British Leyland was a vehicle manufacturing company formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC). It was partly nationalised in 1975 with the government creating a new holding company called British Leyland Ltd which became BL Ltd (later BL plc) in 1978. It incorporated much of the British owned motor vehicle industry, and held 40% of the UK car market,[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4294709.stm BBC NEWS | Politics | The politics of building cars ] with roots going back to 1895.
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British Leyland was a vehicle manufacturing company formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC). It was partly nationalised in 1975 with the government creating a new holding company called British Leyland Ltd which became BL Ltd (later BL plc) in 1978. It incorporated much of the British owned motor vehicle industry, and held 40% of the UK car market,[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4294709.stm BBC NEWS | Politics | The politics of building cars ] 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. In 1986 it was renamed as the Rover Group, later to become MG Rover Group, which went bankrupt in 2005, bringing an end to mass car production by British owned manufacturers - with MG becoming part of Chinese Nanjing Automobile.
Jaguar and Land-Rover (Land-Rover previously owned by BMW) were sold in March 2008 by Ford to TATA Motors of India, who also bought the three brand names: Daimler, Lanchester, and Rover - the intellectual property rights for which had been bought by Shanghai, Nanjing bought MG brand.
History
BLMC was created in 1968 by the merger of British Motor Holdings (BMH) and Leyland Motor Corporation (LMC), encouraged by Tony Benn as chair of the Industrial Reorganisation Committee created by the Wilson Labour Government (1964–1970). At the time, LMC was a successful manufacturer, while BMH was perilously close to collapse. The Government was hopeful LMC's expertise would revive the ailing BMH. 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 focussed 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, which was a car with no discernible place in the market.
