British Leyland was just plain too cheap to spend money on the Triumph
line. As far as Spitfires are concerned, each year, they just hung more
smog equipment and add-ons to the outdated 1500 engine instead of spending
development money to design a better motor. They also took the 1500 engine
and slapped it into the last MG Midget, ZS150CD carb and all. Talk about
your cheap fix. Everything BL did (or didn't do) doomed the Triumphs.
Design and retooling costs are built into the automobile business. It's not
like BL didn't know what it was getting into. They just pocketed that
Design and retooling money and said "Screw Triumph, we won't spend one
farthing on them or their workers". The Spitfires were so outdated by the
time they stopped making them, that sales were in the basement. I think
they sold only about 3,500 Spitfires in the US in 1980. The 1978 model was
exactly the same as the 1977. No changes at all! But the greed heads at BL
jacked the price up beyond $5,000 anyway. Triumph died from neglect.
|