Practically Classics Forum

If the British car industry car industry was bad in the 80's please explain Nissan in
Sunderland/Washington Tyne & Wear!

I think it was a politician (not thatcher) who said make sure you deal with the Union
problem by only having to deal with one union! Too many unions and it only takes 1
to screw it up and force the others to have problems.

As for working for one car company, and driving that of a different manufacturer. It
would depend on what the car is that you require it to do and what the manufacturer
produces. I mean if you lived an an area where it is hard to get parked and you have
a dog or children then a compact hatchback is more suited to the job than a big
estate car, if you see where I'm coming from on use.

Then there is the other reason, you build/sell/ship/drive them all day, and day in day
out wouldn't you get a bit sick of them, and then go and buy something else to get
away from work?

Datsun does its level best to discourage employees' belief in the existence of other makes of car! A guy I went to school with commutes every day from Shitbottle to Washington and back - yeuch! 100 miles per day including twice through the tunnels and all of the queueing that goes with them - and he's pretty senior within the organisation now but even at his grade, he's not allowed to put his ten year old BMW in the works parking area in spite of their having space for many hundreds more cars than they have staff. But if he were to take a Datsun on the employee car scheme, he'd by now be entitled to park within a few minutes walk of his entrance and he'd be fuelling it with subsidised Diesel of indeterminate origin at 80ppl so he must (and does) really love his 330D Sport.
At his grade, the car he'd receive on the works scheme would be a Juke. Please feel free to draw your own conclusions regarding his preference for the Bavarian torque monster that does at best 45mpg and has done that throughout the ten years (and 317,000 miles) of his ownership. He doesn't even cry slightly when you ask how much he'd have saved on the works scheme over these years.
As for his opinion of his employers' current product range, he does like the design of the multimedia shagnast in the Note but won't be drawn further.

I am in this position the manufacturer I work for does not make a convertible sports car so we have the TR, Lotus and Mx5.

We do have a new super reliable, company car as well but I rarely drive it!


Bear in mind no manufacturer is based in any one country any more it is an international business, most 3 series BMW's come from South Africa, X5's from the states, VW have factories all over the world, even the French make cars outside France! and if you look closely that "quality" German car it is built from many parts made by the same supplier as Fiat or Renault.

Kevin

Mitsuru wrote:If the British car industry car industry was bad in the 80's please explain Nissan in
Sunderland/Washington Tyne & Wear!

I think it was a politician (not thatcher) who said make sure you deal with the Union
problem by only having to deal with one union! Too many unions and it only takes 1
to screw it up and force the others to have problems.

As for working for one car company, and driving that of a different manufacturer. It
would depend on what the car is that you require it to do and what the manufacturer
produces. I mean if you lived an an area where it is hard to get parked and you have
a dog or children then a compact hatchback is more suited to the job than a big
estate car, if you see where I'm coming from on use.

Then there is the other reason, you build/sell/ship/drive them all day, and day in day
out wouldn't you get a bit sick of them, and then go and buy something else to get
away from work?

That's the case with most cars now....Mrs Rusty's Korean oilburner comes complete with full Bosch diesel management and injection system, which is now sourced by Bosch from China. The brake parts are dead ringers for girling units but without a big G on them, no doubt other bits will be from around the world.

But cheer up..we may not screw 'em together on the line much these days but the world comes here for r'n'd, and its here that the cutting edge of Motorsport is, I think nearly every F1 team is British based, the engines, whatever name is on them, are all UK built, and that's what industrial progress is. We can't compete in the unskilled areas any more, virtually the first thing any developing nation does is open a car plant, all it needs is money and a supply of unskilled labour, but what we can do is lead the technology, and that's what we do- so in that way we're still big players in the motor industry.