Sometimes, you come across something that disrupts preconceptions. If you were to say something about the British motor industry in the 1950s, terms like complacency, insularity and under developed may come up. You could add unreliable, internationally uncompetitive and technically conservative (until the Mini) as well, for the most part.
So, a promotional video informational film created by BMC in 1954 to promote the new A series and B series engines in the Austin A35 and A50, and Morris Minor and Oxford saloons makes for interesting viewing. And not just for the empty autobahns.
20,000 miles without anything other scheduled maintenance. Doesn’t sound a lot now, but in 1954 Britain didn’t have autobahns or motorways, and the German network (above) was looked at in awe. Two (or more) lanes each way! You can always overtake trucks and buses! No speed limits! Not much traffic! Let’s overtake Beetles!
But what were these BMC cars that could do 25,000 miles without breaking down?
Most familiar is perhaps the Morris Minor. Introduced in 1948, as perhaps the most significant compact car (as opposed to small) car Britain ever built, production for the first five years used the pre-war Morris (rather than BMC) side valve engine, in 918cc form, used on the 1932 Morris Minor and later Morris Eight. After the BMC merger in 1952, the Austin designed, Longbridge built A series OHV 803cc engine was slotted. Power was up from 27bhp to 30 bhp, torque from 39lbft to 40lbft and all done at 62 mph. Ideal for autobahns. In 1956, it went to 948cc, for the Minor 1000.
Alongside the Minor, BMC also offered the Austin A35, also seen in the film, with the same A series engine. This was more compact, being some 10 inches shorter than the Morris and consequently smaller inside. This was seen as Austin’s response, in 1951 as the 803cc A30, to the Minor, and was the first monocoque Austin. In the context of the times, not unappealing if you were OK on the size, but not really a Minor competitor in many ways, and outsold by it significantly.
Going large, we have the Morris Oxford Series II, so named because it replaced the MO series, and its close relative the Austin A50 Cambridge. The naming may have been a bit corny but it did make a bit of sense – Oxford (for a car built in Oxford) was the long established Morris name for the mid-market family car, and Austin had a strong if recent habit of naming cars after English towns and counties (Devon, Hereford, Westminster etc). And it subtly linked the Cambridge to the Oxford, for they shared many their mechanical elements, including engine, transmission and rear axle. Alec Issigonis’s influence can be seen on the use of torsion bar front suspension on the Morris, whereas the Austin had coils and wishbones. And is there a bit of Mini in the styling?
Power for both came from a 1489cc B series OHV engine, with 50bhp and around 75mph. Even better suited for overtaking Beetles. From 1954 to 56, you could also choose a 1200cc Morris Cowley or Austin A40 Cambridge. Same recipes, just not as autobahn capable.
What should be noted when watching this film are two things. It was less than ten years after the horrors of WW2, and Germany was still rebuilding her reputation in the UK, to say the least (it is quite possible the last time these guys went to Germany it was dark and they didn’t stop), and that the autobahn was not only a novelty but something Britain just did not have. Also, the prospect of travelling to Germany, or indeed continental Europe, in your own car, was completely off the radar for practically every British family. So, whilst 25,000 miles without failure may not sound a lot now, in 1954, 25,000 miles on a German autobahn at speed, overtaking Beetles, without failures would have been seen as a significant adventure.
Though as one of the comments on the YouTube film suggests, the tea in the Rastatte might not have been exactly the same as that in Birmingham.
So which engine did Nissan copy that became the J engine in my 1966 PL411 Datsun?
My understanding is it was the 1.5 litre B series (Cambridge/Oxford, not Minor) engine. http://www.earlydatsun.com/austina40a50.html
Look for the Corvette parked on the right, just after 8 minutes in. Quite a rarity there I imagine, even if it belonged to an American serviceman. A great video, thanks for sharing, and remind me to be careful not to rear end any Morris Minor I encounter in a BMC fleet on the Autobahn. Its boot could be full of petrol tins!
