At 7:04 PM -0700 5/6/97, Aron Travis wrote:
>Charles Edwards wrote:
>> Did the Marshall Plan inflict commercial defeat on the British auto
>>industry?
>
>No, because, in my opinion, British cars didn't go bad untill the
>seventies. I think in the seventies it was a combination of stagnation
>of development on the British side, and advances on the American,
>European, and Japanese side. Of course, a few spankings should go to BL
>for their badge engineering, favoritism, tight purse strings on
>development, etc. All opinions are from my American point of view.
>
>Some quick examples;
>starting with motorcycles first;
rest deleted ...
I remember an ad I saw on British Television about 1970. It started with a
voice saying "How one starts a British motorcycle" and showed a man walking
up to the bike, pulling out the kick starter and, after 8 or 10 tries and
much manual fiddling, finally getting the thing to start. The next scene
had a voice saying "How one starts a Japanese motorcycle" and showed
someone walking up to the bike, getting on, hitting the starter button and
riding off. The conclusion regarding why the British motorcycle industry
was in steep decline was obvious.
Remember, this was an ad produced in the U.K. and shown on BBC. There are
obvious parallels to the entire British automotive industry.
Just my tuppence worth.
Bill Singleton
'52 TD (hers, and -- hopefully -- soon to go under the knife)
'77 MGB (ours, we needed an MG while waiting for the TD)
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