Another reason why our country is going down the pan.

  • Thread starter Thread starter david and julie
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securespark said:
Think the 75 was drawn up when BMW were in charge.
The City Rover is Indian.
Of course, Nissan, Honda, and Toyota all have UK plants, but are all the components UK-sourced?
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Yes, the City Rover is Indian. I have seen a couple and I really don't think they are doing their image any favours.

The Rover 75 (and thus MG ZT) share their floorpan with the 5-series BMW. Which is why it was such a simple job to produce the new V8 versions in rear-wheel drive: it was originally designed to be just that!

I was on a motoring bulletin board, left after a while. Everyone just seemed to spend all day saying all Vauxhalls and all Rover MGs were rubbish. And these were people driving things like Ford Focus and Honda Civic. Now, I have driven a Ford Focus about 100 miles today and it was OK. But I got into my Astra afterwards and boy did I appreciate the difference!

In terms of countries building cars, you won't find a car that is entirely built in one country now. Is it important? I still think of my Astra as British despite the fact that it has an Opel (Fruits) badge on it in Europe, a Holden badge in Australia and a Chevrolet badge in Brazil. And I have nothing against having a "foreign" car, in fact if anyone has a spare BMW M3 I will take it off their hands :D

I can let you know how good the MG TF is next week. Much to the dismay of my Mum, my Dad decided that his ST220 was no good for weekend fun so has bought himself a new toy: a TF160 VVC with all the extras and it is arriving at the showrooms on Saturday. So I shall be going over and just making sure it gets driven properly at least once :wink: Pretty decent for a weekend-only car!
 
quality and value for money are the driving forces these days, we are spoilt for choice and the british companies didn't move with the times and eventually paid the price, the british public made their choices and here we are today.
It will take a lot of confidence building and dropping of prices before todays "British" companies win back that confidence.
What happened to the "Buy British" campaign during the late 60's early seventies? No one see them?!!
It takes a person of strong values to buy an inferior more expensive product when everyone else wants the reliability and multi functions that their money can buy/afford.
In the long run Choice is a good thing and we should be grateful for that, not all are as lucky, the Eastern block countries of old comes to mind.
 
Well, when I bought my car I tried lots of cars around the £10K mark. 206s, Clios, Puntos, Rover 25s etc.

The best new car I found for £10K was the MG ZR 105. OK, so it is a little basic and things such as aircon and electric windows required either expensive add-ons or an upgrade to the 105+. But for a driving experience, there was no competition. It had 25 BHP more than any of the competition, and boy could you feel it. The only reason I didn't get one was that I needed a car to drive long distances in and I could feel that the sharp driving and eager reviness of the little MG would result in a sore bottom and deafness after a few hundred miles.

But if anything captures the true spirit of the Mini Cooper, the MG ZR is that car. Seriously.

Anyway, my Dad's MG TF 160+ arrives on Saturday morning so I will be assessing that :D Now, name some good small mid-engined current sports cars. We have the MG TF, the Vauxhall VX220, the Lotus Elise... is anyone else spotting a trend here? We might not be turning out massive volumes of cars anymore, but we turn out some pretty darned good ones!
 
I put the British part in exclamation marks as i believe you would be hard pushed these days to find a 100% british made product , at least one that was affordable or value for money, I used to do my bit for britain and "buy British" but after 3 washing machines that broke down just outside the warranty period, i found the virtues of buying foreign and that's the point if you want joe public to buy your stuff and you want them to keep coming back then make something that's reliable and affordable.
Unfortunately due to the accustomed lifestyle of workers in this country we will never ever be able to compete on price so the only other route is building robust reliable equipment winning over consumers that way.
The only problem then is it's a Catch 22 scenario in that if you make it too reliable your market sales dry up eventually, I wonder if this was our downfall that at one time we were making quality equipment that lasted too long and the economics eventually dictated that the quality nosedived?
 
Surely one problem is that of the stack 'em low and sell 'em dear mentality, where stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap may be better... then many of us may be falling over ourselves to update / replace ... Wouldn't we ?

P
 
Not sure about our workers accustomed lifestyles. I may be mistaken but I thought(some of) the UK worked the longest hours, had the least bank holidays and had one of the worst pensions in the EU.

Many white goods these days come from Italy. Italy is in the EU.

I can remember Nissan,Toyota and Honda saying their UK plants were among the most productive they have. They also were good for quality too. Because of heavy investment by the parent companies.

I think the blame lies with the EU and their grants systems, multi nationals open and close plants for fun, following these grants around.

In this country we also have a civil service and establishment who all seem to be looking after themselves. The gov recently moved many civil servants out of London to save money. They threatened to go on strike because they would lose the weighting allowance, so the Gov still pay it even though they are not in the city!

