The difference is engineering. There were few if any professional
automotive engineers involved with the automobile industry in Britain
during the formative years, a situation which generally persisted until the
end of the automobile industry in Britain. There was a rigid class
structure in Britain which caused the working class (all people in the auto
industry) to look with suspicion and distrust on anyone with a higher
education. "Designers" were people who had worked their way up through the
system which saw them join the "works" as boys. What they learned was
learnt by observation and working with other men who had been educated the
same way. "Professional Engineer" designations were earned not learnt in
the years when a man could be declared a P.Eng. by applying to the
association and standing on his experience.
Upper management was concerned only with shareholders and shareholders were
concerned only with profits. There was an enormous social and working gap
between senior management and working management. There was a near lack
of forward planning and R & D money was almost non-existent. For many
years R & D consisted of looking at what went wrong with the product after
it reached the market. Automobiles and their parts were developed by a
series of "fixes" which added complexity in many cases to an originally
flawed design in order to make it work - after marketplace testing had
shown the flaws. The "clean sheet of paper" approach was rarely attempted
as most "development" was an elaboration of an earlier design. Custom and
practice ruled construction which in most cases was rooted in the interwar
period. Design basics remained constants for upwards of 50 years when the
original design was in many cases obsolete shortly after its inception.
World War II created grave problems for British industry and development.
Millions of people were killed and injured. British youth died in record
numbers and this hard-hit generation was itself the children of the equally
hard-hit generation of World War I. The brightest and bravest died in two
wars and the economy died with them, leaving a country of destroyed
factories and old men who had to pick up the pieces. The collapsed economy
and desperate shortage of capital and raw material meant that British
society had to continue to shoulder the hardship of the war years while
attempting to rebuild the country. This was done without the financial and
administrative assistance given to Germany and Japan for their rebuilding.
The strain was too much for many and emigration from Britain reached record
levels in the ten post-war years. Those emigrating were also the youngest
and most ambitious.
The result was an industry that built things in the "traditional" way and
which lacked the capacity for all of the above reasons to change.
Automobile construction was highly labor intensive - which worked in a time
when everyone needed a job and salary expectations were low. Machinery was
old and worn while money was tight. The charm and quaintness that we find
in British automobiles is a direct result of the inability of the industry
to do otherwise. Weak forward planning and the refusal to accept that the
new Japanese automobile industry and a resurgent Europe were threats led
directly to the fall. Yes, major strides were made - compare the TR2 to
the TR7 - but often the results were disappointing as reliability was dodgy
and basic improvements were ignored. The cars were still noisy and rough,
the engines still leaked oil and maintenance was still at the level of a
'20s auto. The appeal of British cars - except for sports cars - in North
America was rapidly erased by the continuing failure of the "designers" to
recognize the needs of a North American car buyer and/or inability react to
them. American cars continued to improve to the point that they were
perhaps the best cars in the world - certainly in terms of reliability,
comfort and longevity. It was hard to sell an Austin America or Marina to
people who could buy a Chevy Nova or Dodge Dart for the same money.
A major concern regarding your carburetor question is that American
carburetors were sold in the hundreds of millions whereas the British
market was considerably smaller. It is not difficult to continually re-tool
and improve a product when sales and profit figures are so large. As and
example, the two most reviled American cars of the '70s were the Vega and
the Pinto yet between them there were nearly 17 million produced. I doubt
that the British automobile industry has yet produced 17 million cars in
total - certainly not if the Mini (5 million plus) is excluded. Finally,
the American practice of continuous model change and engine upgrading
required continuous improvement from the carburetor companies which were in
fierce competition in the industry.
In Britain, labour problems in the '60s - from a workforce which had
endured the rebuilding of the '50s and hoped for the expected reward of
hard work - were endemic. Modernization was difficult due to the very
large work force and the government's need to keep employment high. A
late 50s boom in auto sales and production led to amalgamation, redundancy
of work force and labour attempts to provide for their brothers. Falling
sales coupled with the resurgence of the European auto industry and the
high taxation/pricing policies which persisted led to a slump. The
motorcycle industry died first - for the same reasons - then it was the car
industry's turn. In the '70s, Labour governments went heavily into job and
industry protection when the reality was that the industry was already
dying and competition from Japan and Europe was firmly established. By
mid-70s, it was increasinly difficult to sell British cars even to the
British when so many better cars were available at similar money.
The result is that today most of the British auto industry is
foreign-owned. The largest British-owned manufacturer is TVR which began
life as a fiberglass kit car. Britain has made great economic strides but
its auto industry was one of the casualties. Many of us love and enjoy the
automobiles and motorcycles of Britain in spite of, and maybe because of
the conditions which created them. Hopefully, we'll continue to enjoy them
for many more years.
John McEwen
Austin, Jaguar, Jensen, Lagonda, Lotus, Standard, Triumph, Vauxhall
>Probably a dumb question on my part, but why are SU and Zenith-Stromberg
>carburetors so complicated, compared to something like a Holley or Rochester
>carb?
>
>I'm always amazed at all the separate components that make up the carbs you
>find on LBCs, whereas a Holley four-barrel proabably has less than half the
>moving parts.
>
>Must be a reason for the different technology.
>
>Anyone?
>
>Bruce
>1980 Inca Yellow TR7 5-speed convertible
>Chapel Hill, NC
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