Britain’s best dead car companies - which do you remember?

Îïóáëèêîâàííî 23.09.2020 00:25

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Car-making is hard.

Profitable car-making is a whole lot harder, and for proof you only need run a wistful eye down this list of defunct marques.

Some were born close to the dawn of the car, when bicycle-makers and blacksmiths saw money in the new-fangled horseless carriage. Dozens of opportunists founded car companies, many of them clever engineers, savvy businessmen and sometimes   even both. Car-making at the start of the 20th century was like internet entrepreneurialism at the end of it– plenty jumped into the pool, but only the fittest survived.

Yet other car-makers have gone despite early successes. Recessions have killed many and bundled others into doomed liaisons. Misreadings of the market, the complacency that came with selling sub-standard cars to Britain’s colonies, destabilising government policies, failure to assess foreign competition and poor management all contributed to the demise of car-makers. Here's a look at the best and most interesting:

Allard

Sydney Allard built almost 2000 cars between 1946-57, many of them fast, American V8-engined sports cars, although there were plenty of saloons and even a woody wagon.

But despite an array of models, the marques' top brass failed to assess the direction in which the automotive world was headed and thus the final model from the company - the two seater Palm Beach - was said to have been a year behind its competitiors for tech and driving dynamics.

Allard went into administration in 1957.

PICTURED: Allard P1

Alvis

A maker of between-wars, high-quality sports cars in its heyday. Duller saloons followed, but the Graber-styled TC to TF series of coup?s and roadsters were a handsome swansong.

Bought by Rover in 1965, car production ended two years later, Alvis becoming a military vehicles maker. It was swallowed by BAE Systems in 2004.

PICTURED: Alvis TD21

Austin

During much of its 83-year life, Austin was a serial maker of tediously dependable family cars. But it also produced two landmark designs, both called Austin Seven. The 1922 original was an affordable car that put much of this nation on wheels, while its 1959 namesake triggered a small car design revolution. That car was the Mini, the Seven labelling soon dropped.

The Mini was also available in larger sizes as the 1100 and the 1800, both advanced Alec Issigonis creations. Like both Austin Sevens, the 1100 (and near-identical Morris) would be massive sellers. But it was 1973’s 1100 replacement that doomed Austin. Designed as a car for Europe, the Allegro was neither that nor an acceptable replacement for nearly three-quarters of the two million people who had bought 1100-1300s.

By this point Austin was embedded within British Leyland’s Austin-Morris volume car division, which the company was desperate to revive. That almost came with 1980’s highly successful miniMetro, but the awkwardly formed Maestro and Montego follow-ups blew much of the resulting goodwill. Austin withered in 1988 with Austin-Rover’s relabelling to Rover, the Metro, Maestro and Montego briefly living on in a strange   state of brandlessness.

PICTURE: 1930s Austin Seven

Austin-Healey

A joint venture between Donald Healey and Austin saw the beautiful 1953 Austin-Healey 100 and the later frogeye Sprite successfully built and sold by BMC. But the frogeye became an MG Midget and the big Healey was eventually outlawed by US legislation, the marque wastefully retired in 1971.

BMW considered a revival in the late 1990s using a Z3 base, but the company's exit from Rover ended that intriguing prospect.

PICTURE: Austin Healey 3000

Daimler

Once a supplier of motor-cars to royalty, Daimler grew out of the German company, but soon built its own models. Poor post-war management induced decline and a Jaguar takeover, its cars eventually becoming badge-engineered derivatives.   It disappeared in 2010.

Jaguar retains the right to use the name on cars in many markets, but with Daimler AG today being the name of the Mercedes parent company, it might cause confusion all round.

PICTURE: Daimler DS240

Gilbern

Kit-car manufacturer and virtually the only Welsh car-maker, Gilbern began selling a pretty GT component car from behind a butcher’s shop in 1959, but expensive purchase prices, added taxation and constant change of ownership saw the company   shut up shop after the launch of the Genie.  

Went bust in 1973.

PICTURE: Gilbern Genie

Hillman

A successful maker of staple family cars, Hillman broke from the pack with its rear-engined, Mini-bashing ’63 Imp. Government interference saw it built in a new factory at Linwood, near Glasgow. The growing pains of this, reliability troubles and strikes not only undermined   the (rather fine) Imp but dragged   the Rootes Group, which owned Hillman, to its knees.

Chrysler bought Rootes in 1967, with the Hillman name dying in 1976.

PICTURE: Hillman Imp

Jensen

Originally a coachbuilder, Jensen’s first car emerged in 1935. Beautiful American-powered GTs became a speciality, reaching its zenith with the ’66 Interceptor and FF, a technical tour-de-force combining four-wheel drive and anti-lock braking decades before Audi.

The financial wall was hit in 1976, a revival flaring briefly in the ’80s before closure in ’93.

PICTURE: Jensen FF

Jowett

Started with flat twins in 1913, but is best remembered for its advanced Javelin saloon, whose body-supplies were undermined by worried rivals. Jowett sank in 1954.

PICTURE: Jowett Javelin

Marcos

It started in 1959 with a weird, part-wood coup?. Its 1964 1800 follow-up was handsome enough to see Marcos revived in 1981 following a 1971 demise. Its final death was in 2007.

