Came across a very interesting article in a Brit auto mag (Top Gear) which went through the past 50 years in the auto manufacturing game in the UK. In 1952, the British auto industry was second only to the Americans, which is a fantastic fact, when you consider the size of the British market, compared to the American population. In fact, when Austin and Morris came together in 1953, to create BMC, this was the world’s largest car company outside the US.

In 1955 Lotus began production and in 1959 the (East-West) Mini was born, brainchild of Sir Alec Issigonis. (BMC in Australia, by the way, had a wonderful advert for the Mini with three Asian girls looking at a Mini with the bonnet open, with the caption “It DOES go sideways!”)

By 1960 Jaguar had bought Daimler and one year later Leyland, a truck manufacturer, took over Standard-Triumph. The rot was beginning to set in as by 1966 BMC bought Jaguar and one year later Leyland says roll over Rover! One more year and Leyland and BMC merge to produce BLMC (British Leyland Motor Corporation) carrying just about every motor car brand name in the UK, with Austin, Morris, Riley, Wolseley, MG, Healey, Jaguar, Daimler and Standard-Triumph.

Queen Elizabeth’s Bentley

Now into the 1970’s and Rolls-Royce celebrate it by going bankrupt. The government nationalises the company. By 1975 BLMC have all but done the same and the conglomerate goes into state ownership, but now given the snappy acronym of just BL.

Into the 80’s and the British government started selling off parts of BL, with Jaguar the first to go in 1984 and three years later the rest goes to British Aerospace. Vickers buys Rolls-Royce and then in 1985 General Motors takes over Lotus. In 1989 FoMoCo steps in and buys Jaguar, so the American giants are well entrenched.

Now into the 90’s and GeeEmm sells Lotus to Bugatti, who three years later sells it to Proton in Malaysia. BMW crosses the English Channel and buys Rover from British Aerospace in 1994 and then in 1999 Vickers masterminds a plot which sells Roller to BMW and Bentley to VW. By this stage in the British auto industry, an optimist was someone who took his lunch to work!

It was widely reported at the end of September that the balance sheet at Jaguar was not looking healthy. To the tune of about USD 500 million! With Bill Ford saying that each division has to stand on their own feet financially, this must be a trifle worrisome at Jaguar.

The shortfall was the news given out at the Paris Motor Show by Ford COO Nick Scheele. “Jaguar is going to have a difficult year,” he told reporters during a joint session with Ford Chairman Bill Ford. Automotive News in America quoted reports by Reuters and the Detroit News, where Scheele estimated Jaguar’s loss for the year to be about $500 million, which will be charged against fourth-quarter earnings.

The reasons for the loss (as well as Eddie’s gigantic salary - he is the highest paid employee of FoMoCo) include buyer incentives to spur demand for the new mid-sized X-Type (read selling at a loss!) and late engineering changes to fix quality glitches, and the delay of the redesigned XJ sedan launch because of manufacturing problems.

The Japan GP is on at Suzuka, and it will be at a civilised hour this time, not like the one in the morning routine we had with the US GP. Really there is nothing left to win, as the Ferrari twins have already wrapped up first and second, the manufacturers championship, the most number of wins in a season, the greatest number of points and the most howls of outrage.

Automotive News in the US attended the latest Paris Show and reports that two years after creating a big splash in Paris with the S60-based Performance Concept Car, Volvo came back to the Paris Motor Show this year with sedan and wagon production versions based on the same suspension technology.

Both R-cars feature Volvo’s Four-C Technology - Continuously Controlled Chassis Concept. This is “space age” stuff as a computer constantly analyses data on the car’s movement and automatically adjusts the damping of the shock absorbers, the power steering and the electronically controlled Haldex all-wheel-drive system. Drivers can adjust the chassis to three settings: comfort, sport and advanced sport.

Well, for starters, the Ferrari camp can do nothing right if you listen to the pundits. Schumi the elder and Barichello try to stage a dead heat, but time it wrong by 0.011 and Rooby Baby wins. Outrage! Why? It’s not as if it hasn’t been done before. The photo is 25 years ago in Oz and people still talk about that finish. Dead heats certainly stick in people’s memories, and this time next year they will still be talking and wondering if Michael Schumacher was annoyed. Surely the public aren’t that gormless that they think the Ferrari team would jeopardise their chances and have the team drivers race to the flag and take each other out (as BMW Williams managed to do)? Staging a dead heat enlivened the race for me, not move me to write nasty letters to Maranello!

Dead heat

What else? Well it was a bit of a high speed procession, though there was some reasonable racing in the mid field, with Mark Webber in the Minardi having a real good go and dicing with the Toyotas and in front of one of the Jaguars. If he doesn’t get a good drive next year it will be a crying shame.