Interesting website concerning the history of the Rover, Austin, MG, and Morris groups that became BL plc.
I think books on BL should be mandatory reading for the Big 2.5 if they wish to survive in the future.
http://www.aronline.co.uk/index.htm?wsindexf.htm
Particularly "Wheels Of Misfortune". Good book on a bad story.
I found that some time ago as I researched the parallels. However, the situation is not a direct copy of what the domestics are experiencing. The labor troubles they had in the UK make our UAW seem like a minor annoyance. But, there is a lot to be learned from a comparison. Big egos of the people in charge believing they can do no wrong still applies.
I noticed that there were pictures of 4 guys who cleaned up during the BAe days. They got rich while the company was crumbling.
Sound familiar?
Here's an interesting exceprt I pulled from the section entitled "The Ryder Years: Ship Sinking Fast"
In terms of finances, it would take an enormous amount of investment to return the company to health, making it a, “viable and fully competitive” company by 1981. The Ryder report proposed that capital expenditure of no less than £1,264 million would be required from the government, along with £260 million worth of working capital. These numbers must have made eye-watering reading for Tony Benn, but this paled into insignificance beside alternative - the notion that the government had allowed the UK’s leading car company to dissolve. No one wanted to imagine the consequences if the Ryder plan failed because there would be an estimated million people put out of work if British Leyland were closed.
cough
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