Jaguar and Land Rover - a surprising pairing?

 William Lyons and the Wilks brothers created remarkable companies which made iconic vehicles. Was it just fate that brought the companies together?

William Lyons and Maurice Wilks were born three years apart; Lyons in 1901 in Blackpool.

Son of a piano maker, William attended Arnold House School and in 1922 set up in business making sidecars in partnership with William Walmsley. They progressed into body work for cars; the Austin Swallow was one result of this. Their first full car was the Swallow Sports 'SS' which caused a sensation at the 1931 motor show; SS Cars Ltd was born. Four years later the first Jaguar emerged as the first production car to exceed 100mph. The war intervened and SS Cars played their part. The company changed it name top Jaguar Cars Ltd in 1945.

The post image is of an ashtray that was my father's. He had owned one of the first Jaguars in the 1930s; I still have the leather covered wheel hammer.

Maurice Wilks was educated at Malvern and went to the USA in 1926 to work with General Motors. After two years he returned and joined Hillman as a planning engineer. In 1930 he joined Rover as chief engineer being promoted to technical director in 1946. In the aftermath of the war, Maurice and his brother Spencer created a vehicle originally made for farmers from aluminium left over from aircraft production – the Land Rover. Interestingly they always had greater pride in their luxury cars.

The route to the first ‘marriage’ was circuitous.

In the fifties, William Lyons and Jaguar were doing well, producing cars much in demand and they had virtually doubled in size by buying Daimler, but also Coventry Climax and Guy Motors. To be honest this was a pretty rich mix. It therefore still strikes me as strange that Lyons would enter into merger discussions with George Harriman at BMC. Yet, we have to remember the times  –  when BMC’s Mini was the 'must have' car for swinging sixties. BMC also owned MG and Austin-Healey whose sports cars were much in demand.  It seems that Lyons saw BMC as having the weight to finance the development of the Jaguar models which he had at least in his mind if not on the drawing board. Jaguar merged with BMC to become British Motor Holdings in 1966.

The Wilks brothers had retired from Rover in the early sixties and Donald Stokes of Leyland viewed the company as offering a slice of motoring quality to the bus and truck company which he ran. Rover would join Triumph which had become part of Leyland with the Standard-Triumph acquisition in 1960.

The mid sixties saw BMH running into trouble. The answer in the eyes of the new Labour government was size and this would be provided by the charismatic Donald Stokes and Leyland. The merger took place in 1968.

The new group had riches beyond price in terms of wonderful motor cars. The Jaguar E-type and XJ6, the Rover P6, the Triumph 2000, not to mention the MGB and Triumph TR5, and the Land Rover. Rather more ominously it had a large number of old factories, dominant shop stewards and mass market motor cars that the public didn’t really want.

I explore what became the British Leyland story in my book, Vehicles to Vaccines.

For this blog I note just three events that ensured that Jaguar and Land Rover would survive.

The rationalisation of BL could so easily have led to the loss of the Land Rover; instead the factory at Solihull was made over to 4x4 production. The Range Rover had been introduced at the end of the sixties just as BL was running out of money. The car was perfectly timed and demand soon far exceeded supply.

A little later, a brilliant manager, Geoffrey Robinson, was appointed Managing Director of Jaguar. He had no intention of the marque losing it kudos and initiated an ambitious plan to bring the company back on track. A lack of money caused this plan to run into the buffers. The appointment of Michael Edwards to lead to the eventual breakup of British Leyland had for Jaguar a streak of brilliance for he appointed John Egan to take up the reins at the then floundering motor company. Egan and his team brought Jaguar back so much so that, following privatisation, Ford paid handsomely for what was to lead their new speciality car group.

British Leyland became the Rover Group and this was bought by BMW. They in turn sold Land Rover to Ford where it worked closely with Jaguar.

The rest as they say is history, Jaguar and Land Rover both now prosper as JLR as part of the Tata Group.

