A "What-If" British Motor Industry Scenario

Masked Grizzly · Dec 1, 2012

From reading sites like Austin Rover Online along with other websites or books featuring stillborn prototypes / engines of potentially "World-Beating" and profitable British-made Cars, one cannot help but wonder how British Carmakers (both management and workers) got it so wrong while sitting on and shelving some very advanced prototypes / engines that could have changed the face of the British Motor Industry to the point where they not only survived but also remained competitive against their rivals.

Anyway for those here who are also Motoring Enthusiasts in light of the stillborn prototypes that various British Carmakers made, what would a successful British Motor Industry look like from Post-WW2 up to today and how would you go about it?

Personally fwiw, I’ve always felt that BMC and Leyland should have remained separate entities that would collaborate now and again piror to going their seperate ways, instead of merging to create the infamous British Leyland.

The Oncoming Storm · Dec 1, 2012

I think the pre-merger Leyland Motor Corporation could have been a major success had it continued as an independent. Triumph was a hugely popular marque with its sports cars and had cracked the sports executive market with the 2000/2600 Series as well as the smaller Dolomite. Rover had also had a successful period in the 50's and 60's with the P5 and P6 and in 1968 the Range Rover was just around the corner. The merger, with the need to accommodate Jaguar with all the massive clout William Lyons had within BL meant that Rover lost the P8 saloon that would have been its flagship for the 1970's as well as the mid engined P6BS sports car that looked very promising. Rover and Triumph complemented each other well, Triumph as the more sports orientated brand, the BMW, while Rover was a more upmarket, luxurious brand, the Mercedes, but that was lost because of the need to fit in Jaguar. Also the Leyland truck and bus business was very strong at that time and had a significant global presence, in the early 60's Donald Stokes had managed to crack the South American market with some big sales of buses and there were real opportunities waiting. Eventually LMC would have been like a British version of Daimler-Benz, a successful maker of upmarket cars and commercials, it would have merged with or been taken over by a larger, mass market maker but there would still be a lot of Leyland, Triumph and Rover products on our roads today.

As for BMC

By 1968 the rot is probably too far gone, you need a much earlier POD, almost certainly one that involved Leonard Lord meeting an untimely demise. He would need to be replaced by someone competent, people on AR Online have suggested Joe Edwards who seems to have been a very skilled engineer and was apparently well liked by the workforce. You need to rationalise the company down, concentrating production on individual factories instead of having the Austin and Morris versions of cars built in separate Austin and Morris factories, this means having to overcome the "Them and Us" mentality that had persisted from before the 1952 merger.

The next one may sound counter intuitive but killing the Mini would be a big help, BMC lost a pile of money on every car made and its packaging meant that the mechanicals were difficult to access for servicing, apparently garage mechanics used to swear whenever one came in. You also need to improve your build quality and rustproofing so that the 1100/1300 Series, arguably a far better car than the Mini, didn't have the tendency to dissolve into a pile of ferrous oxide due to morning dew, again BMC lost a fortune in warranty claims on what should have been a massive money spinner.

Finally don't listen to Alec Issigonis and develop a straight up rival for the Cortina with a mechanically simple rear wheel drive layout instead of the God awful 1800/2200 Landcrab. By the 1960's the fleet market was becoming increasingly important but fleet managers preferred the mechanically simple Dagenham Dustbin over BMC's more complex front wheel drive products as they were afraid of the additional repair costs. Also having In Place of Strife style union reforms in the early 1969's would have been a big help.

The end result if everything went well, would be a British version of PSA or Hyundai-Kia with of course Jaguar on top as a luxury brand. Apparently the merger also saw the demise of a replacement for the Mark 2 Jaguar and the E Type may have been directly replaced instead of by the XJS.

