Peter,
I would like to come to the defence of Joe Lucas. I'm a misplaced Limey who
came to the US 40 years ago at the invitation of an American Company. I grew
up in London before the war in an extremely strict Victorian household. The
main meal on Sundays was 'dinner' at about 2 pm. After dinner, the ladies
would retire to the living room with their knitting or embroidery while the
boys would go to the garage and 'tinker' with their cars.
We cleaned plugs and points and checked starter and dynamo commutators and
brushes; then we adjusted the brakes.
I currently own and drive four different British cars and have NEVER had a
problem with any British car electrics. I had never even heard of the
problems you say Mr. Lucas has caused until I came to America. Perhaps you
chaps should learn to tinker.
Cheers, "Bob".
> From: Peter van der Linden <pvdl@afu.com>
> Reply-To: Peter van der Linden <pvdl@afu.com>
> Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003 17:43:51 -0700
> To: british-cars@autox.team.net
> Subject: Lucas and "the reputation"
>
> I am writing a story for my local car club magazine, and I would really
> like to get some feedback/ideas on my topic from fellow sufferers. The
> subject of the article is "Lucas Electrics".
>
> As everyone knows, Lucas has had a reputation among owners of Brit cars
> for 30 or more years (i.e. at least all the time I have been a British
> car owner). Lucas is said to be renowned for their lack of quality,
> which leads to stranded drivers, and many, many jokes (e.g. Lucas is the
> prince of darkness, the British drink warm beer because Lucas provides
> the refrigeration, Lucas didn't invent the short circuit, but they
> patented it, etc).
>
> I want to take a close look at Lucas quality.
> The questions that I could use ideas/suggestions on are:
> 1. is the Lucas reputation justified or not?
> 2. if it is justified, why does a second rate company continue being
> second rate for year after year? Is it really as simple as "because
> they can"?
> 3. Why wasn't Lucas driven out of the auto-electrics business years ago?
> Is it as simple as "there will always be a market for goods built down
> to a cost"? Why are their products so poor?
>
> Lucas war stories are most welcome, too.
>
> Peter
>
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