Government Motors 1975

[kblehman]

Excellent article on what happened to Great Britain's auto industry after it was taken over by the government.

For those who may be viewers of the show Top Gear you may recognize some of the information contained in the article from this very humorous episode of TG in which they ran a number of govt-era cars through some quality tests.


Government Motors 1975
America should learn from Britain’s disastrous takeover of its biggest auto company.

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_...nt-motors.html

[krygny]

You know why the British never made television sets?

They couldn't figure out a way to make them leak oil. (rimshot)

[hondacuraplanet]

Originally posted by krygny
You know why the British never made television sets?

They couldn't figure out a way to make them leak oil. (rimshot)

Actually, I had a British TV once, called a Perdio Portorama. The British used to have a 405 line standard for television broadcast, and everyone else in the world used/uses a 525 line standard. Never could get the thing to work.

[krygny]

Originally posted by hondacuraworld




Actually, I had a British TV once, called a Perdio Portorama. The British used to have a 405 line standard for television broadcast, and everyone else in the world used/uses a 525 line standard. Never could get the thing to work.

You tried to use it here in the US?!!

Not only is their composite video standard different but they work on 50 Hz power. I don't imagine you got any results at all.

[hondacuraplanet]

You can usually correct the image to a degree by replacing the values of the resistors in the sweep circuits. You won't end up with a full raster, but people I know have done it.

For the power, though, I had a converter

[rocky]

The British Auto industry problems long preceeded the failure of British Leyland, which was itself a means to maintain an auto industry in England as two proir operations failed.

Failure to integrate, streamline and rationalize the model lines, engines, transmissions, suppliers, failure of engineers to overcome accountants, ifailure of management to overcome union wrecking operations and many other reasons are the causes of the ultimate failure of BL.

The only remaining parts of BL that still exist are the MINI franchise, Range Rover, Land Rover and Jaguar.

As for British TVs they were once 405 but went to 625 50 years ago. The result of this is that US programming, looked fuzzy, the same way a normal broadcast looks on a Hidef TV today.

Brits did make TVs. Phillips, Dynatron and many others. I think Sony still makes TVs in Wales. In fact my Father was heavily involved in the infant TV broadcasting in England.