TheMann · Dec 1, 2012

^ I have to second most of the points The Oncoming Storm has made, as they make sense. BL was a mess largely because as a crown-owned company the British labor unions of the 1970s thought the government had an obligation to them and the workers cared little (if at all) for the vehicles they were producing. It does have to be said that the same happened to most of the auto industries of Western Europe and North America at the same time, but BL was an unmanageable nightmare right from the off and it really, really needed somebody to walk in there and clean house, and to hell with what the unions thought.

I would call exception to a few things, though. The Mini may not have been profitable (and the points about them he mentioned are in most cases true), but the Mini is an icon for a reason. Realistically, BMC could have easily junked the smaller and less sporty versions and marketed it directly as the first hot small car, with a higher pricetag to match and subsequently making profits on it. The Landcrab wasn't a bad idea but, like the Austin 3-Litre, it had no place in the market and was too complex compared to cars like the Cortina. The ADO16's replacement needs to be a damn sight better than the Marina/Allegro twins (preferably only one of these) and BMC would have been best advised to trim down its range to picking Austin or Morris (probably the former) and developing the cars better, as well as better-quality materials. Some of the ideas that BMC had weren't bad ones - the Austin Maxi, for example, is widely seen as a piece of crap but had the potential to be much better, if one junks the cable-operated gearbox (not a good idea) and gets the car better suspension and interiors. The way I'd do this is to keep Vanden Plas as a trim level but not as a separate make, aim MG at the sports car / sports sedan market, Jaguar gets the luxury market to itself and Austin is the average cars, from the Mini right up to the biggest cars in its range. Even with all of this, success would most definitely not be guaranteed, as BMC was a massive mess.

One thing that effects both companies that needs to be stopped is BMC's buying of Pressed Steel, as the stamping company was a big supplier to LMC at the time as well, not to mention supplying several other car companies because BMC and LMC.

Masked Grizzly · Dec 1, 2012

I am aware that the Unions (or subversives along with to a lesser extent bad management) are what caused British buyers to switch to non-British cars and ultimately finished off the British Motor Industry though lets assume the problems were not as bad or at least made worse, due to the merger between BMC and Leyland having never happened.

Going with an earlier POD in order to make everything salvageable, I envision Rover somehow being incorporated into BMC instead of Leyland with the latter already owning Morris though instead of the British government encouraging the merger between BMC and Leyland, there is some sort of deal that involves Leyland owning Innocenti and joint collaboration with certain projects.

The main brands in BMC over the decades would end up being Austin - an innovative budget brand, MG - a stylish sports brand similar to SEAT, Rover - a sporty luxury-orientated flagship brand that would also go back to building motorcycles (to take the fight to Triumph) and Land / Range Rover with other brands possibly going on to be used as rebadged models in other countries (i.e. Authi = Spanish / Latin American, Standard = Indian, etc).

In the case of Leyland, the main brands over the decades would end up being Morris - as the conventional budget brand, Innocenti - as the stylishly continental front-wheel-drive mainstream brand, Triumph - as the rear-wheel-drive British “BMW”, Jaguar / Daimler - as the stylishly sports luxury / ultra-luxury flagship brand and Leyland - trucks / buses / commerical / possible Land Rover rival.

On the engine front amongst other things, I envision the A-Series being expanded to include stillborn A-Series developments / improvements such as the 2-cylinder / two-stroke, diesel, aluminium, 8-Port Head, Twin-Port Injection, OHC, 16v and (if possible) even thoroughly developed reliable 1380cc or 1440cc A-Series prior to being (indirectly?) replaced by the alternate 9X engines, which are (both) in turn replaced by alternate K-Series engines.

It is also worth mentioning that the 918cc Morris / Nuffield OHV rival to the A-series was said to have similar development potential and when used in a Morris Minor prototype was considered to be better than the A-series engine they ended up using, so it would interesting to imagine Leyland’s version of the Mini or ADO16 1100/1300 being powered by Morris OHV engines that would have ended evolving along the lines of the Ford Kent (in its various forms) and lasting almost as long as the Kent.

