HOPE & GLORY
A NATION IN SUPPORT
BMC looked like a good idea from the outside. Britain had taken a pounding during the war years but emerged on the winning side and there was still a strong patriotism among the general public. British cars were earning export revenue to re-build the economy, demonstrating British engineering and design expertise across the globe and helping to re-build British international prestige. The nation could be proud of them and it could only be a good thing if the BMC merger took matters even further.
Among the cars that were earning most of that export revenue, BMC could boast a wells-tratified range of sports cars – the uniquely British brand of simple but exciting roadster. The traditional looks of the MG T series range had their own special appeal and the cars were fast enough and handled well enough to deliver what their looks promised. Priced above them, the Austin-healey that arrived in 1952 gave the company a muscular and modern-looking big-engined model. The sports car range was modernised three years later with the sleek and pretty MGA giving BMC a formidable and unmatched pair of products.
Adding a less expensive model in 1958 as the lovable ‘Frogeye’ or Austin-healey Sprite in no way disrupted the existing range though there was clearly some hesitation about brand policy and the re-designed car became better known as an MG Midget from 1961. The MGA gave way to the solid-gold MGB in 1962, which became another huge and deserved success.
BMC’S family saloons were a lot less exciting. Although the Morris Minor was enduringly lovable and widely admired in its day, it is hard to argue that most of its 1950s contemporaries offered more than what was expected of them. Austin A30s, Somersets and Westminsters, Morris Oxfords, Cowleys and Isis models were good, solid transport without particular excitement. There were better-equipped and more expensive Wolseley models, of course, but there was greater glamour to be found among the sporting saloons.
In the beginning, these came mostly from Riley whose traditionally styled and highly respected RM range came to an end in 1955. Riley then caught a cold with the Pathfinder, which earned itself the nickname of ‘Ditchfinder’ and did not last. Its replacement, the 1957 Riley 2.6, was too obviously related to the rather more stately Wolseley 6/90 and did not last long either. Also related to a Wolseley, in this case the smaller 4/44, the Z-series MG Magnettes cut a dash and are fondly remembered.
If all of these different models are the source of some confusion today the position was not very different in the mid-1950s. Leonard Lord already knew that the range had to be rationalised when he took a step back and handed over control of BMC – notionally at least – to his deputy George Harriman in 1956. Lord continued to call the shots, instructing Alec Issigonis, the brilliant engineer behind the Morris Minor, to design an ultra-small car after the 1956-1957 Suez crisis. That became the Mini. It was also Lord who got the Italian Pinin Farina company (Pininfarina became one word from 1960) to design a rationalised saloon range.
Using Pinin Farina was a stroke of genius. Italian styling led the world at the time and using a single external consultant for the whole range ensured a family resemblance among its models. It also avoided the squabbling that followed a request for ideas from the designers of every BMC marque.
There was inevitably a compromise, though. British car buyers tended to be very loyal to one make or another so although the number of major BMC models could be rationalised, each new one had to be made available with multiple marque names in order to retain that loyalty. Later derided as ‘badge engineering’, at the time this was seen as a necessary strategy to retain long-term customers.
THREE STEPS TO HEAVEN
Pinin Farina was tasked with designing new cars to meet three different market sectors. For the small saloon sector, it produced the striking and practical two-box Austin A40 (usually called the A40 Farina to distinguish it from earlier A40s). For the medium saloon sector, it delivered an elegantly proportioned three-box design that incorporated the tail fins that were a fashion imported from the USA. And for the six-cylinder saloon sector it came up with a most attractive enlargement of this same style. The engines were already in place – the A-series and B-series derived from Austin designs, and the C-series designed by Morris.
The older BMC designs did not all disappear as soon as these new designs entered production, but the first ‘Farina’ arrived in 1958 and the range was completed by the large saloons in 1959. For the 1960s, then, the BMC saloons were sharp-looking, up-to-the-minute designs with a model to suit everybody. There was only ever an A40 in the small-car sector (partly because the Mini arrived in 1959) but the medium saloons could have Austin, MG, Morris, Riley and Wolseley badges and the large saloons were Austins, Wolseleys or – a new luxury marque with an old name – Vanden Plas.
The Mini, of course, came from nowhere to dominate all of this. While the Farina models were being drawn up, Lord instructed Issigonis to design the next generation of cars for introduction in the 1960s. The Suez Crisis
and consequent increase in the cost of petrol persuaded him to put an absolute priority on the small car and Issigonis provided a brilliant design that re-created the genre from first principles. It was a strong seller and fashion icon and its engineering has had a decisive influence on small-car design ever since.
The razzamatazz of new models in the early 1960s helped to obscure some unpalatable facts. Slim profit margins on some models were matched by losses on others and Ford’s famous analysis of the Mini concluded that it could not be making a profit for its makers. Sadly, it would be years before real analysis made clear that BMC’S big weakness lay in its cost control systems – its top engineers were not supported by top financial men. Meanwhile, the company’s profitability and market share were falling.
While older models were subtly tweaked to keep them fashionable Issigonis’ other two designs came to fruition. First was the 1100 range in 1962 followed by the 1800 saloon in 1964. Both were brilliant pieces of engineering, helping to earn enormous respect for the corporation in the first half of the 1960s.
Despite management failings elsewhere, BMC did recognise that it was excessively dependent on Pressed Steel for its body supplies. So the corporation bought Pressed Steel in 1965.
This triggered panic among other makers who also depended on the company for their body supplies. Jaguar sought shelter with BMC in 1966 and the enlarged group was re-named British Motor Holdings (BMH). Rover threw in with the Leyland Group that owned Standardtriumph. Within two years, the government encouraged a merger between BMH and Leyland and the resulting British Leyland Motor Corporation opened a new chapter in the British motor industry’s history.
The British Motor Corporation was formed seven decades ago. It produced some world-beaters in just 14 years of existence and made an indelible impression on British motoring history