Cars in the U.K.

[Jim (across the pond) Adamek]

Just curious. I have been using the Abbeville Road Crossing Webcam to look at cars over there in England and it appears a huge amount are Jap or German. I expected to see mostly English cars. What percentage do you think are still English?  

[Adrian Southgate]

And thats another reason to preserve Duttons no matter how rough they are...

(i'll get my coat)

[James Doulton]

There are lots of cars manufactured in the UK. There are Nissans in Newcastle which manufacture all of the Jukes for Europe. There is Honda in Swindon which manufactures mostly the Jazz, which are exported to Europe. I used to live in Portishead, near to the Royal Portbury docks and there is one of the largest car parks in Europe there with a railway line from Swindon bringing British made Hondas for export on ships that bring in other makes and models from Europe. The ships are the ugliest floating bricks that you have ever seen. Normally about one per day on the high tide. A few of my kids ex-school friends work there driving the imported cars off and the exported one on.

We still have design centres here - off the top of my head, Jaguar still retain their UK centre as their Indian owners don't like to meddle with the engineering. I expect that there are many more.

I think I read that last year the UK manufactured more cars than any other European country, except for Germany.

[James Doulton]

Looking at Wikipedia, it says that 1.5 million cars were manufactured here last year and over 3 million engines. That includes Mini, Jaguar, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Land Rover and Vauxhall. It says that the turnover was £56Bn and that motorsport represents another £6Bn per year. It lists 35 active manufacturers and 500 defunct ones. Dutton is not mentioned in either group.

[James Doulton]

Nissan, Toyota and Jaguar/Land Rover all have significant design as well as manufacture here. It just seems that we Brits can't actually run a car company. It might be down to the UK stock market expecting greater returns or investors being too short-term in their strategies. Many foreign companies have completely different financial performance expectation. It is a bit like Lidl and Aldi who can take a long term strategy while Tescos and Asda have to appease shareholders within the next half-year.

We can still design, engineer and manufacture, we just can't own.

Graham's glass is half-empty, mine is half-full!

[Steve Kerswell]

They did the same with the motor cycle industry, along with unions and greedy big cats. In fact I think as an manufacturing, as in engineering, we are dead in the water. My skills no longer required, not enough investment means thousands of skills are gone, makes me feel all maudlin. Half empty for me James :-)

[Big Vern]

The brittish motor cycle industry was yet another victim of brittish people with their heads stuck up their own butt holes. Brittish motor cycle design and engineering was stuck in the 1920's. By the 1960's people wanted fast, quiet, reliable machines at a fair price and thats what they bought. Brittish industry then, as now wouldn't change, persisting with its mantra 'theyll have to buy what we've made' so the brittish motor cycle industry died. The car industry, and so many others, went the same way, whats left of it being saved by foreign companies who invested in the products people wanted to buy. As for UK engineering there IS plenty going on in dozens of factory units on hundreds of industrial estates around the country, but its not victorian heavy engineering that people seem to get so misty eyed about. That was the past and this is the 21st century - electrical engineering, computor science and aerospace technology abound in the UK. But engineering has something of a stigma - its not cool to be an engineer

[Dave Adams]

Weirdly most of those new trains were delivered into Immingham port which is also a rail head....they were then loaded onto trucks to be delivered to an other rail head......because it was cheaper and quicker to deliver trains by road!

[Jim (across the pond) Adamek]

The Japs and Huns may have lost WWII but they have done a pretty good job conquering the allies car industry. More people should think about their war with us. I still love the British cars over here in the States. 

[Steve Kerswell]

I worked in Japan, at Kawasaki shipyard, they are ultra efficient, and fastidious workers. But most are tied to the company for life, rent company houses etc. Also spent a fair time working in Europe, German machine shops weren't that advanced and their workforce were similar in mind to us, but work was work, very serious about production targets etc. I have been invited back next year, will be interesting to see if they have progressed any better then us.