The Alleged Car: Difference between revisions

* Pretty much everything to come out of a British Leyland factory in the 1970s had a tendency to be an Alleged Car. British Leyland was an amalgamation of several other car makers who were forced to merge and nationalise, in an effort to better compete with the likes of Ford and Vauxhall. The employees were entrenched along the lines of the companies they used to belong to ([[Divided We Fall|the Austin employees would have nothing to do with the Triumph employees who in turn would have nothing to do with the Rover employees, who wouldn't want to be seen dead with the Jaguar employees, and so on]]). The unions of the various car factory workers also grew increasingly belligerent and Bolshevik under the auspices of Derek Robinson (AKA Red Robbo) and they literally would spend more time on strike than they did building cars.<br /><br />On the other side of the coin, the upper management was [[UpperclassUpper Class Twit|hopelessly out of touch and behind the times]], especially when they got their way with the designers, who were typically much more progressive (Alec Issigonis' conflict with William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, over the design for the Morris Minor was a case in point). In addition, British Motor Holdings (a merger of Austin and Morris) was dominated by its engineers at the expense of all else - the Quartic square steering wheel is but one example.<br /><br />It doesn't take much imagination to realise what effect these would all have on quality control.