[TR] Who killed the British Motor Industry - recommended reading

[John Macartney]

> Great  videos all three.  If you'd like to read about it in more detail  and
> get the wide-lens perspective, track down a copy, libraries only, of  Timothy
> R. Whisler's "*At the End of the Road: The Rise and Fall of  Austin-Healey,
> MG and Triumph Sports Cars"*
> must be a really good book - Amazon lists a used copy from vendor Picasso
> Books for $925
> - yeah, that's nine hundred twenty five dollars
>
> Cheers,
> Jack Mc


Read it but its only a bit of the story.  IMHO the best of all the books written about BL is "The 
Leyland Papers" by Graham Turner. Graham knows his subject back to front, inside out and upside 
down. Turner tells it absolutely how it was. I still dip into my copy and occasionally you see a 
copy coming up on ebay or through Amazon. Get it if you can. It's an excellent reference.
Absolutely NFI but if anyone wants an objective and impartial view about the last days of BL at the 
Longbridge Plant (and lots of history before that) Barney Sharratt's book, "Motors and Men of The 
Austin" is another outstanding read. Copiously illustrated with archive photos, Sharratt, like 
Turner, pulls no punches and you'll see one especially high-profile ex Standard-Triumph person who 
was moved to Longbridge getting a less than glowing report. IMHO, what Sharratt says is spot-on!
I'm beginning to sound like a book salesman, now.
Type Gillian Bardsley into Google and see what comes up. Gillian is the Head Archivist at BMIHT 
Gaydon who I worked with closely when I was there. She's done some excellent little books about 
Austin and Morris. The thing is, videos about the demise of the industry in the UK often give an 
inaccurate slant and if you believe the Gospel according to Saint Jeremy Clarkson, it'll all become 
gobbledegook overnight. Watching videos is one thing for a wholly biased view, so quite a number of 
books need to be read for 'triangulation' of the subject and you have to look at the whole industry 
/ the whole of BL / and not just Triumph to work out how it happened and why.

Jonmac