It is ironic that the Wilks family didn’t see the Land Rover as their great success; it was the experimental vehicle powered by a gas turbine – Rover had after all been part of the development of the jet engine. Had this been the case, Jaguar and Rover would have been head to head. Had Land Rover stuck to the utility vehicle so loved by explorers, Ford may well not have looked at them. Yet with the Range Rover successors, Land Rover and Jaguar together look to the luxury car market where they both can prosper.

Winners and losers since 1951 - Rolls-Royce and Bentley

 Reading through my book Vehicles to Vaccines', some companies jump out as conspicuous success stories, and some less so. Beneath the surface there are many hundreds of smaller British manufacturing concerns which form the backbone of this sector.

Sales of British companies is a recurring theme and there are a number of ways of viewing this. It creates shareholder value. It offers a way for overseas companies to benefit from UK manufacturing expertise. Yet, it saddens me. Am I being too emotional? More seriously, should I be concerned?

In the case of four of our top motor companies, I believe the answer to both is yes. Let's take the example of Rolls-Royce and Bentley. I shall look at Jaguar and Land Rover in a subsequent post.

The story is well known, but can be clouded by the mists of time.

Henry Royce was a superbly talented engineer. He was born in 1863, son and grandson of flour millers. The death of his father meant that he had to leave school and he found a job as a Post Office messenger. At the age of 14 he was taken on as an apprentice at the Great Northern Railway works in Peterborough. Lack of money brought this to an end and he found work with a gun manufacturer in Leeds from where he entered the new world of electricity. He eventually formed with his brother Royce Limited electrical and mechanical engineers. I write of his meeting with Charles Rolls in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. Following the untimely death of Rolls, he formed a team around him to complement his engineering skills by adding imaginative marketing. Claude Johnson and Ernest Hives are names that stand out. Johnson’s view was that the company should build on its reputation of serving the aristocracy whose cars were nearly always driven by chauffeurs. Thus, if a customer wished to test drive a car, he would be driven by a Rolls-Royce chauffeur who had been schooled in the etiquette of service. Royce demanded the highest possible standards in engineering, as Johnson did in customer service.

W.O. Bentley was probably as great an engineer. He was born in 1888, the youngest of nine children. He was fascinated by all things mechanical. On leaving Clifton College, he was apprenticed at the Great Northern Railway in Doncaster. His passion had become the internal combustion engine and in 1909 he joined the National Motor Cab Company in London. Three years later he set up with his brother as a motor agent and soon was making wonderful cars. I write of this too in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. At the start of the First World War, he worked for engine builder Gwynne who were not convinced by Bentley’s suggestion of aluminium pistons. Humber harboured no such doubts and, with him, built many engines this way. In 1920 W.O, as he was known, formed Bentley Motors. The Autocar magazine reported that he was working on a model ‘intended to appeal to those enthusiastic motorists who desire a car which, practically speaking, was a true racing car with touring accessories’. Only three years later, the car finished fourth in the Le Mans. It was the Wall Street crash that robbed Bentley of his company, and Rolls-Royce pipped at the post Napier & Sons to buy the valuable marque.

Rolls-Royce then built both cars from their factory at Sinfin Lane in Derby, alongside aeroengines.

When I say they built cars, I mean that they produced the chassis with engine ready for a specialist coach builder to add the coachwork to meet the customers’ requirements.

During the Second World War, the production of aeroengines was vast and critical to the war effort. Cars were also produced as witnessed by the Rolls-Royce used by Field Marshall Montgomery.

Following the war, Rolls-Royce moved the production of cars to the shadow factory they had managed in Crewe, leaving aero-engines at Derby.

W.O. found he could no longer work with Rolls-Royce and so joined Lagonda which later teamed up with Aston-Martin under the ownership of David Brown.

In the fifties and sixties, Rolls-Royce produced some truly iconic cars, not least the Phantom IV, available only to royalty and heads of state.

Rolls-Royce underwent a dramatic change when the development costs of the RB211 aeroengine ran out of control, leading to the placing of the aeroengine company into public ownership. Rolls-Royce Motors was separately floated in 1973, which coincided with the launch of the Corniche, the fastest Rolls-Royce ever.

