The question was about Europe not USA or australia 
kr79:
The question was about Europe not USA or australia
Britain was’nt part of Europe in the 1960’s/early 1970’s.So no type approval issues about importing or using American technology to start up a decent manufacturing base just like the Ozzies did in which case when we ‘did’ ‘eventually’ join the EEC we would have had a decent established British/Colonial type truck manufacturing industry to compete with the European one.Just as is the case in OZ and NZ now. 
kr79:
If you read an listened to people you would know jim mckelvie who first brought Volvo trucks to Britain didn’t have a problem with British built trucks it was the waiting times for new trucks and spares that was his problem.
If all of the British customers did’nt ‘have any problem’ with British built trucks why is it that not many,if any,Brit customers are ordering big naturally aspirated (or small naturally aspirated or turbocharged) engined day cabbed trucks to do distance work now 
.
We have been part of Europe for millions of years
kr79:
We have been part of Europe for millions of years
No we have’nt not since the English Channel put a nice big stretch of sea in the way to stop the zb Germans getting here to rule us. 
Read the topic title again ‘continental’ 
.
newmercman:
Saviem, you echo the point I made 120 pages agoKR79, You bad boy, you had to mention drawbars didn’t you, now this thread will overtake the S Wales one once you know who starts off on his one man crusade to tell the rest of us where we’ve been going wrong all these years
You must have missed that bit about the New Zealanders being open minded enough to be able to use drawbars and artics (often Detroit powered Australian built Kenworths ) as however suits the job and the British manufacturers ‘would’ have been a lot more ‘invincible’ if they’d had customers in the home market like those instead of what they had.
Carryfast:
kr79:
If you read an listened to people you would know jim mckelvie who first brought Volvo trucks to Britain didn’t have a problem with British built trucks it was the waiting times for new trucks and spares that was his problem.If all of the British customers did’nt ‘have any problem’ with British built trucks why is it that not many,if any,Brit customers are ordering big naturally aspirated (or small naturally aspirated or turbocharged) engined day cabbed trucks to do distance work now
Probbaly for the same reason most of us don’t have a tin bath in front of the fire and a outside bog times change.
That’s enough for me today I’m off to binge drink Belgiums favourite beer in some of south londons less desirable watering holes
kr79:
Carryfast:
kr79:
If you read an listened to people you would know jim mckelvie who first brought Volvo trucks to Britain didn’t have a problem with British built trucks it was the waiting times for new trucks and spares that was his problem.If all of the British customers did’nt ‘have any problem’ with British built trucks why is it that not many,if any,Brit customers are ordering big naturally aspirated (or small naturally aspirated or turbocharged) engined day cabbed trucks to do distance work now
Probbaly for the same reason most of us don’t have a tin bath in front of the fire and a outside bog times change.
The problem in this case was that the foreign buyers were asking the foreign manufacturers for a bathroom and inside bog while the home market buyers were still asking the British manufacturers to keep building a tin bath and outside brick zb house. 
Until that is those home market buyers saw what those foreign ones were buying and then decided to follow their ideas.Guess where they went to buy that new modern type bathroom and inside bog when they suddenly changed their minds.
W
A
kr79:
A
Think that might be the best coherent answer that the British manufacturers probably could have got in the 1960’s/70’s to the question of feedback from the customers regarding the possibility of any large scale demand if they’d have developed better wagons.
You’re missing the nker Kev
Carryfast:
kr79:
Carryfast:
kr79:
If you read an listened to people you would know jim mckelvie who first brought Volvo trucks to Britain didn’t have a problem with British built trucks it was the waiting times for new trucks and spares that was his problem.If all of the British customers did’nt ‘have any problem’ with British built trucks why is it that not many,if any,Brit customers are ordering big naturally aspirated (or small naturally aspirated or turbocharged) engined day cabbed trucks to do distance work now
Probbaly for the same reason most of us don’t have a tin bath in front of the fire and a outside bog times change.
The problem in this case was that the foreign buyers were asking the foreign manufacturers for a bathroom and inside bog while the home market buyers were still asking the British manufacturers to keep building a tin bath and outside brick zb house.
Until that is those home market buyers saw what those foreign ones were buying and then decided to follow their ideas.Guess where they went to buy that new modern type bathroom and inside bog when they suddenly changed their
minds.