On the subject of the Mini, in the alternate timeline I envision the original also including a 3/5-door hatchback based on the hatchback and 4-door conversions / prototypes as well as the ADO34/35/36 roadster / coupe Midget / Healey replacements, Austin Ant 4x4s and in the post-Cooper era even an MG-badged Mini. (See Mini: The Definitive History)

How both carmakers would replace the original Mini however is not so easy to figure out, I mean I do envision BMC producing the alternate Pininfarina-styled Mini 9X (as two models in original city car and larger "Midi" supermini forms) though in Leyland’s case it has the following Mini-replacement options available:

1) Continue with the original Mini albeit in a cheaper to produce form that would eventually evolve into something along the lines of the K-Series-powered Minki prototypes (with possible sub-1000cc / 1114cc / 1311cc 3-cylinder E-Series powered variant).
2) Replace original with alternate ADO20 Mini Clubman. *- http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/cars/mini-classic/archive-mini-clubman-takes-shape/ and http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/cars/mini-classic/archive-mini-proposals/
3) Replace original with alternate Innocenti Mini (that would also be available as a 5-door hatchback along with other variants).
4) “Barrel-Car” Mini - http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/concepts/concepts-and-prototypes/supermini-projects-a-new-mini-1968-74/
5) A Mini version of the Pininfarina 1100 / Pininfarina 1800. (See Mini: The Definitive History)
6) An avant-garde “One-Box” Mini that would be roughly the size of the original Renault Twingo / FSM Beskid, rear-engined like the Rover Spiritual concept with an egg-shaped One-Box body similar to a Citroen Picasso and a dashboard that foreshadows the style of original Fiat Panda. (See Mini: The Definitive History)
7) A hypothetical Supermini based on a truncated ADO16 platform with styling being derived from ADO22 and the Innocenti Mini-Mini with elements of the Austin Victoria and Mini Clubman from the frontend.

I omitted ADO74 since prior to being cancelled it ended up looking like a Triumph Supermini rather than a proper Mini replacement, while ADO88 and the Metro (along with AR6 and R6X) are another matter entirely.

As for the Allegro (or even the ADO16-based Pininfarina 1100), due to being powered by OHC B-Series engines as a stopgap (to be replaced by the alternate O-Series) instead of the E-Series (that ended up in the alternate Marina and even powered the alternate Morris ADO16), it ended up closely resembling the original svelte/handsome-looking sketch by Harris Mann rather than a bloated pig as in real-life.

Anyway even though there are many more missed opportunities not featured in the following link, here is Austin Rover Online's Top 10 "might have beens". - http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/slider/essays-top-10-missed-opportunities-for-bmc-mg/

Simon · Dec 2, 2012

Masked Grizzly said:
Anyway even though there are many more missed opportunities not featured in the following link, here is Austin Rover Online's Top 10 "might have beens". - http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/slider/essays-top-10-missed-opportunities-for-bmc-mg/

The AR6 seems like a criminally wasted opportunity, although that might be somewhat biased since I learned to drive in a Rover Metro and bought one as my first car. Decent drive and handling, surprising amount of space inside, and since it was small and not too heavy if you got one with a decent engine it was bloody nippy. It even looks half decent and what you'd expect from that class of car nowadays, it a little dates obviously. Threads like these are just depressing sometimes - seems like government, industry, and the unions all never missed a chance to miss a chance.

Masked Grizzly · Dec 2, 2012

Simon said:
The AR6 seems like a criminally wasted opportunity, although that might be somewhat biased since I learned to drive in a Rover Metro and bought one as my first car. Decent drive and handling, surprising amount of space inside, and since it was small and not too heavy if you got one with a decent engine it was bloody nippy. It even looks half decent and what you'd expect from that class of car nowadays, it a little dates obviously. Threads like these are just depressing sometimes - seems like government, industry, and the unions all never missed a chance to miss a chance.

IMO The production version of AR6 should have possessed styling elements from the later R6X, with R6 Rover Metro / 100 possibly living on outside of Europe (i.e. like in South America or South/Southeast Asia).