PICTURE: Marcos 1800

Morris

To lose one best-selling marque seems careless – to lose both Austin and Morris, each makers of some of the most successful British cars ever in the Mini and the Minor, seems downright negligent. Morris started with the highly successful Bullnose in 1913, a post-WW1 price-cutting strategy winning it 51 per cent of the UK market. After an early ’30s stumble Morris shot back with the hugely successful Morris Eight, planned by Leonard Lord. That was followed by the 1948 Morris Minor, Britain’s first million-seller.

Lord fell out with William Morris, and then Lord reappeared as boss of arch-rival Austin, the two brands merging in 1952 to form the mighty British Motor Corporation. This   eventually became British Leyland, whose shamefully under-engineered Marina was Morris’s last model of consequence. The end came in 1983. The name sort-of still exists as Morris Garages, rather better known as MG, though it's now under Chinese ownership.

PICTURE: Morris Minor

Panther

For a tiny business, Bob Jankel's   Panther Westwinds made a big impact, starting with 1972’s Jaguar SS100-like J72. The Bugatti Royale-inspired De Ville   and the six-wheeled Six scored major printspace too, as did the ludicrously ambitious Solo. But the car that actually sold was the ’82-90 Lima/Kallista sports car.

PICTURE: Panther Six

Reliant

A bit of a bi-polar car-maker, producing three-wheeled grotesques at one end and the handsome, pioneering, Scimitar GTE sports estate at the other, a model serially bought by Princess Anne.

The later Scimitar SS1 was an ugly but surprisingly able sports car. The final Reliants were made in 2002.

PICTURE: Reliant Scimitar GTE

Riley

An admired sports model maker through the ’20s and ’30s, Riley   lost their individuality following a 1938 acquisition by Morris. All models were badge-engineered Austins by the mid-60s.

It was killed in 1969 by British Leyland, but almost revived by BMW in the late ’90s. Interestingly, BMW owns the rights to the Riley name to this day.

Rover

Rover switched from bicycles to cars in 1904 and did well before a wobble in the 1920s. Re-energised by the Wilks brothers, acquiring a fine pre-war reputation for quality cars. That continued post-war with the P4, P5 and P6, an era coinciding with Land Rover’s birth.

Bought by Leyland in 1966, flung into the 1968 British Leyland pot to begin a slow decline and shift downmarket. Owned by BMW between 1994 and 2000, it died a miserable death as MG Rover in 2005.

Highlights during the descent included the brilliant but appallingly made 1976 SD1, the very successful Honda-based 200 Series of 1989 and the BMW-funded 75– its best-ever car. The name however lives on as Land Rover   and in China as Roewe, and JLR owner Tata owns the Rover brand name.

PICTURE: Rover 3500

Singer

Singer graduated from bicycles to cars in 1905, with a pre-war Le Mans sportscar being its best model. The clunkingly ugly 1947 SM1500 saloon (pictured) plunged it into the arms of Rootes, where it lived a badge-engineered afterlife until 1970.

Standard

Standard sold inexpensive, unremarkable cars from 1906, and is best remembered for its odd, faux-American post-war Vanguards. It bought Triumph in 1945; the Standard name was dropped in 1963 after the Leyland takeover.

PICTURE: Standard Vanguard

Sunbeam

Sunbeam was the first British car to win a Grand Prix, in 1923. Part of the Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq combine bought by Rootes in 1935, after which it was dormant until 1953.

Sunbeams became lightly sporting Rootes models, including the pretty Alpine. It was last used on the miserable (unless Lotus-engined) Chrysler Sunbeam in 1981.

PICTURE: Sunbeam Alpine

Talbot

Talbot was an early 20th century Anglo-French enterprise that would end up being paired with and owned by myriad marques.

It went to sleep in 1960 before its 1978/9 revival by Peugeot on a motley assortment of one-time Chrysler UK and Simca models. The name was finally snuffed out in 1992, the name last used on a van.

PICTURE: Talbot Samba

Triumph

Despite sizeable ’50s and ’60s success with an exceptionally pretty range of sports and saloons cars, Triumph was run down by later owners British Leyland, with the oddball TR7 being the last car developed in-house.

That was followed by the 1981 Honda-based Triumph Acclaim, a car which raised hackles with Triumph fans, but compensated by being the first and indeed last Triumph not to breakdown with tedious regularity.

PICTURE: Triumph TR6

TVR

Founded in 1947, TVR survived amazingly long considering its precarious existence. It enjoyed a brilliantly creative period under Peter Wheeler from 1981 to 2004, but rapidly faded under new owner Nikolai Smolensky, with production ending in 2007. The marque is now being revived by businessman Les Edgar.

The first fruit of this is the new Griffith, unveiled at the Goodwood Revival event (suitably enough) in 2017. Production has been pushed back until 2020.

PICTURE: TVR Sagaris

Wolseley

One of Britain’s earliest car companies. Absorbed by Morris in 1927, its cars became plusher, badge-engineered Morrises. Killed in 1975 by British Leyland, although its grand 1920s Piccadilly showroom survives as London’s fashionable Wolseley restaurant.

PICTURE: 1948-54 6/80

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