Could Leyland Motors Have Survived if they Didn’t Merge With British Motor Holdings?
The merger was called British Leyland and it was a huge merger between British Motors Holdings and Leyland Motor Company.
Leyland was a successful heavy commercial vehicle manufacturer that bought out many other heavy commercial vehicles manufacturers in the 50s. By the 60s, Leyland looked to grow into the passenger car segment and bought Standard-Triumph and Rover and incorporated the companies into the Leyland Motor Company.
Had Leyland Motors stayed independent, I believe they could’ve survived till today. They had excellent products, good labor relations, and they were also the most successful British auto manufacturer at the time.
Leyland’s downfall was when the government forced a merger with British Motor Holdings to rescue British Motor Holdings from collapse. British Motor Holdings is a merger of Jaguar Cars (including British Daimler), Nuffield Organization (also known as just Morris), Pressed Steel, and the Austin Motor Company.
The original formation of BMH began when the Nuffield Organization also called Morris Motors (including the MG, Morris, Wolseley, and Riley brands) initiated a merger with their fiercest rival, the Austin Motors Company to form the British Motor Corporation (BMC). BMC then bought out Pressed Steel who made bodies for Jaguar, eventually also bringing Jaguar under BMC, and renaming the group to British Motor Holdings. British Motor Holdings, unlike Leyland Motors, was plagued with labor issues, management chaos, and product quality issues. It got so bad that to prevent BMH from collapse, the Labor Government of the UK initiated a merger with Leyland Motors to rescue BMH before it could be sold to a foreign competitor such as GM or Ford. The government was especially desperate because the Rootes Group, Britain’s third largest automaker was bought by Chrysler.
So then we all know how well British Leyland went. The management chaos and labor unrest spread to all parts of the company till in 1975 British Leyland collapsed and fell into government hands who then began rationalizing off brands. Riley and Wolseley were the first to go. Some brands were created within British Leyland such as Princess, Land Rover, and Mini. But most brands were cancelled; Princess, Triump and Morris in the early 1980s, and Austin closer to the 90s.
Jaguar was also sold to Ford in the 90s. Then Rover, Land Rover, MG, Jaguar, and Mini soldiered on as the Rover Group, till in the 2000s when BMW bought them out, and dissected them.
BMW kept Mini, sold Land Rover to Ford, and spun off MG Rover as an independent automaker. MG Rover then fell into the ownership of scandalous businessmen called the Phoenix Four, who betrayed the labor force, stripped MG Rover of their financial backup money which they themselves took of course, and liquidated the assets of MG Rover to a Chinese company called Nanjing Automobiles in 2005. MG fell into communist hands and Rover went defunct with BMW refusing to sell the marque to the Chinese. As of Jaguar Car and Land Rover Limited, Ford sold them to Tata Motors following the Great Recession.
As of now, the surviving marques of British Leyland are Mini, Jaguar Land Rover, and MG. Mini stayed with BMW who invested in the brand to make it one of the most popular iconic cars of Britain today. Jaguar Land Rover continue as one company under Tata Motors, who has grown JLR into the largest British automotive operation in existence today. MG continues under SAIC as their international brand for western markets.
Leyland, Triumph, and Rover sadly don’t exist today. Had Leyland not merged with British Motor Holdings, there might have been a better chance at their survival. However then, we might not have Jaguar, Land Rover, MG, and Mini still in existence had Leyland not merged with British Motor Holdings. Overall though, British Leyland was a disaster that took down the majority of Britain’s best nameplates. From hindsight, Leyland most likely had a much better chance at their survival without merging with the troubled BMH.