Speaking of outside of Europe, when watching that Top Gear India episode a while back and seeing the Rover Mini looking very much at home on Indian roads. I could not help but wonder why the original Mini was never manufactured in India in a more cost effective form (and spawning a 3/5-door hatchback), especially since from 1983 over 2.5 million Suzuki-based Maruti 800s / Suzuki Altos were sold there.

Another criminally wasted opportunity was the Austin Maxi-based Aqulia prototype*, that for 1973 managed to look so far ahead of its time and so much better than the car it is based on.*-http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/con...es/concepts-and-prototypes-maxi-based-aquila/

I agree that looking up all the missed opportunities does make for very depressing reading, though it is still interesting envisioning a scenario where such prototypes do indeed reach production.

TheMann · Dec 2, 2012

Masked Grizzly said:
Speaking of outside of Europe, when watching that Top Gear India episode a while back and seeing the Rover Mini looking very much at home on Indian roads. I could not help but wonder why the original Mini was never manufactured in India in a more cost effective form (and spawning a 3/5-door hatchback), especially since from 1983 over 2.5 million Suzuki-based Maruti 800s / Suzuki Altos were sold there.

The problem with this I see is to ask how do you reduce the cost of the Mini? As you point the original Mini was fairly expensive to produce, but how do you make a more "cost-effective" Mini without compromising its design? More to the point, how do you work within license Raj India? There is a reason why India had economic problems in the 1980s - the level of red tape one had to go through to make anything there was hard to believe.

Masked Grizzly said:
Another criminally wasted opportunity was the Austin Maxi-based Aqulia prototype*, that for 1973 managed to look so far ahead of its time and so much better than the car it is based on.*-http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/con...es/concepts-and-prototypes-maxi-based-aquila/

I agree that looking up all the missed opportunities does make for very depressing reading, though it is still interesting envisioning a scenario where such prototypes do indeed reach production.

I can see a potential problem the Aquila might face in production - is it too advanced. The Allegro had this problem, whereas the Marina, which is identical under the skin, didn't. Without improving the mechanicals of the Marina/Allegro twins, the styling effort will end up being a waste of time on a variety of fronts because potential customers will quickly realize that it is just a Marina underneath. Better suspension tuning and a more powerful engine combined with the Aquila's body styling and you may well have a winner, but if you really want to make the point, you'd probably want to build a really-hot version to gun for the then-new Golf GTI. BL could have done this using the engine from the Dolomite Sprint, but BMC without Triumph might find this harder.

Nicola · Dec 2, 2012

the Marina and Allegro are totally different under the skin, the onlycommon factor in their engineering ,barring minor parts bin items, The1275 cc Aseries engine in 1300 versions is the common thing -even then they are different because of the Marina's Minor derived rear wheel drive layout and the Allegros gears in sump FWD.

the Ital is a scarcely disguised Marina

The Oncoming Storm · Dec 2, 2012

zippy said:
the Marina and Allegro are totally different under the skin, the onlycommon factor in their engineering ,barring minor parts bin items, The1275 cc Aseries engine in 1300 versions is the common thing -even then they are different because of the Marina's Minor derived rear wheel drive layout and the Allegros gears in sump FWD.

the Ital is a scarcely disguised Marina

One item shared between the Allegro and Marina had bad implications for the Allegro's future, namely the infamous Marina heater unit that BL's bean counters insisted on being carried over, along with the E-Series engine that BL had a surplus of after the Maxi failed to meet its sales targets. The packaging requirements of these units meant that Harris Mann's elegant original design for the Allegro was distorted. How much better could it have done had BL released something like this?

Simon · Dec 2, 2012

Masked Grizzly said:
I agree that looking up all the missed opportunities does make for very depressing reading, though it is still interesting envisioning a scenario where such prototypes do indeed reach production.

Oh it certainly is interesting, thanks for posting links to AROnline, going to probably be spending some time on there now.

Always have an interest for economic/industrial what ifs as a nice balance to the military ones.