Rare for sure. If the film was made in mid-1954, there were only about 2000 Corvettes in the world, and many of them were owned by GM execs and race drivers who got priority. Makes me wonder if the Vette was being tested just like the BMC cars.
Interesting film. The German traffic at the end is interesting with a few micro cars as well as a Corvette at 8:11.
Having spied this film before, my conceptions remain as conceived on previous occasions.
Carefully prepared cars driven with comprehensive instruments, never getting cold, not being over-revved or under-oiled, driven by engineers, these reliability runs were always pretty much a con job, or to be nicer, a carefully-managed form of reality as produced, directed and distributed by the reality-adjustment department appended to any given motor corporation.
Put another way, the Beetle overtake is given due prominence, which is entirely understandable, but it does not tell the viewer that the Beetle doing 62 mph will still be doing so at four times the 25K of the Englanders, nor that gearing and aero mean it will use far less (rationed) petrol in doing so. (An A35 at 65mph is nearly at its end, with consumption probably at 20 mpg at best). Still, they had beaten Jerry and all that, and also weren’t to know the little Hitlerwagen was so robust nor that it would end up outselling everything else.
I have to say, the A50 Cambridge is not a bad-looking thing, though I’m sure a suspension and steering by Austin would be well-inferior to an Issigonis Morrie MO, but I have long had a black prejudice against the latter’s looks: I think it is the very essence of dour awkward podgy-stodgy narrow-tracked uptight unlikability, and a great shame that Hindustan got THOSE dies to use forever after for the Ambassador. Sorry, Sir Rog, but to me, there’s a bit of the Mini in it only if the fat bastard ate one earlier!
I have a soft spot for brit cars. And I still have no explanation why british car industry went down the drain. They say it was the trade unions. Simple lie. Rubbish. In my hunch british society just didn’t care for engineers, let alone blue collar workers. Bankers, lords, actors and the ilk were role model. Now they have a prime minister, who is a Trump imitator acting as a Reagan imitator.
If you’d lived through the 1970’s in the UK you might have a very different view of the trade unions . As for “bankers, and Lords” as our role models – I fear you’ve been reading too many Victorian novels
I went to school in Bournemouth/Dorset in the early 80s.
And YES – Maggie Thatcher was indeed a cruel backlash from victorian times. Later I was a student in Germany. German Professors as consultants for the trade unions were the norm. Absolutely unthinkable in victorian plumberland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBokyZ0wOmc
British Leyland Speke Plant Closure
Organized labor might have been the single biggest reason for the death of the British motor industry. I don’t recall the UK failing to produce excellent mechanical engineers for the motor-racing industry throughout the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. The consumer products were often lacking, but that’s inevitable when you’re trying to compensate for inefficient labor. Doesn’t saying one has a soft spot for something imply that the subject is something that can’t stand on its own merits?
The explanation for the decline of the British industry? Many factors, of course, and we could start a thread or a post that would be very long and depressing.
Some key factors, and yes, industrial unrest is part of them, and product quality. As is lack of investment in product and facilities, in the face of the need to feed profits back as short term dividends rather than business growth, an effectively protected home market but little export beyond the Empire markets (largely lost to the Japanese as protections were eased) and sports cars to North America, inadequate preparation for the opening of the European markets in the 1960s and 1970s, or for the availability of Japanese products in the 1970s, mishandled and incomplete business consolidation, not foreseeing the rise of premium and semi-premium product or understanding the private (as opposed to fleet) buyers, and some truly awful cars. Just as much inappropriate but not awful cars. Politics, but don’t get me going on that. Respect for engineers – yes, that’s arguably there as well.
But each reason is not enough on its own – you have to look at it holistically.
Great video! Check out the 53-55 Corvette at 8:09 and the ’52 Mercury at 8:30! Not to mention several BMW/Isetta bubble cars.
A note for pedants – the map is a pre-war one, befre the westward expansion of Poland and the disappearance of east Prussia (and the west / east German split)