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British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It was partly nationalised in 1975, when the UK government created a holding company called British Leyland, later BL, in 1978.〔(A Catalogue of the Papers of Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd )〕〔(British Leyland Motor Corporation, Ltd. – Britannica Online Encyclopedia )〕 It incorporated much of the British-owned motor vehicle industry, which constituted 40 percent of the UK car market, with roots going back to 1895. Despite containing profitable marques such as Jaguar, Rover and Land Rover, as well as the best-selling Mini, British Leyland had a troubled history.〔(Austin Rover Online )〕 In 1986 it was renamed as the Rover Group, later to become MG Rover Group, which went into administration in 2005, bringing mass car production by British-owned manufacturers to an end. MG and the Austin, Morris and Wolseley marques became part of China's SAIC, with whom MG Rover attempted to merge prior to administration. Today, MINI, Jaguar Land Rover and Leyland Trucks (now owned by BMW Group, TATA and Paccar, respectively) are the three most prominent former parts of British Leyland which are still active in the automotive industry, with SAIC-owned MG Motor continuing a small presence at the Longbridge site. Certain other related ex-BL businesses, such as Unipart), continue to operate independently. ==History== BLMC was created in 1968 by the merger of British Motor Holdings (BMH) and Leyland Motor Corporation (LMC), encouraged by Tony Benn as chairman of the Industrial Reorganisation Committee created by the Wilson Government (1964–1970).〔 At the time, LMC was a successful manufacturer, while BMH (which was the product of an earlier merger between the British Motor Corporation and Jaguar) was perilously close to collapse. The Government was hopeful LMC's expertise would revive the ailing BMH, and effectively create a "British General Motors". The merger combined most of the remaining independent British car manufacturing companies and included car, bus and truck manufacturers and more diverse enterprises including construction equipment, refrigerators, metal casting companies, road surface manufacturers; in all, nearly 100 different companies. The new corporation was arranged into seven divisions under its new chairman, Sir Donald Stokes (formerly the chairman of LMC). While BMH was the UK's largest car manufacturer (producing over twice as many cars as LMC), it offered a range of dated vehicles, including the Morris Minor which was introduced in 1948 and the Austin Cambridge and Morris Oxford, which dated back to 1959. After the merger, Lord Stokes was horrified to find that BMH had no plans to replace these elderly designs. Also, BMH's design efforts immediately prior to the merger had focused on unfortunate niche market models such as the Austin Maxi (which was underdeveloped and with an appearance hampered by using the doors from the larger Austin 1800) and the Austin 3 litre, a car with no discernible place in the market. BMH had produced several successful cars, such as the Mini and the Austin/Morris 1100/1300 range (which at the time was the UK's biggest selling car). While these cars had been advanced at the time of their introduction, the Mini was not highly profitable and the 1100/1300 was facing more modern competition. The lack of attention to development of new mass-market models meant that BMH had nothing in the way of new models in the pipeline to compete effectively with popular rivals such as Ford's Escort and Cortina. Immediately, Lord Stokes instigated plans to design and introduce new models quickly. The first result of this crash programme was the Morris Marina in early 1971. It used parts from various BL models with new bodywork to produce BL's mass-market competitor. It was one of the strongest-selling cars in Britain during the 1970s, although by the end of production in 1980 it was widely regarded as a dismal product that had damaged the company's reputation. The Austin Allegro (replacement for the 1100/1300 ranges), launched in 1973, earned a similarly unwanted reputation over its 10-year production life. The company became an infamous monument to the industrial turmoil that plagued Britain in the 1970s. Industrial action instigated by militant shop stewards frequently brought BL's manufacturing capability to its knees. Despite the duplication of production facilities as a result of the merger, there were multiple single points of failure in the company's production network which meant that a strike in a single plant could stop many of the others. Both Ford and General Motors had mitigated against this years before by merging their previously separate British and German subsidiaries and product lines (Ford had created Ford of Europe, whilst GM nurtured closer collaboration between Vauxhall and Opel), so that production could be sourced from either British or Continental European plants in the event of industrial unrest. The upshot was that both Ford and Vauxhall ultimately overtook BL to become Britain's two best selling marques, a title they hold to the present day. At the same time, a tide of Japanese imports, spearheaded by Nissan (Datsun) and Toyota exploited both BL's inability to supply its customers and its declining reputation for quality - by the end of the 1970s, the British government had introduced protectionist measures in the form of import quotas on Japanese manufacturers in order to protect the ailing domestic producers (both BL and Chrysler Europe), which it was helping to sustain. At its peak, BLMC owned almost 40 manufacturing plants across the country. Even before the merger BMH had included theoretically competing marques that were in fact selling substantially similar "badge engineered" cars. The British Motor Corporation had never successfully integrated the former Austin and Morris dealer networks, which had led to a plethora of badge engineered models of otherwise identical cars so that each network would have a product to sell. This meant that Austin and Morris still, to an extent, competed with each other and meant that each product was saddled with effectively twice the marketing and distribution costs that it would have if sold under a single name. BMC had even carried out very little in the way of dealer rationalisation - many small towns still had separate Austin and Morris outlets, which were then joined by former rivals such as Triumph and Rover once British Leyland was formed. BMH and Leyland Motors had expanded and acquired companies throughout the 1950s and 1960s in order to compete with one other, with the result that when the two conglomerates were brought together into BL there was even more internal competition. Rover competed with Jaguar at the expensive end of the market, and Triumph with its family cars and sports cars against Austin, Morris and MG. Individual model lines that were similarly sized were therefore competing against each other, yet were never discontinued nor were model ranges rationalised quickly enough; in fact the policy of having multiple models competing in the same market segment continued long after the merger - for instance BMH's MGB remained in production alongside LMC's Triumph TR6, whilst in the medium family sector, the Princess was in direct competition with upscale versions of the Morris Marina and cheaper versions of the Austin Maxi, meaning that economies of scale resulting from large production runs could never be realised. In addition, in consequent attempts to establish British Leyland as a brand in consumers' minds in and outside the UK, print ads and spots were produced, causing confusion rather than attraction for buyers. BL marketing and management attempted to draw more obvious distinctions between the marques - most notable was the decision to pitch Morris as a maker of conventional mass-market cars to compete with Ford and Vauxhall and Austin to continue BMC's line of advanced family cars with front-wheel drive and fluid suspension. This resulted in the Morris Marina and the Austin Allegro. The policy's success was mixed. Since the dealership network was still not sufficiently rationalised it meant that Austin and Morris dealers (which had, in BMC/BMH days, each offered a full range of cars both advanced and traditional) had their product range halved and found that they could no longer cater to many previously loyal customers' tastes. The policy was also carried out hapzardly: The advanced, Hydragas-sprung Princess began life in 1975 sold as an Austin, a Morris and a Wolseley before being rebadged altogether under the new Princess name. The Princess (and the Mini, which BL also turned into a marque in its own right) was sold across the Austin-Morris dealership network, making any distinction between the two even more vague to many customers. These internal issues, which were never satisfactorily solved, combined with serious industrial relations problems (with trade unions), the 1973 oil crisis, the three-day week, high inflation, and ineffectual management meant that BL became an unmanageable and financially crippled behemoth which went bankrupt in 1975. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「British Leyland」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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