Masked Grizzly · Dec 2, 2012

To TheMann

The problem with this I see is to ask how do you reduce the cost of the Mini? As you point the original Mini was fairly expensive to produce, but how do you make a more "cost-effective" Mini without compromising its design?

They could have adapted the Mini to the Indian / South Asian market by making the Mini more spartan (yet more practical by including a hatchback) and ditching the chrome with even the front grille resembling the Minivan, while to further reduce costs initially have the Mini being powered by either 2-cylinder A-series (maybe also in two-stroke form) or sub-1.0 4-cylinder A-Series.

Perhaps in an alternate scenario the original Mini could have been replaced in the late-60s / early-70s by either the 9X (possibly made to resemble the original Mini) or the Barrel Car Mini prototypes, as both were a lot cheaper to produce and thus potentially more profitable.

I can see a potential problem the Aquila might face in production - is it too advanced.

The Aquila cannot have been anyone more advanced than the Citroën GS, Citroën CX and others were at the time, with the first two proving to be very successful and essentially being copies of the Pininfarina 1100 / 1800.

Better suspension tuning and a more powerful engine combined with the Aquila's body styling and you may well have a winner, but if you really want to make the point, you'd probably want to build a really-hot version to gun for the then-new Golf GTI. BL could have done this using the engine from the Dolomite Sprint, but BMC without Triumph might find this harder.

Even without turbocharging, the 2.0 O-Series engine was capable of up to 129 bhp. (see MG: The Untold Story)

The Oncoming Storm · Dec 2, 2012

Problem is, Citroen was just as hopeless at making money as BMC/BL was and it also collapsed into bankruptcy with its products having a reputation for being unreliable. As much as us petrolheads love to see radical designs the average car buyer is much more conservative, the first objective of a car is to make money for its manufacturer not to win accolades for its design.

Masked Grizzly · Dec 2, 2012

Simon said:
Oh it certainly is interesting, thanks for posting links to AROnline, going to probably be spending some time on there now. Always have an interest for economic/industrial what ifs as a nice balance to the military ones.

Your welcome, while I too like the military / political / secessionist scenarios. I find it a bit strange apart from a thread here on the VW Golf prototype, I have not really seen any motoring What-Ifs here and that is a bit of a shame since there is a whole wealth of scenarios to be had even with the prototypes from today’s existing carmakers (like for example Ford's Corvette rival or Chevrolet's AC / Shelby Cobra rival).

The Oncoming Storm said:
Problem is, Citroen was just as hopeless at making money as BMC/BL was and it also collapsed into bankruptcy with its products having a reputation for being unreliable. As much as us petrolheads love to see radical designs the average car buyer is much more conservative, the first objective of a car is to make money for its manufacturer not to win accolades for its design.

Of course though the 70s in general was hardly a good period then both in motoring and in general, yet at least there would have been less chance of bankruptcy had the alternate BMC and Leyland / LMC remained separate companies.

BillyShears · Dec 2, 2012

Stop Macmillan's ridiculous insistence that Rootes open its factory in Linwood in Scotland instead of right next door to its current one in the Midlands, and you may save Rootes as well.

TheMann · Dec 2, 2012

Masked Grizzly said:
They could have adapted the Mini to the Indian / South Asian market by making the Mini more spartan (yet more practical by including a hatchback) and ditching the chrome with even the front grille resembling the Minivan, while to further reduce costs initially have the Mini being powered by either 2-cylinder A-series (maybe also in two-stroke form) or sub-1.0 4-cylinder A-Series.

Original Minis couldn't get much more spartan - they didn't even have heaters, the first ones. The hatchback idea is a good one and should be done, and early Minis didn't have much in the way of chrome at all, not to mention the first ones having 850cc engines. Two-strokes are not a good idea if you ask me - less reliable and more maintenance-intensive. I agree that the Mini could well work in India, but I don't think you can knock the price down that much further. I would make a few other changes to the design for the subcontinent, namely not exposing the electrical system to the elements in a rainstorm. You ain't seen a rainstorm until you've seen some of the ones that hit India in monsoon season.

