The Wholesale Forums

[Pete]

On an average of 3 mornings out of 4 I'll go for a walk for an hour. No ipod, no headphones or ear buds, just me and Mother Nature. Good time to let my mind run free.

Today, for some reason I got to thinking of the 1960's and my time as a mechanic in a Rootes franchised dealer's shop. In addition to Rootes, we were the only local place working on British motor cars, so we got a lot of MG's (mainly TDs, but a few TCs and TFs) and Jaguars (XK120, XK150 and the new XKE) and a number of Austins. As the owner of a set of Whitworth spanners and an SU carburetor alignment tool, I was a true technician.

Prior to that, I'd server 4 years in the US Air Force, supposedly as a heavy equipment mechanic, trained by the US Army Corps of Engineers, but for about 9 months I was working in a motor pool garage on things like pickup trucks and yellow school buses.

I tell you that to establish my knowledge of what is to follow. I was very familiar with both Rootes and Chevrolet engines, and certainly could identify them on sight.

I had a friend who went to work selling cars for a new import. I stopped by to see him one day and he took time to show me one of the cars in the showroom. He opened the hood and I was staring at an Austin engine! I'd seen enough British engines to recognize them on sight and you could have swapped ingnition components form this Nissan Bluebird (Datsun 210 at the time) with an A50.

So it seems that Nissan started as a "faker."

Not long after that, the guy changed to another dealership. Again I stopped by for lunch, and again got to see under the hood. This vehicle was a Land Rover knockoff called the Toyota Land Cruiser. If ever I saw a Chevrolet engine, it was under that hood. Again, a good fake.

Why all this today?

Simple. When I think of Nissan and Toyota of the 1960's and what they are today I can't help but wonder what we are going to see coming out of all of those "fakes factories" in China today.

How long is it going to take for them to invest in some R&D and begin innovating and producing world class consumer items that find a market for themselves world wide?

How long is it going to be before no one will be able to say "You can't buy name brand goods from China?"
.

[Paddymcc]

I used to work in a Forklift import and sales place. The began importing some brand new 2.5tonne forklifts in any pain scheme or spec we wanted. These machines had exact copies of the same Isuzu engine used by Hyster and every other manufacturer in the business.

To be fair though they were a lot noisier and smokier but they were retailing for 4 figures for a brand new forklift.

[greedyboy]

The problem with China (at the moment) is their design capabilities. They could probably manufacture the most reliable car in the world (OK maybe not cars but anything electrical related).

That's why people like Apple capitalise. The iphone is obviously made in China but they could never come up with such a concept. Well they could but it would look like a shoe box with multi-coloured buttons!

However more and more factories are catching on to this now and the larger ones employ designers from overseas, usually Germany.

Our OEM products work on the same principle. We buy a electronics product designed and built in China, adapt it, put nice modern blue LED's (for example), change the case colour, brand it, new packaging and away you go!

[lighthousedirec]

Regarding the Jap car industry, they bought the machines and technology off the UK, the Uk car industry thought they had sold them a lot of old outdated designs and equipment of no use, boy they were clever

Within a decade they had killed off the UK car industry, reckon China will have the same effect within the next decade for many other industries around the world. With their resources and low costs there is little they will not take on and eventually dominate.

[geosamm]

well look what they did to the british motorcycle industry.... brought it to its knees then kicked it into touch.

[Pete]

As an outsider looking in, I'd say a lot of the problem with British motor stuff is one of the things you all seem to be proud of. The size of the country. Nothing personal (or nationalistic) about this, but it's a limited market, with right hand drive, and you need volume production to keep things going.

And, without steeping to hard on any toes, there is also a lot of the same labor issues that have lead to the decline of the US manufacturers.

The general British cars were built for Brits, not export. And the BMC and Rootes lines were not known for styling excellence, more like plodding along, except for the Healey and the Sunbeam.

But you all know that more than I. And the Japs did have a decade or so, didn't they?
.

[hardwareheroes]

I remember as a kid looking around for a new car with my grandad. Back then, it HAD to be a british car as the jap stuff was regarded as cheap, crappy rustbuckets. Didn't take them long to iron out the rough spots

[geosamm]

Originally Posted by Pete

As an outsider looking in, I'd say a lot of the problem with British motor stuff is one of the things you all seem to be proud of. The size of the country. Nothing personal (or nationalistic) about this, but it's a limited market, with right hand drive, and you need volume production to keep things going.

And, without steeping to hard on any toes, there is also a lot of the same labor issues that have lead to the decline of the US manufacturers.

The general British cars were built for Brits, not export. And the BMC and Rootes lines were not known for styling excellence, more like plodding along, except for the Healey and the Sunbeam.

But you all know that more than I. And the Japs did have a decade or so, didn't they?
.

the biggest problem has always been the price of petrol... [gas].... they had to produce cars that were smaller and went further per gallon... and could get around corners.... now which self respecting cousin from across the water would choose an Austin A40 against a big 6 cylinder... saying that I always fancied a Lincoln Continental.... or one of those huge shooting breaks [estates].... isn't that what they were called?.... although I wish I had kept my old E Type... worth a damn site more now than when I sold it

in retrospect... hindsight is a marvelous thing

[lighthousedirec]

The general British cars were built for Brits, not export. And the BMC and Rootes lines were not known for styling excellence, more like plodding along, except for the Healey and the Sunbeam.

I disagree.

The British cars were simply built as they always had been and the customers were expected to keep on buying poor quality outdated designs. The typical British management techniques from the 60+70's meant they actually thought their customers would simply keep buying, and only began to think of making what people really wanted when it was too late.

The same management allowed the night shift car workers to take sleeping bags into work with them for years before it was shown to be unproductive Thankfully things have changed a fair bit these days.

[hardwareheroes]

Originally Posted by lighthousedirec

The same management allowed the night shift car workers to take sleeping bags into work with them for years before it was shown to be unproductive Thankfully things have changed a fair bit these days.

LOL - that is HILARIOUS if true