Rolls-Royce Motors was  bought by Vickers plc in 1980. They had been faced with the capital cost of tooling for new models; Vickers, on the other hand, expected a windfall from the nationalisation of their aircraft and shipbuilding businesses. Vickers worked hard to make the combination work, producing motor cars that the wealthy of the world wanted to buy, under both the Rolls-Royce and Bentley marques. In time, Vickers had to seek partners for Rolls-Royce to develop the next new model. The seeking evolved into a potential sale with BMW as front runners. BMW were already supplying engines for both Rolls-Royce and Bentley models; they also enjoyed success with joint ventures with the aeroengine company, Rolls-Royce plc, which had been privatised in 1987.

In the event, VW outbid BMW. As was widely reported at the time, VW found that they had bought the company without the right to use the brand which still belonged to Rolls-Royce plc. Undaunted, they set about building Bentleys at Crewe. BMW acquired the licence to use  the Rolls-Royce brand and set up a new factory on the Goodwood Estate in Sussex. 

The net result of all this is a duo of fully financed and commercially supported companies building distinct Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars in England. So, possibly not a cause for sadness.

Is it a cause for concern? Had this been an isolated incident the answer may well be no. As it is, these were just two of a long line of sales which neither the government nor the city did a thing to stop.

There is of course a postscript. The flood of Chinese cars into the EU is putting pressure on the German car makers. The outcome at present is uncertain.

Read more in Vehicles to Vaccines

West London manufacturing history

 The twenties and in some cases earlier saw the establishment of the new motor and electrical industries on the periphery of London and near to the river. Investment by foreign companies became more visible. The thirties in particular witnessed strong growth in manufacturing in London and its surroundings and I explore these and related population increases in an essay I wrote entitled Which urban areas did well in the interwar years and why. The companies employing the growing population were in the new industries.

Greenford and Northolt

London had an estimated 400,000 horses and the three parishes supplied hay and received in return the horse manure.The borough gained importance with the arrival of the Grand Junction canal and brickworks sent many thousands of bricks for the house building boom. The Paddington basin acted as distribution centre.

The beginning of factory production came with William Perkins aniline dye works where he produced purple, mauve and magenta which were much in demand. The business was succeeded by the Purex Lead company making paint and the Peerless Wire Fencing company. The Rockware Glass Syndicate was located by the canal and was joined by the British Bath Company and Lyons Tea. Sanderson produced fashionable wall paper including designs by William Morris. The Aladdin Factory made lights and heaters.

In the Second World War there was a vast Central Ordnance Depot handling armaments. It would play a key role in the invasion of northern France. I write about it in this link. In the First World War there had been a shell filling factory employing the latest techniques.

in 1947 Glaxo Laboratories, which had outgrown its parent company Joseph Nathan & Co, became a significant business in its own right. It had built a strong balance sheet with production facilities at Greenford but also Barnard Castle, Stratford and Aylesbury. It then built a factory for the production of penicillin at Ulverston near Morecombe.

By 1939 Lyons employed more than 42,000 people and made 3.5 million gallons of ice-cream a year. It supplied the forces, but it too maintained the morale of the nation as well as lending its management expertise to the Royal Ordnance Factories.

Brompton bicycles are made here

Brentford and the western approaches to London

Brentford had been an early industrial area benefitting from good communications. The Grand Union canal meets the Thames at Brentford and handled a huge amount of trade between the Midlands and London. So there were market gardens, tanners, soap works, brewers and distillers, jam makers, kilns and mills.

Much later, the Western approaches to London attracted inward investment including Hoover and Gillette, but also Firestone, Pyreen, Smiths Crisps, Alvis and Macleans at Brentford. The Firestone factory was considered the finest of the Art Deco buildings on the Great West Road. Western Avenue was also home to radio maker Ultra's art deco factory. The American car makers Packard had their vehicles assembled by Leonard Williams. Brentford Nylons was a late arrival in 1970 but closed six years later.

