Disaster Down Under - Leyland P76

due to the historical connection between britain and australia the uk car industry once held a strong position on this vital export market and even sported its own factory in the suburbs of sydney to help supply the demand for australian versions of regular british models then in 1973 the position of the british motor industry in australia was suddenly lost upon the launch of the leyland p76 a model with great promise that sadly fell victim to the usual slew of poor management and workmanship that sought to ruin all of british layland's products by the mid-1960s bmc australia was enjoying huge sales success providing the buyer down under with cheap and economical alternatives to equivalents sold by the big detroit manufacturers ford chrysler and holden the latter being a subsidiary firm of general motors while there are issues with build quality bmc cars were able to keep themselves profitable and although they ostensibly appeared to be cosmetically modified versions of regular uk family cars such as the mini and the morris 1800 as well as the austin tasman and the kimberley the underpinnings of the cars were extensively modified to suit the harsher australian conditions but bmc australia were not completely satisfied with their current business arrangement of essentially reworking british cars compounded further by british models not fully satisfying the needs of the australian buyer such as having low amounts of boot space therefore in february 1968 the advanced model group or amg was established by the recently rebranded successor to bmc australia leyland australia the purpose being to develop a car without input from the company's superiors in britain while also designing it in a manner that would suit the needs of the australian buyer and following the same general lines of contemporary american equivalents including the ford falcon the chrysler valiant and the holden premiere the end result being two proposed models a medium-sized saloon designated model a proposed for launch in 1973 and a larger family car for 1974 called model b with each car sharing as many components as possible unfortunately development didn't progress too far before the management at british leyland chose instead to support the upcoming replacement for the popular maurice minor what would eventually become the morris mariner of 1971. therefore leyland australia were forced to sacrifice model a in place of the new marina while modifying the car accordingly for the australian market but these changes were minimal at best resulting in a machine totally ill suited for the local conditions that was compounded by its own endemic flaws while the amg model a was dropped model b was allowed to progress coming under the codename ydo26 with leyland australia's director of engineering david beach flying to england in order to secure a budget of 30 million australian dollars for the scheme but was eventually sent home with only 21 million australian dollars or 8.5 million pounds which wasn't nearly enough to develop a suitable car from scratch exacerbated further by this budget also being required to include refurbishment of the production facilities at leyland's factory in zetland near sydney furthermore as leyland australia had no proving ground of their own to test the ydo-26 and with no previous model on which they could disguise the development mules the engineering team purchased and reworked three contemporary holden cars in order to test equipment destined for the upcoming model a six-cylinder kingswood sedan a v8 monaro coupe and a six-cylinder kingswood wagon among the equipment installed was a 3.5 litre rover v8 mcpherson strut suspension power steering borg warner 35 automatic transmission and an e6 2.6 liter overhead cam straight six engine this ruse working so well that another four holdens were bought and modified to match the technical specifications of the yd026 while maintaining the outward appearance of kingswoods and monaro's one of the more important aspects of the car was the choice of the highly successful rover v8 which was derived from an earlier buick small block v8 used in large american pickup trucks and had been previously applied to the rover p5b rover p6 and the range rover receiving widespread acclaim for its flexible and powerful design contrary to popular belief the car's styling was not penned by giovanni michelotti but instead was the brainchild of leyland australia chief stylist roman rodeburgh but he and his team had only seen previous experience slightly reworking the cosmetics of uk cars such as the kimberley which didn't amount to more than a few changes thus they had never styled the car from scratch after his initial design was ignored in favor of submissions from carmen of germany the british leyland styling studios at longbridge in birmingham and michelotti himself roadberg revised his design while on holiday and resubmitted it for the approval of david beach presenting two stylish models the serious looking saloon car for the ydo-26 sedan and a sporty wedge-shaped model for the proposed ydo-27 coupe version it was therefore roadberg's designs that came through in the end but in order to help market the car beach shortlisted a number of famous car stylists and styling studios that could finalize the look and therefore be credited to give it extra selling power with ital design the karat zaria of famous italian car designer giorgioto gizarro being considered first but discussions ended quickly due to disagreements between beech and gejaro while former triumph engineer and executive harry webster considered instead the services of michelotti who had provided past styling assistance with the likes of the triumph herald spitfire and tr4 therefore michelotti tidied up roadburg's designs and took overall credit for the styling with beach himself making some minor alterations to the look of the front and rear end while the car's name p76 is believed to have been based on the first three digits of the british army id number of british leyland chairman lord stokes it was around this time that the first pre-production p-76 was assembled at the mg factory in abingdon near oxford and early testing revealed the car was incredibly strong while also showing areas of improvement such as better bonnet latches modifications to the inner structure and the fitting of side intrusion beams integrated into the doors a first for an australian car and not required as standard until 1976. in terms of performance the leyland p76 with the 4.4 liter rover v8 could deliver a not to 60 time of 7.9 seconds and go on to a top speed of 114 miles an hour while sporting a fuel consumption of 19.5 miles per gallon figures that in terms of speed were lower than the contemporary ford falcon which had a naught to 60 time of 6.3 seconds and a top speed of 132 miles an hour but presented improved fuel consumption the ford only capable of 14.5 mpg in addition to the sedan two other derivatives were proposed for the leyland p-76 including the aforementioned wedge-shaped coupe known as the four-seven which was scheduled for launch in 1974. while a station wagon prototype was also created but neither car made it to the showroom with most of the production models for the four seven around 65 units being crushed before they could be put on sale in order to drive up the price of the eight surviving four sevens so as to make a quick profit when they were sold at auction in 1975. aside from the