Carryfast, your whole argument appears to be that the TL12 should’ve been a Paccar MX13 with a Rolls Royce badge, the Triumph 2.5pi should’ve had the 3.5 V8 so you could have a burn up with a 535i, the BL workforce worked to German standards and Donald Stokes had god like qualities. To that you recently added that AEC should’ve carried on building the Routemaster for another 11yrs.
Well as this all started with the TL12, let’s start there, anecdotes all claim that the TL12 was a flying machine, I’ve never heard of anything problematic about it, the same applies to the T45, the only negative things I’ve heard about that are gearbox related and it’s infamy regarding the whine from the diff, that’s it.
Yes the TL12 was as far as you could go with the basic engine design, but so was the V8 fitted in the completely new 4 series Scania, to raise BHP from 530 to 580 Scania, despite all their experience, knowledge and money had to raise capacity from 14 to 16 litres, nobody had a problem with using the 14 litre engine at the launch of the 4 series, even though the engine design was at the end of it’s life. What’s the difference between that and a T45? Nothing, it’s exactly the same, except Scania had already isolated itself from its money hemorrhaging car division, having off loaded Saab to GM, yet it still launched a completely new range, after 15yrs of the 2/3 series with the same basic engine design as the LB series in 1969 or thereabouts. They used that until 2000ish, so a 30yr lifespan and around 25yrs between the first and last model launches to use the basic engine design. That’s the same timeline as 1950 to 1975/1980.
Now to cover pretty much all of the rest of your argument. Who was in charge while the Mini continued to lose money on every sale? While the arguments about the V8 going into Triumph cars were going on? While the decision to change the wage structure or the colour of the toilet paper or whatever it was that caused the workers to go on strike? Who was in charge when Rover designed and built the, in your mind disastrous, SD1? Who was in charge of BL car, bus and truck divisions while the decisions that led up to it’s eventual catastrophic failure were made?
Here’s a clue, it wasn’t Edwardes.