The numerous Trade Labour Union Strikes did not help the situation.
They almost brought all the British Auto companies to complete demise. I'm
sure there are other factors involved that we living on this side of the
pond are unaware.
Ron Fraser
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-tigers@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-tigers@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of rande
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 9:04 PM
To: CoolVT@aol.com
Cc: tigers@autox.team.net
Subject: Tiger demise
A couple of things about the demise of the Tiger and later the Alpine.
It didn't sell very well, as Chrysler saw it. They would have kept
production going, even with the Ford powertrain, if the sales numbers were
better. Remember that a Mustang convertible was available with several
versions of the 289, and it could be bought for under $3,000. Proof is that
while Tigers sold something like 7,000 cars total, while the Series V Alpine
sold approximately 19,000, the 1965 and 1966 Mustangs sold 1.2 MILLION sixes
and V8's those two years alone. The Tiger was roughly $3500 at the same time
that the Corvette began in the $3500 to $4000 range.
As has been previously mentioned, the US safety regs that kicked in for the
1968 model year also stopped importation of the Austin-Healey 3000 and
Shelby Cobra 427. The A-H 3000 stopped production at the same time, as the
US was the principal market at that time, and the Cobra remained in very
limited production in the home market(UK) under the guise as the AC 289
Sport, essentially the 289 powertrain installed in the 427 chassis and
body.
A case can be made for crediting Chrysler with supplying the funds to
stretch the Rootes budget and allow them to bring out the Mark 2 Tiger.
Several Rootes historians cite the British government as the villans who
forced Rootes into needing to seek a buyout, by forcing the Imp production
to be far away in Scotland, which they say cost Rootes too much to stay
solvent by themselves.
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