Just look at pensions too. Gov taxed the providers so they pay us less. Civil servants are index linked so theirs go up! And we still see posts advertised with these non-contributary pensions for the Gov.

Teachers are another, my brothers kids recently had a week off, then the following monday was teacher training day!

These issues are rife in the UK with public workers(mainly management) and all effect productivity.

A couple of years ago I applied for planning on an industrial unit and it was sent back because the names of the landscaping plants were in English and not Latin! They also insisted on a drawing for grass. When I phoned and said this would mean me missing the planning meeeting they just said tough!

Our country is being strangled by rules and red tape not the workers.
 
david and julie said:
Not sure about our workers accustomed lifestyles. I may be mistaken but I thought(some of) the UK worked the longest hours, had the least bank holidays and had one of the worst pensions in the EU.

Many white goods these days come from Italy. Italy is in the EU.

I can remember Nissan,Toyota and Honda saying their UK plants were among the most productive they have. They also were good for quality too. Because of heavy investment by the parent companies.

I think the blame lies with the EU and their grants systems, multi nationals open and close plants for fun, following these grants around.

In this country we also have a civil service and establishment who all seem to be looking after themselves. The gov recently moved many civil servants out of London to save money. They threatened to go on strike because they would lose the weighting allowance, so the Gov still pay it even though they are not in the city!

Just look at pensions too. Gov taxed the providers so they pay us less. Civil servants are index linked so theirs go up! And we still see posts advertised with these non-contributary pensions for the Gov.

Teachers are another, my brothers kids recently had a week off, then the following monday was teacher training day!

These issues are rife in the UK with public workers(mainly management) and all effect productivity.

A couple of years ago I applied for planning on an industrial unit and it was sent back because the names of the landscaping plants were in English and not Latin! They also insisted on a drawing for grass. When I phoned and said this would mean me missing the planning meeeting they just said tough!

Our country is being strangled by rules and red tape not the workers.
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I was talking relatively, comparing our wage structure and lifestyle compared to the "sweat shop" wages abroad, and this is becoming even more evident with services being shipped to these countries recently.
 
It's not that they pay less elsewhere in the EU. In fact in France they generally pay better, because there are higher taxes (so they get a better NHS etc!). The key fact is that it is very easy to hire and fire in this country. As many of you will have gathered I am not exactly in support of the Labour party. However, nationalisation of certain industries and protection of the workforce are great ideas and I would love to have seen it retained, or now we are in this state, reinstated.

However, in France and Italy it is very difficult to fire people. Being countries formed on socialist principles it is very difficult for them to push these principles out of their constitution and their mindset.

So, if a company has a factory in Rome and one in the Midlands and needs to make some cutbacks, it is easier for them to close the UK factory and shift everything to Italy. Even if the Italian factory were not as efficient.

New Labour has forgotten it's roots. The whole point of the Labour party was that it offered an alternative to the Tories and the Liberals. Now it is just another Tory party. We virtually have a one party system at the moment, and I am concerned that in order to regain a balance we will have increased support for the extremist parties.
 
AdamW said:
I can let you know how good the MG TF is next week.
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Bl**dy marvellous! My dad let me have a go in his TF 160 VVC yesterday. It is very VERY good! Only problem is that for the first few hundred miles you mustn't exceed 4000rpm. And that is where the fun starts.

The variable valve timing means it feels like an absolute pussycat, the clutch is no heavier than my Astra (although the travel is quite short). The gearchange is very slick. But the 0-60 time is 6 point something seconds so I can only imagine what it does when the engine gets into the aggressive zone!

I really can't wait until it is run in and it can be opened up on some B-roads, it will be insanely quick! Mid-engined cars rock!
 
securespark said:
Hmmm. Methinks Adam likes his Dad's MGF....
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MG TF, don't forget the T!

Not so much Medium Density Fibreboard, I would say it is "More Grippy Than gripFill" and the VVC stands for "Very Very quiCk"!

It is being nicely run in as we speak with a week of driving back and forth between the family home and my Dad's current project so by next weekend the 6 point something second 0-60 time shall have been tested and I think he will be somewhere towards knowing just what 1g lateral acceleration feels like in a car! MWAHAHA! :D
 
Just be careful of:

a) TBIB

and

b) That nice Mr Gatso's creations

and

c) SPECS and VASCAR and all the rest!!!
 
Is SPECS actually operational anywhere?

I know the whole point of it is that if your average speed over a mile or more is too high then it is obvious you were speeding, but until I know exactly what is where I won't be happy. Not a speeder myself, too paranoid, but I would feel more relaxed knowing where they are!
 
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