Life of Automobile, The

by Parissien, Steven

  Britain’s Detroit was Coventry. The Midlands city had traditionally been a centre for watch making and silk weaving, and by 1800 was renowned as the supplier of the nation’s silk ribbons; however, by the 1870s French imports had almost destroyed the ribbon industry (encouraging some manufacturers to resort to producing ‘Stevengraphs’, pictures or bookmarks made with silk ribbon) and continental rivals were taking their toll of watch making, too. The city responded to these challenges by reinventing itself, applying its fine metalworking tradition to bicycle making. Indeed, the worldwide bicycle craze of the 1880s and 90s was largely fuelled by products made in the city; the first modern bicycle was made by a Coventry firm, J. F. Starley, in 1885, and by 1906 Coventry-based Rudge Whitworth was turning out seventy-five thousand bicycles annually. By that time, though, many of Coventry’s bicycle manufacturers had switched to car making. In 1896 the fast-talking engineersalesman Harry Lawson established the Daimler Motor Company in a disused cotton mill, aiming to take advantage both of the city’s skilled metalworkers and of the financial support offered by Coventry cycling pioneer Henry Sturmey.1 Daimler’s success encouraged other bicycle makers to shift to car production (although some kept the bicycle business going as a standby): Humber in 1898, Swift in 1900, Lea-Francis in 1903, Rover in 1904, Singer in 1905, Hillman and Riley in 1907, and Triumph, somewhat belatedly, in 1913. Other firms started from scratch. In 1903 Reginald Maudslay started the Standard Motor Company in the city with the assistance of funding from the local machine-tool magnate Alfred Herbert.

  The new automotive firms also brought Coventry a plethora of component-making concerns, names such as the Motor Radiator Manufacturing Company and Coventry Motor Fittings (both founded in 1902); Morris-Lister Magnetos (established in 1908 by two electrical engineers from Birmingham University); White and Poppe, which moved from making shell fuses for the army during the Boer War of 1899–1902 to become Britain’s most famous engine-maker;2 and, in 1903, Lee Stroyer, an engine maker which later metamorphosed into the celebrated engine and forklift manufacturer Coventry Climax, and was bought by Coventry neighbour Jaguar in 1953. By 1911, 41 per cent of Coventry’s workforce was employed making cars or bicycles, and only 6 per cent in the traditional Coventry trades of silk weaving or watch making. As in Detroit, the motor industry remoulded the city, which metamorphosed into a mirror of its employers. Thus the association football team originally founded at the Singer bicycle factory was transformed into an amply funded and well-supported city club, Coventry City FC.

  The future for Coventry still seemed promising in the 1950s. Workers flocked to live in the bright, modern city, which seemed to offer limitless employment possibilities. In 1948 the Labour government approved plans for over 700,000 square feet of new factories, and the city’s population rose from 232,000 in 1946 to 335,000 in 1971. In 1950 a competition was launched to build a brand-new cathedral adjacent to the bombed-out ruins of the medieval church. It was won by Basil Spence, and his bold new building was opened in 1962, a fitting symbol of the city’s phoenixlike rebirth and the motor industry’s enduring prosperity. In 1960 (the year in which Spence was knighted) the city also unveiled the Herbert Art Gallery, built on a site just to the north of the cathedral. Appropriately, this progressive civic gesture was funded by Sir Alfred Herbert, the recently deceased machine-tool magnate whose local engineering business, then one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of machine tools, was vital to Coventry’s car makers. However, as early as 31 March 1959 The Times was warning that Coventry’s economy was dangerously dependent on the car industry and allied engineering firms, cautioning that the city had failed to diversify into other industrial and manufacturing sectors.

  One of the most complacent of Coventry’s auto giants was Rootes. The Coventry combine thought it had the ideal car for the sixties, and aimed to capitalize on the success of the Mini with the innovatory Hillman Imp of 1963. Instead, the Imp proved the ruin of the combine. Rootes had wanted to build the new car at existing plants at Coventry or Dunstable, but in 1960 Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government had insisted that the firm build a new factory at Linwood, near Glasgow, in an attempt to create jobs in an industrial black spot (to which the government had already diverted a Pressed Steel body plant). Linwood soon became notoriously strike-prone, and was closed after only eighteen years of operation. And the brave new Imp it was designed to produce proved an unreliable, rust-prone failure. The revolutionary, rearmounted, all-aluminium Coventry Climax engine was radically new, but untested, and tended to overheat and warp, while the automatic choke rarely worked and had to be replaced with a conventional, manual device. Soon the Imp became synonymous with unreliability and breakdowns. (In contrast, GM’s European mass-market offering at the time, the Opel Kadett/Vauxhall Viva, may have been boringly conventional and tediously styled, but it was reliable – at least until rust wore away its body.) Imp sales never came anywhere near the target of 150,000 per year; in its best year, 1964, just over sixty-nine thousand were sold, but the following year Imp sales slumped to under thirty thousand, compared with ninety-six thousand Minis.