Masked Grizzly said:
Perhaps in an alternate scenario the original Mini could have been replaced in the late-60s / early-70s by either the 9X (possibly made to resemble the original Mini) or the Barrel Car Mini prototypes, as both were a lot cheaper to produce and thus potentially more profitable.

And I can see how that could be done, but the Mini by the late 1960s was a British icon, a car that movie stars and some of the biggest music artists in the world drove and loved and yet was available for nearly anyone to buy, as well as being the dream of a car nut because of the fact that it handled like a shifter kart. The peak of sales for the Mini was in 1969, so why hack it off before then? The 9X proposals started at ugly and went downhill from there, and while some of the small car concepts BMC had in mind were very avante-garde, it's a case of "if it isn't broke, why fix it?" Like I said before, I think the best tactic for the Mini long term is to take advantage of its popularity and style and move it somewhat upmarket.

Masked Grizzly said:
The Aquila cannot have been anyone more advanced than the Citroën GS, Citroën CX and others were at the time, with the first two proving to be very successful and essentially being copies of the Pininfarina 1100 / 1800.

While both had excellent initial sales, as The Oncoming Storm pointed out, the GS and CX's problems with reliability were well-known - French cars in the 1970s were just as bad (in some cases worse) as what BL built. In order to do a design like the Aquila you can't just have a Marina underneath. The Ital tried that and it killed Morris.

Masked Grizzly said:
Even without turbocharging, the 2.0 O-Series engine was capable of up to 129 bhp. (see MG: The Untold Story)

And 129 horsepower would have been plenty adequate for the job (remember the Golf GTI of 1975 was 110 bhp), but could BL make those in large numbers and make them reliable? Remembering the problems they had with the Dolomite Sprint, I'd call that 50/50 at best.

The Oncoming Storm · Dec 2, 2012

BillyShears said:
Stop Macmillan's ridiculous insistence that Rootes open its factory in Linwood in Scotland instead of right next door to its current one in the Midlands, and you may save Rootes as well.

Certainly not having to have Hillman Imp engine blocks cast in Linwood before being sent to Coventry for final assembly before being sent back to Linwood for installation would help but you still end up with the fact that the end product, the Hillman Imp, is a pile of crap.

in the end that's what killed the British Motor Industry, poorly designed products that failed to find a market.

Masked Grizzly · Dec 2, 2012

The peak of sales for the Mini was in 1969, so why hack it off before then?

That may be the case though the Mini was quite an unloved little car by the early/mid-70s, thanks to the arrival of smart superminis, such as the Fiat 127, Peugeot 104, Autobianchi A112, Volkswagen Polo, Renault 5 and Ford Fiesta that made the Mini look dated, along with the Mini lacking any significant development like a 3/5-door hatchback, modern-looking Innocenti Mini-inspired rebody, 5-speed gearbox, MG-badged hot hatch model to replace Cooper S, 2-cylinder A-Series (albeit the non-two-stroke prototype), OHC A-Series, 3-cylinder E-Series or even the much lighter more superior 9X engine (not including the 1.3 V6).

The Mini only reached its Iconic status sometime in the 80s or 90s and when BMW investigated / tested the K-Series powered Minki prototypes, it was said that not only was it too late and costly to update / modernize the original Mini by then but also noted that the updates / modernizations should have happened earlier in its production (that could have happened in an alternate scenario where BMC had the cash to implement the updates and further expand the Mini’s appeal in other areas).

The 9X may have been ugly (though I personally like it and even Pininfarina’s proposal), though bare in mind that the project was unsanctioned and could have been improved on the styling front had it been given the go a head and reached production. While the “cleaner” looking Barrel Car Mini did not look radically different to the original and would have built upon the original Mini’s popularity, as like the 9X the idea was to improve on the Mini’s already superlative space efficiency, whilst also being cheaper and less labour intensive to produce.

