British Leyland: The Truth About the Cars

This strong title of “British Leyland” suggests that a lot of untruth has already been published about the cars of the British Leyland conglomerate. It goes further to imply that ‘cover-up’ stories have been in the majority. This may be so, but for once, perhaps even for the first time, the story told in this book is neither ‘knocking copy’ (better known as ‘Leyland bashing’) nor sweet-talking praise of the disguising sort. Here is an attempt at setting the hardware straight, giving praise where praise is due, but at the same time giving reasoned criticism without mincing words when the wrong decisions were made, simply resulting in bad cars. Author Jeff Daniels, a highly-respected automotive writer, winds his entertaining way through the whole of the Leyland car production story starting with Nuffield, then BMC, through the various British Leyland, Leyland and BL cars bannered manufacturing. Weaving the personalities, politics and finances into his ‘car’ history, he names his chapters appropriately: BMC; Mini and 1100; the 1800; the 3-litre; the Maxi; the poster-merger plans; the Marina; the Allegro; the Princess; Rover and Triumph; Jaguar; the sports cars; and, the present and future. This book is full of personal anecdotes previously unrecalled comments from the contemporary scene and around 150 photographs of the representative cars and many unknown prototypes and designs of ‘might have beens’ – some excellent in concept, and some terrible. Here is the full product story of Britain’s largest truly indigenous car manufacturer. Contents: Foreword by Graham Turner, author of The Leyland Papers; Introduction; 1. BMC: the growth of an Empire; 2. Revolution: Mini and 1100; 3. Misjudgement: the 1800; 4. Irrelevance: the 3-litre; 5. Disaster: the Maxi; 6. Misalliance: the post-merger plans; 7. New convention: the Marina; 8. Vital stumble: the Allegro; 9. Better shape: the Princess; 10. Solid Quality: Rover and Triumph; 11. Eternal Pinnacle: Jaguar etc