JustBritish

An interesting article from The Yuma Sun ….

Stan Gourley is a man who obviously loves cars, particularly his 1970 Triumph TR6. The car sits in his garage, partially restored.

“You know,” Gourley said, looking at his jasmine yellow car, “it’s really sad to think that in 20 or 30 years this TR-6 would probably be a Chevrolet Camaro or a Pontiac GTO or an Oldsmobile 442.”

Gourley, a man who knows British sports cars, explains that he thinks what happened to the British Leyland Co. back in the ’70s and what is occurring to General Motors now is too similar to be ignored.

“They were a giant company that dominated the market for British cars in the ’60s and ’70s, but then they had real labor problems, the government nationalized the companies, then guaranteed billions of dollars in bailout money but formed committees to run the companies.
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A faltering auto giant whose brands are synonymous with the open road. Hundreds of thousands of unionized workers with powerful political backers. An urgent plea for the government to write a virtual blank check.

This is not the story of Ford and General Motors, but British Leyland, a car company that went through £11 billion of inflation-adjusted British taxpayer money, or $16.5 billion, in the ’70s and ’80s before going out of business. All that is left of the company now are memories of cars like the Triumph, and a painful lesson in the limited effectiveness of bailouts.
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The BBC’s Chanel 4 News is reporting that thousands of jobs at two UK car plants could be at risk as a result of a worldwide sales slump. General Motors, the world’s biggest car company which owns Vauxhall, said it will be bankrupt within months unless it gets an emergency cash injection from the US government to help it during the global financial crisis.

The firm said it had called off merger talks with Chrysler and was asking the government for help after using up $6.9 billion (£4.4 billion) in the third quarter of 2008.

The company employs around 5,000 workers at plants in Luton and Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, which produce around 215,000 vehicles a year.

Meanwhile, German car giant BMW announced that production of the Mini was to be curtailed, with workers at plants at Oxford and Swindon told the two-week Christmas shutdown would be extended to four weeks this year as a result of the credit crunch.

The motor industry has been hit by falling demand across the world, with sales of new cars slumping to their lowest level in 25 years.

The news from BMW follows an announcement earlier by Jaguar Land Rover that a voluntary redundancy scheme is to be extended to hundreds of workers.

GM said it planned to make more job cuts, including another 5,500 salaried and factory workers.But the Detroit-based firm warned that this alone would not be enough to keep it afloat.

GM chairman and chief executive officer Rick Wagoner said the firm would “take every action” possible to avoid bankruptcy.

GM’s announcement came hours after Ford revealed it had lost $129 million (£82.4 million) in the third quarter after burning through $7.7billion (£4.9 billion) in cash.

The car company said it would cut another 2,260 white-collar workers in North America, but added it could keep going through 2009.

On Thursday, the chiefs of Ford, GM and Chrysler, known as Detroit’s “big three”, asked the US Congress for some $50 billion (£31.8 billion) in federal aid to help them survive the credit crunch.

Normally I don’t cover any non-UK automotive news, but this one is such a potential game changer that I had to mention it. The New York Times is reporting that Chrysler and GM are in preliminary merger talks.

As the article says, “A merger would be a historic event, with two of the most iconic names in American industry coming together to survive in an increasingly difficult environment. Both have roots dating back decades in Detroit and, with Ford, long dominated the auto industry — until Japanese and other foreign car makers began making inroads into the American market.”

Amazing times we live in.

Oh, and on another front, I dreamed last night that MG started producing a minivan and a Hummer-like SUV. Please, say it ain’t so. I need to stop eating spicy food before bedtime.