initial budgetary and styling problems though actual production of the cars paneling was troublesome with carmen of germany originally to provide the tooling but were unable to deliver in time for production to start thus beach chose prestil fisher which had been purchased by bmc in 1965 and was now part of the leyland group unfortunately due to the size of the p-76 when compared to british models press steel struggled to provide tooling that would suit such dimensions but were still given the commission regardless as they were already part of the leyland group and therefore made things more convenient logistically the hasty decision to choose pressed steel despite their inability to create panels of suitable quality led to major issues early on with substandard jig tooling causing the a-pillars to shrink back towards the body when mated to the roof panel while its pioneering bonded front and rear screens were prone to water leaks dust ceiling issues and cracked windows and the front doors struggled to fit within their respective apertures further problems included the inner door panels being incorrectly shaped from the outset the firewall steering column cover plate automatic clutch cable blanking plate and boot seal failing to work properly the unskilled line workers were getting to put in necessary grommets and sealants and would only bond the windscreens on three sides and the ergonomic dashboard designed by za fairlane stylist mark casakis had not been developed adequately and therefore quickly distorted in the sun with the fake wood fascias rapidly deteriorating there was also trouble with the window winder mechanisms that were too weak t-bar shifters that fell off due to poor clips windscreen wipers that bounced on the windscreen leading to rapid failures dash top switches that broke and sent to consoles that rattled the dimensions varying due to the hella produced zinc die cast head and tail light assemblies that caused fitment problems as did inferior clips holding the c-pillar vents and the air conditioning was substandard due to the smith's compressor not being suited for a large glass house cabin area like that on the p-76 finally came problems with the engines the choice of a 4.4 litre version of the rover v8 being a suitable lightweight competitor to what ford holden or chrysler could provide but hot weather testing failed to reveal that the spark plugs ran too cool thus requiring their change at first service while cars fitted with the 2.6 liter e6 engine suffered from blown head gaskets oil leaks from the rear adapter plate and weak water pump push rods numerous faults with the p-76 and a reliance on parts imported from their production facilities in britain meant that brand new units were stockpiled in order to await component delivery while the unskilled labor at the zetland factory which comprised largely of migrant workers from across the pacific rim who couldn't speak english were retrained but as stockpiled cars requiring fixes were put back onto the production line to address their issues this caused significant delays more trouble arose due to the physical dimensions of the production line itself which have been built for the much smaller australian version of the reilly 1.5 known as the morris major and the austin lancer thus causing damage to new p-76s as they proceeded down the line with calls to rebuild the production facilities for the wider p-76 being ignored by the british layland management by the time the car was launched in 1973 leyland australia had lost 15 million australian dollars or 8.6 million pounds to the p-76 development and the company was forced to take on 15 million australian dollar euro dollar loans to keep the project going 2 million of which was spent on a rectification center with 60 highly trained staff that would take every brand new car from the production line and extensively rework it in order to make it suitable for sale the final straw for the p-76 came following the oil crisis of october 1973 when due to a subsequent spike in fuel prices the demand for buying large family cars like the p76 dropped massively on australia affecting all of the major car makers with ford holden and chrysler all losing around seven to fifteen percent of their market share while any further funding from british leyland was crippled due to the three-month coal miners strike of december 1973 resulting in a loss of nearly 1 million pounds therefore after a year of struggling along with the p-76 and its woeful sales together with the unpaid euro dollar loans british leyland announced in october 1974 that the zealand factory would be shut together with three other international assets of the leyland group the nueva montana cuiano company of spain inochenti of italy and laycore of south africa the curtain finally fell on the zeitlin factory after only 18 years of work in march 1975 when the last of 18 0007 p76s rolled off the line ending an 18-month production run and leaving hundreds of workers unemployed britain's influence on the australian market going from among the uk car industry's greatest success stories to one of abject failure following the end of mass production at zeetland and with japanese and european models moving in to fill the void left by the retreating british leyland and detroit big three leyland australia continued to assemble cars from the former press steel factory in enfield near sydney selling complete knockdown or ckd kits of land rovers and minis between 1978 and 1982 after this layla and australia helped to assemble peugeot 505s under licence before eventually as part of the newly signed deal between british layland and honda to which the latter would provide mechanical assistance and models that would form templates for br products such as the triumph claim and the rover 200 the company began to sell from 1983 a rover version of the honda quint hatchback marketed in australia as the rover quint before all activities with leyland australia ended in march 1983 having been replaced by jra limited a new company founded through the combined assets of jaguar rover australia leyland trucks and leyland bus australia during the privatization breakup of british layland in summary the leyland p76 is perhaps the worst example of how the mismanagement of british leyland during the early 1970s resulted in one of the most profitable markets being lost in a rapid space of time the end product being derided as a badly styled and incompetently constructed machine that was released at the worst time imaginable for large family cars despite its flaws though the p-76 is not considered entirely to blame for the collapse of britain's automotive influence in australia with the car having garnered itself a strong following due largely to the fact that it wasn't the sole culprit in the demise of leyland australia but more the physical manifestation of a multitude of corporate ills you

Channel: Ruairidh MacVeigh

Views: 155,282

Keywords: car, cars, automobile, auto, bus, truck, motor, motor vehicle, saloon, estate, compact, sports, roadster, transport, road, heritage, historic, Leyland, British Leyland, Leyland P76, P76, Australia, Australian, Britain, United Kingdom, Great Britain, BMC Australia, Morris Marina, Morris, Austin, Ford, Holden, General Motors, Chrysler, Zetland, Sydney, Force 7, Leyland P76 Force 7, UK, AU, Oil Crisis, 1973, GM, Land Rover, Jaguar, ADO26, ADO27

Id: 7iuLffRiDqE

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 14 2020