Last night I was at a meeting of our libertarian atheist ( motorcycle) group and the talk was about growing up in communist Hungary. I’ve more thoughts on this later but suffice to say that Scotland was not remotely as restrictive as Hungary but the underpinning thought that society can be planned as some kind of ideological exercise leads to really really crappy automobiles. ( Lada , Skoda and the infamous E. German Trabant. What’s even more amusing is that when the Scots tried building cars something not a millions unreliable miles away was born. Note that the cars were being built in Scotland as a result of the UK gov only lending money to the car makers if they set up the factories in a place where the jobs were politically advantageous, not that made sense, hence you have parts made in Scotland , driven a few hundred miles to have work done on them and then returned. That’s pretty much what happens when markets are mandated inefficient BS happens.
This from Wikipedia
The Glaswegian workforce who were all recruited from the shipbuilding industry were also not versed in the intricacies of motor vehicle assembly, and Imp build quality and reliability suffered. They also brought with them their militant left-wing values, and as a result strike action and industrial disputes were a rule rather than an exception. In 1964 there were 31 stoppages and only a third of the plant capacity was realised – 50,000 rather than 150,000. On the other hand the Imp was seen as a “Scottish car” and was popular north of the border.
All I can say is that the Imps sold a shit lot of Datsuns ( Nissan) as people were getting tired of having to bump start their relatives at the end of visits. I’m surprised at how well loved the cars seem to have become and put that down to the UK diet of deranged moo cows. 
Hillman Imp – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
No related posts.
