Morris Motors Limited was a British privately owned motor vehicle manufacturing company formed in 1919 to take over the assets of William Morris's WRM Motors Limited and continue production of the same vehicles. By 1926 its production represented 42 per cent of British car manufacture—a remarkable expansion rate attributed to William Morris's practice of buying in major as well as minor components and assembling them in his own factory. Self-financing through his enormous profits Morris did borrow some money from the public in 1926 and later shared some of Morris Motors' ownership with the public in 1936 when the new capital was used by Morris Motors to buy many of his other privately held businesses.
The automotive industry in the United Kingdom is now best known for premium and sports car marques including Aston Martin, Bentley, Caterham Cars, Daimler, Jaguar, Lagonda, Land Rover, Lister Cars, Lotus, McLaren, MG, Mini, Morgan and Rolls-Royce. Volume car manufacturers with a major presence in the UK include Nissan, Toyota and Vauxhall Motors. Commercial vehicle manufacturers active in the UK include Alexander Dennis, Ford, IBC Vehicles, Leyland Trucks and London Electric Vehicle Company.
The British Motor Corporation Limited (BMC) was a UK-based vehicle manufacturer, formed in early 1952 to give effect to an agreed merger of the Morris and Austin businesses.
The Morris Marina is a front-engined, rear-wheel-drive small family car that was manufactured by the Austin-Morris division of British Leyland from 1971 until 1980. It served to replace the Morris Minor in the Morris product line, which had first been built in 1948. The Marina was also sold in some markets as the Austin Marina, the Leyland Marina and the Morris 1700.
The Austin Motor Company Limited was an English manufacturer of motor vehicles, founded in 1905 by Herbert Austin in Longbridge. In 1952 it was merged with Morris Motors Limited in the new holding company British Motor Corporation (BMC) Limited, keeping its separate identity. The marque Austin was used until 1987. The trademark is currently owned by the Chinese firm SAIC Motor, after being transferred from bankrupt subsidiary Nanjing Automotive which had acquired it with MG Rover Group in July 2005.
The Austin Allegro is a small family car that was manufactured by the Austin-Morris division of British Leyland from 1973 until 1982. The same vehicle was built in Italy by Innocenti between 1974 and 1975 and sold as the Innocenti Regent. The Allegro was designed as a replacement for the Austin 1100 and 1300 models. In total, 642,350 Austin Allegros were produced during its ten-year production life, most of which were sold on the home market, less than a third of 2.1 million 1100s and 1300s sold in the previous 11 years.
British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It was partly nationalised in 1975, when the UK government created a holding company called British Leyland, later renamed BL in 1978. It incorporated much of the British-owned motor vehicle industry, which in 1968 had a 40 percent share of the UK car market, with its history going back to 1895.
The Rover Group plc was the British vehicle manufacturing conglomerate known as "BL plc" until 1986, which had been a state-owned company since 1975. It initially included the Austin Rover Group car business, Land Rover Group, Freight Rover vans and Leyland Trucks. The Rover Group also owned the dormant trademarks from the many companies that had merged into British Leyland and its predecessors such as Triumph, Morris, Wolseley, Riley and Alvis.
The Triumph Motor Company was a British car and motor manufacturing company in the 19th and 20th centuries. The marque had its origins in 1885 when Siegfried Bettmann of Nuremberg formed S. Bettmann & Co. and started importing bicycles from Europe and selling them under his own trade name in London. The trade name became "Triumph" the following year, and in 1887 Bettmann was joined by a partner, Moritz Schulte, also from Germany. In 1889, the businessmen started producing their own bicycles in Coventry, England.
The Austin Rover Group was a British motor manufacturer. It was created in 1982 as the mass-market car manufacturing subsidiary of British Leyland (BL). Previously, this entity had been known as BL Cars Ltd which encompassed the Austin-Morris and Jaguar-Rover-Triumph divisions of British Leyland. After a major restructuring of BL's car manufacturing operations, Jaguar regained its independence whilst the Triumph and Morris marques were retired. The new, leaner car business was rechristened as the Austin Rover Group and focused primarily on the Austin and Rover marques. The Morris and Triumph marques continued briefly within ARG until 1984 when both were dropped.
The Austin Montego is a British family car that was produced by British Leyland from 1984 until 1988, and then by Rover Group from 1988 until 1995. The Montego was the replacement for both the rear-wheel drive Morris Ital and the front-wheel drive Austin Ambassador ranges to give British Leyland an all-new competitor for the Ford Sierra and Vauxhall Cavalier.
The Triumph Acclaim is a front-wheel drive compact family saloon/sedan manufactured by British Leyland (BL) from 1981 to 1984. It is based on the Honda Ballade. It used a Honda-designed engine, was manufactured under licence from Honda, and met United Kingdom component-content requirements. It was the final model of the Triumph marque.
The Austin Gipsy is an off-road vehicle produced by Austin from 1958 to 1968. It was designed as a lower-cost replacement for the Austin Champ, to compete directly with Rover's Land Rover. Like the Land Rover, it was aimed at both the civilian and military markets.
Toyota New Zealand Limited is the importer and distributor of new Toyota and Lexus vehicles to New Zealand. It also imports used vehicles from Japan and refurbishes them at its former assembly plant in Thames.
British Motor Corporation (Australia) was a motor manufacturing company formed in Australia in 1954 by the merger of the Austin Motor Company (Australia) and Nuffield (Australia). This followed the merger in 1952 of the Austin Motor Company and the Nuffield Group in the United Kingdom to form the British Motor Corporation. Following further corporate changes in the UK in the late 1960s, BMC Australia was absorbed into the newly established British Leyland Motor Corporation of Australia, the name of which became Leyland Motor Corporation of Australia in 1972, and then JRA Limited in March 1983.
This article provides an overview of the automotive industry in countries around the world.
Plant Oxford located in Cowley, southeast Oxford, England, is a BMW car assembly facility where Mini cars are built. The plant forms the Mini production triangle along with Plant Hams Hall where engines are manufactured and Plant Swindon where body pressings and sub-assemblies are built.
Solihull plant is a car manufacturing factory in Lode Lane, Lode Heath, Solihull, UK, owned by Jaguar Land Rover. The plant sits on a 300-acre (121-hectare) site and employs over 9,000 people in manufacturing.
The automotive industry in New Zealand supplies a market which has always had one of the world's highest car ownership ratios. The distributors of new cars are essentially the former owners of the assembly businesses. At the dealership level they have maintained their old retail chains in spite of the establishment of the many new independent businesses built since the 1980s by specialists in used imports from Japan. Toyota entered into direct competition with those used-import businesses refurbishing old Toyotas from Japan and selling them through their own dealers as a special line. The nation's car fleet is accordingly somewhat older than in most developed countries.
Rover is a British automotive marque that was used for over a century, from 1904 to 2005. It was launched as a bicycle maker called Rover Company in 1878, before starting to manufacture autocars in 1904. The brand used the iconic Viking longship as its logo. The rights to the marque are currently part of Jaguar Land Rover, but no Rover vehicles are currently in production and the marque is considered dormant.
