ERF:
coomsey:
I appreciate that ERF. So if the designers had not been overruled and the normal proving process had been followed do you believe they would have had a decent engine? If so would they have had a ground breaking success on their hands? N more importantly would it have saved BL? Difficult questions to answer but intriguing for me. Cheers PaulI know the AEC V8 engine inside out, and not only do I believe that Paul, but people who have spent their entire professional life developing Diesel engines believe it was so very close to being a success too. A missed opportunity if ever there was one.
If it had been developed properly, and the subsequent turbo charging applied to it, AEC’s plan of using the engine right through the 1970’s and beyond would have been realised. No question about that.
As to your other question, I don’t really feel qualified to speculate - perhaps ‘gingerfold’ will give us his hypothetical thoughts on a Leyland Truck & Bus operation WITH a successful AEC V8 on their hands, and how that could have panned out for the group?.
Well ERF, you’ve given me the proverbial “hospital pass” with that question, but a bit of speculation never went amiss on TN. Firstly, looking at the V8 engine and the development that we know was put into improving it between 1969 and 1971. I do believe that the improved V8 was to have been the Marathon engine, with two power ratings, V8-801 at 280 bhp normally aspirated, and VT8-810 at 350 bhp turbo-charged. The reason given for binning the entire project because of excessive noise still puzzles me; it didn’t seem to be excessively noisy to me in service; I remember the Hipwood and Grundy Mandator V8s, and also the Air Products V8s based at Walkden, just about 3 miles from H & G’s yard. But then again AEC was always a company that played by the rules, so looking at potential legal problems about engine noise must have influenced Bob Fryars’ decision.
So would a successful V8 engine have saved the BL Group? There are two scenarios. Firstly, with BMC tagged on then no, it was doomed from 1968 with BMC no matter how successful the truck range might have been. Secondly, without BMC, then it might have survived but with the proviso that ruthless rationalisation of the numerous factories and duplicated models had taken place in the early 1970s. I think that Newmercman got his analysis correct with his suggested model and marque range in a previous post of his. As Leyland had acquired Standard Triumph and Jaguar, then those cars could have been accommodated within a grouping comprising Leyland, Albion, AEC, Scammell and Guy but each of the lorry makers would have to have had a distinct model range and target market. As for the PSVs then I would have given Leyland the double deckers and single deck service buses, and AEC the luxury coaches.
Looking at the number of employees gives some idea of the imbalance that BMC added to the equation in 1968. Some figures from Graces Guide for 1961 and 1963 provide the comparison.
AEC in 1961 employed approx. 5,000, and this was about to increase by another 1,000 with the acquisition of Transport Equipment Thornycroft in that same year.
In 1963 Leyland Motors and its constituents of Albion, Scammell, AEC and Standard Triumph employed 19,000.
In 1963 BMC employed 79,000, so in 1968 Leyland took on the challenge of a distressed company financially with over 4 times the number of employees. How could that ever have worked? Just imagine the sum of money needed weekly to pay the wages.
As we’ve already touched on marque loyalty then I’ll put my take on that into the mix. It was a big factor for many operators in the 1960s and 1970s, so any marque rationalisation would always have been tricky. Some very major fleets had direct dealings with AEC at Southall and their sales orders were taken by AEC and not regional distributors. There were five major operators who could call off new vehicles from Southall by just making a 'phone call. Harold Wood, BRS, London Brick Company, Shell Mex & B.P. and Air Products. Similarly other constituent group companies had dedicated operators. My previous employer Spillers Milling was a Leyland customer for most of its heavy lorry requirements, and Spillers suffered badly with the 500 series engine disaster, but it still stuck with Leyland. Marque loyalty is an important factor in any analysis.