Barrel Car Mini

While both had excellent initial sales, as The Oncoming Storm pointed out, the GS and CX's problems with reliability were well-known - French cars in the 1970s were just as bad (in some cases worse) as what BL built.

When citing the GS and CX as examples I meant in the context of their styling, which was influenced by the BMC-based Pininfarina prototypes though it is worth mentioning that BL’s products of that era for all their bad reputation strangely have a better survival rate despite Top Gear’s attempts at ridding the world of BL cars.

And 129 horsepower would have been plenty adequate for the job (remember the Golf GTI of 1975 was 110 bhp), but could BL make those in large numbers and make them reliable? Remembering the problems they had with the Dolomite Sprint, I'd call that 50/50 at best.

It shouldn’t be an issue as the O-Series unlike the Triumph Slant-Four in the Dolomite Sprint never received 16 valves until evolving into the M-Series, which is where the Triumph’s issues largely stem from. Though I would envision the engine being detuned to around 115 hp (like in the MG Maestro 2.0 EFi) or 120 hp in a hot hatch version of an alternate stylish and svelte Allegro.

Certainly not having to have Hillman Imp engine blocks cast in Linwood before being sent to Coventry for final assembly before being sent back to Linwood for installation would help but you still end up with the fact that the end product, the Hillman Imp, is a pile of crap.

The main fault of the Imp apart from being built at Linwood was the fact that it was sorely underdeveloped, otherwise the Imp would have been a worthy rival to the Mini in an alternate scenario where British Carmakers had the cash they needed and never had to deal with the crap hand they were given.

phx1138 · Dec 3, 2012

TheMann said:
how do you make a more "cost-effective" Mini without compromising its design?

I'm wondering if there was any room for making engineering changes to simplify construction: casting parts in one piece, instead of assembling 2-3 (or more)? Stamping instead of machining? Changing to less-expensive materials? (Substituting fiberglass for steel in the dash, or hood/trunk lid, or somewhere, say.)

Or, what about substituting running gear pieces? Was it possible to swap on brakes & axles from the Allegro or Maxi?

Or the Allegro/Maxi steering box?

Is any of it remotely feasible? (I keep thinking of GM's "platform engineering"...)

modelcitizen · Dec 3, 2012

Masked Grizzly said:
Your welcome, while I too like the military / political / secessionist scenarios. I find it a bit strange apart from a thread here on the VW Golf prototype, I have not really seen any motoring What-Ifs here and that is a bit of a shame since there is a whole wealth of scenarios to be had even with the prototypes from today’s existing carmakers (like for example Ford's Corvette rival or Chevrolet's AC / Shelby Cobra rival).

Of course though the 70s in general was hardly a good period then both in motoring and in general, yet at least there would have been less chance of bankruptcy had the alternate BMC and Leyland / LMC remained separate companies.

You're a car nut's car nut, you are.

My WI fantasies include:

The Corvair continued in production and developing to a 2002/3-series rival, premium-ish sporting compact sedan

Turbine! (I mean, really. If Chrysler hadn't been forced to cough up their turbine-wisdom with their tank...)

I read that when some Citroen designers developed a CX replacement on their own time, they got canned by Peugeot superiors. How sad is that.

What if the Pinto hadn't had its issue and was instead developed more like a Capri, a lithe sporty car for folks like my parents who liked the Mustang but didn't need that much snort. (My parents' first new car, a red Pinto stick-shift, I think they got the engine upgrade, Dad figured it'd be like Ford's other sporting vehicles, internationally at least.)

[Is tackled from side by grim-looking professionals in white cover-alls who start to fasten me into a white coat with extra-long sleeves. "No! NO!"]

phx1138 · Dec 3, 2012

modelcitizen said:
Turbine!

[Is tackled from side by grim-looking professionals in white cover-alls who start to fasten me into a white coat with extra-long sleeves. "No! NO!"]

I got news for you: if you honestly believe the turbine was practical for automotive use, you deserve the whitecoats...