Chiswick was where John Thornycroft began his ship building business and built for the navy the first torpedo boat. He went on to manufacture steam and then petrol powered wagons. The shipbuilding business moved to Southampton and vehicles to Basingstoke.

Isleworth is home to the Unilever research laboratory for toiletries.

Hammersmith

Barbara Denny’s Hammersmith and Shepherds Bush Past reveals industries that were probably to be found in many of the outlying areas of London. To meet the demand for lighting before gas and electricity there were large candle factories. To feed a hungry population, there were rabbit sheds which provided a regular supply to Leadenhall Market. Textiles were made is so many places and there had to be dye houses. In Hammersmith there was A. McCullock and Sons. The building industry was of course huge. Hammersmith had had its brick works and George Wimpey founded his stone masons company in 1896. There were gas engineers, crucible manufacturers supplying the Royal Mint, chair makers and pharmacists.

Lyons, Salmon and Gluckstein's, bakery and restaurant chain, at Cadby Hall were aware of developments in the new world of computing. They struck up a positive relationship with Wilkes and Cambridge mathematicians working on early computers. However the needs of academics were not those of a business seeking to process a large number of small transactions. Lyons therefore went their own way and this resulted in the Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) which proved effective but once more in this story failed to convince much of the commercial market. LEO was later bought by English Electric from which it would join with ICL.

Hammersmith also had an industrial alcohol distillery run by the Distillers Company. de Havilland began in Fulham before moving out to Hendon. Mullard radio components were at Hammersmith where also Osram light bulbs were made. In 1920 GEC had the Robertson Lamp Works, Hammersmith and the Osram-GEC Lamp Works, Hammersmith.

Paddington

A village at one end of the New Road which led into the northern part of central London where the Euston Road is now. It was also the link between the Grand Junction canal and the Regent Canal which follows a semi-circle north of London Zoo through to the East End where it meets the Thames. Paddington was also the terminus for the Great Western Railway. It followed that a large canal basin was built to handle the huge volume of trade.

Clement-Talbot were at nearby Ladbroke Grove (later the Rootes revolutionary service depot, Ladbroke Hall - see the post image)

The iconic Abbey Road studio, part of EMI, was further into London near Baker Street. EMI was also at Hayes. Bush set up their first television factory in Shepherds Bush.

Southwest London

To the southwest of London, the famous Brooklands race track near Weybridge, became the home of Vickers Armstrong Aircraft. It was there that Barnes Wallis designed the Wellesley bomber and then the iconic Wellington. I write more of this in this link.

Kingston upon Thames became home to Sopwith Aviation before the First World War and played a large part in the war effort in the air and on land in both world wars. It was later home to their successor Hawker Siddeley. I write more in this link.

Motor manufacturers included AEC at Southall and AC Cars at Thames Ditton where Willans & Robinson had made steam engines. The Associated Equipment Co Ltd had been registered on 13 June 1912 and took over the already busy bus chassis manufacturing business from its then owner, The London General Omnibus Company Ltd. In 1914, LGOC suffered the same fate as other vehicle manufacturers and operators, when 1,185 of its buses were pressed into use and soon could be seen transporting troops in France and Belgium. AEC began producing on its own account in June 1916 ,and, by the end of the war, had supplied 5,200 heavy duty 3 ton vehicles using the Tyler engine. In the Second World War AEC turned its production in wartime to Matador and Marshall heavy trucks which were used, amongst other things, for transporting pipes for the construction of oil pipelines.

Addlestone became home to Plessey Radar after its takeover of Decca in the mid sixties. The marine radar part of the Decca was taken over by Racal and they had a manufacturing presence in New Maldon. New Malden is also home to BAE Systems visualisation, experimentation, and design

Further reading:

• Barbara Denny, Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush Past (London: Historical Publications, 1995)
• Gillian Clegg, Brentford Past (London: Historical Publications, 2002)
• Frances Hounsell, Greenford, Northolt and Perivale (London: Historical Publications, 1999)