surfblue63 wrote:How would BMC have faired if they had discontinued the A40 and Minor when the 1100/1300 range was introduced and the A60 series when the Landcrabs appeared? They may not have sold as many cars but surely the savings from building more of the modern designs, off-setting the developement costs, would have paid off.
This was the A60 v 1800 Landcrab replacement problem for BMC as described well in this extract from AROnline:
When the Issigonis ADO17 (1800 /Landcrab) was launched in October 1964, what emerged from Longbridge was, therefore, a car that was faster, heavier, much wider and more expensive than the car it was designed to replace. With that in mind, BMC quite sensibly kept the Farinas in production, although that was not an expedient move as there was little profit in these cars and, being a product of a bygone era, they did not fit-in readily with the rest of the range. It also meant that had the Farina not remained in production, there would have been a huge, gaping gap in the range between the small and perfectly formed ADO16 and the oversized ADO17. Of course the ADO17 was actually a quite compact car in terms of its length; its space efficiency remains to this day absolutely astounding in relation to its length, but the fact remained that the car was larger than the buyer of a mid-sized car was looking for at the time. What particularly set the ADO17 apart from all its rivals was the massive width of the car.
Unabashed, George Harriman accepted the view given to him by the dealers that the car could produced at a rate of 4000 a week and they would be able to sell all of these cars without difficulty. The truth was somewhat different; the ADO17 was priced at some fourteen percent above the Austin Cambridge and was pitched at a point in the range where it more resembled a gap-filling car in the range between the Farina and Austin Westminster, even though it was just as roomy as the larger and more expensive car. As it was, demand for the car was slow to build and it gave the management time to realise that it was never going to meet the anticipated sales targets – and would never have done so, even if it had been the direct replacement for the Farina that it was envisaged to be.
Like the ADO16 before it, the ADO17 was not offered through the entire dealer network; in a quid pro quo arrangement, the Austin dealers got the first crack of the whip with the ADO17 in September 1964 and it was not until 1966, that the badge engineered Morris versions made their appearance on the market. Of course, looking at that situation retrospectively, it was a quite ridiculous situation to offer your new and drastically important mid-sized car through half of the company’s available dealers, but that is exactly what BMC did twice during the decade. Madness!
By the time the Morris and Wolseley versions had made their appearances, in March 1966 and March 1967 respectively, it was quite clear that the ADO17 was never even going to get close to its sales targets and in fact it never managed more than the modest total of 40,000 sales per year – compare that to the projection of some 200,000 or so sales per year and it demonstrates just how much of a failure on the market the ADO17 really was. The problem of course does not always lie with a car’s styling alone – some ugly cars do sell well, but it is generally because they are regarded to be good cars and see despite their looks. In the case of the ADO17, the car’s odd styling and somewhat inappropriate proportions were not the only problems.
OK, so it was a fabulously space-efficient car, but the list of ergonomic shortcomings far outweighed its commodiousness. Firstly, in an attempt to give the car the maximum possible interior space, Issigonis had saddled the ADO17 with the same rather compromised driving position that was found in the Mini and ADO16.
This may be considered an amiable eccentricity in an inexpensive car like the Mini, but it was a major flaw in a car with more upmarket pretensions. Also the steering was unacceptably heavy and low-geared, but as Issigonis was breaking new boundaries in launching such a large front wheel driven car, it was accepted that the steering would have to be given a lower ratio rack in order to keep effort down. Unfortunately, it was not taken into account during development of the ADO17 that there would be the requirement for power steering because none of its domestic rivals had it – at the time.
The only comparable car at the time with front wheel drive was the Citroen DS and that came with Power assisted steering anyway.
The other problem was that the ADO17 suffered from reliability issues that proved troublesome for the company to fix – most notably, its propensity to burn oil at alarming rate; a problem that took a considerable amount of time to cure, being attributable to the car being over-filled with oil due to its incorrectly calibrated dip stick. Such stories made great press and were widely circulated, which had the predictable effects on sales. Customer confidence in the ADO17 – and BMC – was dented by such stories and although these maladies were eventually fixed, it proved too late; the damage had been done. The Times reported in 1969 that the 1800 had had a bad launch in 1964, and 70,000 first-batch samples sent BMC dealers frantic with customer complaints.
So low was demand for the 1800, it took until 1966 to build the first 70,000 examples – a crushing disappointment for BMC. The peak production year was 1965/66 when 56,876 left the factories.
http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/cars/bm ... t-history/Even though Moggy's certainly looked outmoded they were very popular (and have survived well) and A40's - first saloon hatchback ? Those big bangers (oops pardon) used to sell in their droves, and though the dealers competed against each other those different badges made them all a little different. We had a Humber Super Snipe, pure luxury , I loved the picnic tables as a kid , even when sationary (which was alot !). I do remember horror stories about brand new Anglias always breaking down so maybe we need to accept that 60's cars generally were just abit crap ?
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