Staffodshire probably
newmercman:
You’re missing the nker Kev
newmercman:
You’re missing the nker Kev
Think that’s probably exactly what they said at Bedford when they built a 6V71 powered 32 tonner and at Leyland’s when they decided to build the T45 and then shut up shop.Zb em give em what they want bunch of nkers the zb lot of em.
I think you`ll find Lord Stokes did more damage to the British lorry manufacturing industry than anyone else did, google Lord Stokes Carryfast 
ramone:
I think you`ll find Lord Stokes did more damage to the British lorry manufacturing industry than anyone else did,:
There’s also a line of thought,which is the one I agree with,which says that he was handed an impossible job and which he actually made the best of that he could have done in the circumstances which applied at the time.
Unless that is there’s some evidence out there on google that Leyland was subject to massive sales enquiries,in the home market,during the 1960s/early 1970’s,for trucks like the F88/F89,or a typical type yank wagon of the time,and that those factories then would have had the up to date plant and machinery to even to meet those orders even in the unlikely event that those buyers did exist which they did’nt.Don’t forget that our factories had been starved of the investment needed to update their production outputs by the country having to pay the debts for fighting a world war and rebuilding europe especially Germany 
.There was an old line in the factories which applied to Leylands just as much as any other British manufacturing industry at the time.
We the willing led by the unknowing are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.We have been doing so much,with so little,for so long,that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
If only they’d had the buyers and the orders to let them prove it.
Carryfast:
ramone:
I think you`ll find Lord Stokes did more damage to the British lorry manufacturing industry than anyone else did,:There’s also a line of thought,which is the one I agree with,which says that he was handed an impossible job and which he actually made the best of that he could have done in the circumstances which applied at the time.
Unless that is there’s some evidence out there on google that Leyland was subject to massive sales enquiries,in the home market,during the 1960s/early 1970’s,for trucks like the F88/F89,or a typical type yank wagon of the time,and that those factories then would have had the up to date plant and machinery to even to meet those orders even in the unlikely event that those buyers did exist which they did’nt.Don’t forget that our factories had been starved of the investment needed to update their production outputs by the country having to pay the debts for fighting a world war and rebuilding europe especially Germany
We the willing led by the unknowing are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.We have been doing so much,with so little,for so long,that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
If only they’d had the buyers and the orders to let them prove it.
I think you will find that Lord Stokes poured the money into the car division of British Leyland and didn’t invest in the lorry side of the company.
Dave the Renegade:
Carryfast:
ramone:
I think you`ll find Lord Stokes did more damage to the British lorry manufacturing industry than anyone else did,:There’s also a line of thought,which is the one I agree with,which says that he was handed an impossible job and which he actually made the best of that he could have done in the circumstances which applied at the time.
Unless that is there’s some evidence out there on google that Leyland was subject to massive sales enquiries,in the home market,during the 1960s/early 1970’s,for trucks like the F88/F89,or a typical type yank wagon of the time,and that those factories then would have had the up to date plant and machinery to even to meet those orders even in the unlikely event that those buyers did exist which they did’nt.Don’t forget that our factories had been starved of the investment needed to update their production outputs by the country having to pay the debts for fighting a world war and rebuilding europe especially Germany
We the willing led by the unknowing are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.We have been doing so much,with so little,for so long,that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
If only they’d had the buyers and the orders to let them prove it.
I think you will find that Lord Stokes poured the money into the car division of British Leyland and didn’t invest in the lorry side of the company.
Think you’ll find that there was no money to ‘pour’ anywhere at the time or generations of factory workers since the war would’nt have had that old line passed on as part of their essential training knowledge.
Lord Stokes tried to close AEC as early as 1968.The same company which had markets in Australia,South Africa and New Zealand to name a few.A company that worked hand in hand with London Transport and were in advanced stages of development of a rear engined Routemaster.AEC had an excellent relationship with their customers before the merger and the ill fated absorbtion into the Leyland group.Gingerfold wrote on here that the V8 problems were solved by 73 but it was never relaunched.The Mercury was the best 16 tonner on the market but never improved due to lack of funds going into an ailing car market with workers on strike every week ,theres the gas turbine experiment that never worked and the headless wonder which probably did as much damage to Leylands image as anything.Who would you say made these great decisions?