automotive tigers from places like China and India are bereft of their own homegrown talent. I’ve seen a recent Buick with a Chinese design makeover that didn’t look in any way as though it was designed by the People’s Revolutionary Army, whereas some recent American-designed Buicks definitely did look as though they were designed by a Xinjiang squaddie, or in fact by anybody but an actual car designer.
As for Britain and its indigenous- owned motor industry, all that’s left are a few kit car manufacturers hanging on by their fingernails. Are the Indians, the Germans and the Chinese coming to take over and loot that next as the only remaining active British-owned car makers? No, because the British government clerks have already destroyed most of the kit car industry with their shambolic and irrelevant IVA test.
However, there may still be a few foreign hopefuls picking through the bottom of the automotive bargain basement bin looking for something to exploit. It is interesting to speculate on the resulting conversation if a multinational car corporation did take over a British kit car business. I see it as developing something like this.
'Guten morning. Ve have bought your company.'
'Who the hell are you? Get lost.'
'You do not understand. Ve own you. You are our employee.'
'Hang on mate, nobody owns me except my wife, the bank, the British Government and until the end of this year the European Government. I’m a free man. Well, apart from being a subject of the Crown. And her indoors. And the governments. And so on.'
'From now on you vill make your chassis out of zis tinfoil here and follow zese corporate design themes.'
'B******* will I. You can’t make a proper chassis out of folded tinfoil, and your corporate design themes are as unimaginative as Clarkson’s car collection. I want to make an ugly little car my own bloody way, and I want to make it out of old bridge girders.'
'You vill do as you are told.'
'Right, that’s it, I’m a British car worker and I’m going to bring back some of the proper traditions that made the British Motor Corporation what it is today. I’m calling Elf ’n’ Safety about the condition of my shed, and I’m on strike until I get a twohour day, free tea and bikkies, sabotage rights and a nice suit like yours.'