Austin History |
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The Automotive history of Austin.
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British Leyland (BL) was formed in 1975 after the British Leyland Motor Corporation collapsed and was rescued by the government and nationalised.
Industrial problems with the Longbridge union leader and Derek Robinson the shop steward continued till the end of the 70''s. Derek Robinson had so much power and control over British Leyland that on his command the business could be called to complete halt. The Labour administration at BL had decided to put an end to this situation by hiring Sir Michael Edwardes who was corporate solutions expert originally born in South Africa.
First on the list of things to do was to redistribute the power within the company this could only be done by delving deep into Derek Robinson''s contacts, this would prove to be a successful move and when evidence that showed Communist groups had been involved with Robinson to purposely hurt the UK economy and British Leyland this would result in his dismissal in 1979.
Next on the list was to sort out the financial situation which involved large amounts of the business being sold off and multiple factories being shut down. MG in Abingdon and Triumph in Canley and Speke were the worst hit by the closures.
Next Edwardes got into talks with car manufacturer Honda and arranged for a range of cars to be development as a collaborative agreement this would see the business being revived throughout the 80''s and 90''s.
Now all Edwardes needed to do was trim down the number of British Leyland dealerships across the UK and this was done on a large scale.
In 1986 British Leyland was renamed to the Rover Group this led to the bus and truck side of the business being sold off.
By 1988 British Aerospace took over the business.
In 1995 the business was sold again to BMW but they made losses of an estimated £800M by 2000 and the Austin Rover Group was sold for just £10 to the Phoenix Consortium and renamed to MG Rover, at this point MG Rover returned to being privately owned. BMW however retained the MINI marque.
On the 8th of April 2005 MG Rover ceased trading. |
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