Jon,
The Husky was killed in late 1966 and the Audax Minxes in early-mid 1967.
Thus the parts supply for the Alpine dried up. More importantly, the Audax
assembly line was changed over to the Arrow. The only real option was to
again farm out the Alpine production to someone.
Although MG continued to build the "B" and Midget for another 12 years, it is
unlikely that the sales of the Alpine would warrant continuing a special
assembly line and parts procurement-even with changes to meet US law. The end
of the Audax Minx was really the end of the Alpine.
This is a bitter pill for the Alpine/Tiger fans to swallow, but the Alpine was
always dependent on the Minx and was, from a business point of view, a
secondary product. Rootes and then Chrysler UK's main attention was always on
the Audax, Super Minx, Arrow and Avenger cars. These were the cars that made
the money and paid the bills.
I think in the US we have a somewhat inverted picture of Rootes. Even though
there were more Hillmans sold in the USA in 1958-59 then there were Alpines
sold in the US from 1959-67, Alpines are far more collected. In fact, there
were almost more Plymouth Crickets sold then Alpines! But, Hillmans and
Crickets were not collected and saved, so there are many more Alpines around
then Hillmans. This causes people to think that Alpines were the most
important cars to Rootes and Chrysler UK. They were not, Alpines sold at the
rate of about 10,000 per year while Hillmans sold at the rate of at least
100,000 per year.
The same is true with all British sports cars-the number one selling British
import was usually the English Ford, when was the last time you saw one at a
British car meet??
Jan
"jon" <humber_snipe@hotmail.com> wrote:
Production of the Tiger stopped first, as Chrysler pulled the plug on
selling a car with a Ford engine. Especially when Chrysler was warrantying
it for 7 years/70,000 miles, and Ford only gave 24,000 miles! If I remember
correctly, all Mark II Tigers are 1967s, and no 1968s.
The halt of Alpine production was mainly due to US legislation. In
January of 1968, the National Highway Traffic Safety Act went into effect.
This caused many minor changes in all cars sold here, but one major feature
of the Alpine was outlawed - fender mounted gas tanks. ( or petrol tanks in
the wings) Since changing that would have cost many dollars for a 10 year
old design, the Alpine was quietly killed, and all 1968 Alpines were built
before the end of 1967. The NHTSA chnages were incorporated into the next
generation designs..... not that it helped any.
Jon Arzt
Omaha, NE USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Barbara Blue" <the_blues@worldnet.att.net>
To: <alpines@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 8:24 PM
Subject: Production Halt
> Speaking of Alpines and "doner" production cars, why did Rootes stop
> production of the Alpine? Was it because it was always tied to another
> vehicles production? Years ago I heard it was because of pending safety
and
> emissions regulations coming on line in the U.S., but surely Chrysler
could
> have played that hand quite easily. It seems the Alpine was one of the
few
> things that had any signs of showing future potentional at Rootes. Sure,
it
> needed a dealer network, and QC improvement, but these are basics, needed
by
> any car they would ever hope to produce.
> Bill
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