People also forget that the French were the largest producers of aircraft
engines in WWI, and their engines were considered the best technology at the
time (the Gnome engine).
Alan
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 10:54 PM, Peter Svilans <peter.svilans@rogers.com>
wrote:
> Dave:
>
> Its an interesting story. Morris, Wolseley and MG engines were all built
> at
> the Morris Engines plant. The French Hotchkiss company feared being
> overrun
> by the advancing Germans in WW I, and moved their plant to Coventry in
> England
> in 1915. William Morris bought the plant in 1923.
>
> Being a cheapskate, Morris decided to keep all the French tooling, and
> never
> converted over to British Standard. Car restorers have cursed "Morris'
> Mad
> Metric" ever since.
>
> But it doesn't end there. Old French Metric is different than the modern
> ISO
> Standard Metric form. And as a concession to British motorists, Morris
> decided to use Whitworth hex heads on his French Standard bolts so the
> Whitworth tool kit wrenches could be used. And it seems there were no
> standards for this idea either, as an 8mm threaded bolt could have either
> a
> 3/16 W or a 1/4 W head, even on the same MG TC engine.
>
> All in all, it would have been cheaper in the long run to switch over the
> French tooling to British in the first place.
>
> Britain first made plans to go Metric in 1965, and still hasn't committed
> to
> it completely.
>
> Best
> Peter
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--
Alan
'52 A90
'53 BN1
'64 BJ8
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