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, Mini, MOKE, Morgan and Rolls-Royce. Volume car manufacturers with a major presence in the UK include Nissan, Toyota, BMW, and Vauxhall Motors. Commercial vehicle manufacturers active in the UK include Alexander Dennis, Dennis Eagle, IBC Vehicles, Leyland Trucks, TEVVA and London Electric Vehicle Company.
MG Rover Group was the last domestically owned mass-production car manufacturer in the British motor industry. The company was formed when BMW sold the car-making and engine manufacturing assets of the original Rover Group to Phoenix Venture Holdings in 2000.
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 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 by BMC's successors British Leyland and Rover Group. 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.
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% share of the UK car market, with its history going back to 1895. Despite containing profitable marques such as Jaguar, Rover, and Land Rover, as well as the best-selling Mini, BLMC had a troubled history, leading to its eventual collapse in 1975 and subsequent part-nationalisation.
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 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.
Longbridge plant is an industrial complex in Longbridge, Birmingham, England, currently leased by SAIC as a research and development facility for its MG Motor subsidiary. Vehicle assembly ended in 2016.
The Triumph Acclaim is a front-wheel drive compact family saloon/sedan manufactured by British Leyland (BL) from 1981 to 1984. It is a locally built version of the Honda Ballade. It was the final vehicle marketed under the Triumph marque, and the first product of the alliance between BL and Honda which would last until the mid 1990s.
Cowley is a residential and industrial area in Oxford, England. Cowley's neighbours are Rose Hill and Blackbird Leys to the south, Headington to the north and the villages of Horspath and Garsington across fields to the east. Internationally, Cowley is best known for its automotive industry - historically it was the home of the car manufacturer Morris, which has now evolved into Mini.
VDL Nedcar is an automotive manufacturing company in Born, Netherlands. Since December 2012 it has been owned by the Dutch industrial conglomerate VDL Groep. Previous owners were Mitsubishi Motors and Volvo Cars. The company had its origins in a DAF car factory which opened in 1968. VDL Nedcar is the largest automotive factory in the Netherlands, with a production capacity of 240,000 vehicles a year. It produced about 120,000 cars in 2020. It is also the only manufacturer of production vehicles in the Netherlands. VDL Nedcar produced its millionth vehicle, a Mitsubishi Space Star, on 4 October 2000. VDL Nedcar currently produces the Mini Cabrio convertible, Mini Countryman, Mini Countryman-PHEV and BMW X1 for BMW Group.
Mini is a British automotive brand founded in 1969, owned by German automotive company BMW since 2000, and used by them for a range of small cars assembled in the United Kingdom, Austria and the Netherlands. The word Mini has been used in car model names since 1959, and in 1969 it became a brand in its own right when the name "Mini" replaced the separate "Austin Mini" and "Morris Mini" car model names. BMW acquired the brand in 1994 when it bought Rover Group, which owned Mini, among other brands.
Pressed Steel Company Limited was a British car body manufacturing business founded at Cowley near Oxford in 1926 as a joint venture between William Morris, Budd Corporation of Philadelphia USA, which held the controlling interest, and a British / American bank J. Henry Schroder & Co. At that time the company was named The Pressed Steel Company of Great Britain Limited. It acquired Budd's patent rights and processes for use in the United Kingdom. Morris transferred his interest to his company, Morris Motors Limited.
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.
Nuffield Press was a publisher and printer formed by William Morris as part of his Nuffield Organization in 1925. It was formed to primarily produce promotional literature for the motor vehicle manufacturing divisions of the organization, and later expanded to printing of all types including owner's manuals, technical manuals, magazines, diaries, and posters.
Prestcold was a British refrigerator manufacturer, established by the Pressed Steel Co. Ltd of Oxford in 1934. It manufactured both domestic and commercial refrigeration equipment. Through its history, it was closely related to automotive manufacturing, particularly that of Morris Motors and successor British Leyland. Refrigerators were originally produced alongside car bodies at the Pressed Steel facility built for Morris, adjacent to the Morris factory.
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 (120 ha) site and employs over 9,000 people in manufacturing.
Rover is a British automotive brand 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 brand are currently part of Jaguar Land Rover, which continues to produce Land Rovers, but no Rover automobiles are currently in production and the brand is considered dormant.
The Austin Drawing Office was the design and engineering department of the British Motor Corporation. From the early 1950s, the resulting projects of the office were known by the initials ADO. The numbers were assigned to vehicle and engineering projects, some resulting in production models. The ADO numbering system continued well beyond BMC's absorption into British Leyland, who continued to use the convention until the late 1970s.