  The money spent on developing the Imp, building Linwood and rectifying the mini car’s myriad faults meant that Rootes had no cash to invest in other new models. This allowed Rootes, in which Chrysler had already taken a substantial stake in 1964 (the year in which Sir Billy Rootes died), to fall completely into Chrysler’s hands in 1967.1 The Imp had, true to its name, mischievously bankrupted the company, and the Rootes legacy was swiftly erased; as early as 1965 Chrysler’s five-pointed star was applied to all new cars, while Rootes’ prestigious Devonshire House showroom was hurriedly vacated. In 1970 the Rootes name disappeared altogether, and one by one the Rootes marques faded away, too.

  Ford capitalized on the huge success of the revolutionary Anglia of 1959 with the bestselling, if pedestrian, Cortina of 1962. Rather dulllooking, the Cortina I was improbably named for the stylish Italian ski resort that had staged the 1960 Winter Olympics. Equally improbably, the plain Cortina was designed by Roy Brown, the American stylist responsible for the disastrous Edsel. Dubbed the Archbishop while in the planning stage (a Ford of Britain in-joke: Dearborn’s project name for the rival, German-American Beetle-beater had been the Cardinal, named after the bird rather than the ecclesiastical hierarch2), the Cortina’s original trade name was to have been Caprino, until Ford of Britain learned that this was Italian for goat poo. The Cortina actually smelled better than most cars, as its fresh-air ventilation combined with the heating system to give the interior a far more flexible environment than that of most family cars. Furthermore, a tie-up with the Grand Prix racing team of Lotus saw the appearance of 1963 of the powerful and racy Lotus-Cortina, with lowered suspension, Lotus instrumentation and a twin-cam Lotus engine. Every Lotus-Cortina was originally finished in white with a bold ‘Lotus green’ stripe; and, even if few people bought it, the model’s halo effect gave the harmless-looking Cortina a significant edge.1 Indeed, the model proved the midsize sales sensation of the decade and on 7 September 1966 the millionth Cortina rolled off the assembly line at Dagenham.2

  Over at BMC, Issigonis’s Austin/Morris 1100 of 1962 – which the now-legendary designer saw as a more powerful, refined and spacious Mini – set a new standard for small family cars. Styled by Pininfarina, its compact, handsome looks, hydrolastic suspension and roomy interior ensured it sold 1.4 million cars until it was inexplicably terminated in 1973. Sadly, though, not just the Wolseley and Riley brands but even the MG marque were seriously devalued by being attached to cosmetically enhanced 1100s.

  If any cars can be said to have epitomized the look of the Swinging Sixties, it was Triumph’s classy 2000 and Rover’s superb P6, both launched in 1963. In these two world-beating executive saloons, traditional British class was combined with modern, clean lines and sporty performance. The Triumph 2000, perhaps the most handsome of the pair, was styled by one of the greatest car designers of the century, Giovanni Michelotti, and was arguably
the Italian master’s most impressive creation. Developed in under two years, it was cheaper than the Rover 2000, and while the Rover was certainly more innovatory, the Triumph sold better. Properly powered and marketed, it could have taken on the BMW 3 Series of the 1970s. Indeed, had British Leyland evolved the model, Triumph could have proved a British rival to BMW during the last decades of the twentieth century. (As it was, the appearance of Michelotti’s later Triumph Dolomite uncannily prefigured that of the classic, second-generation BMW 3 Series of the 1980s.1) The Triumph 2000’s principal weakness – one that put it at a disadvantage when compared with its formidable rival from Rover – was its uninspiring engine, which it inherited from the Standard Vanguard of 1960. Not until 1968, when a petrol-injection 2.5 litre powertrain was introduced, was the Triumph 2000 given the engine it deserved. And by then it was too late: Triumph had fallen into the maw of British Leyland, and within a decade its name was being used to rebadge Japanese imports.

  The Rover 2000 (or P6, as it was known in the trade) was, unlike its Triumph rival, all new. One of the most remarkable cars of the century, it was a substantial departure from the familiar old Rovers of the 1950s. (Not for nothing was the dignified P4 series, launched as the Rover 75 in 1949, affectionately labelled the ‘Auntie’ by its loyal drivers.) Its unashamedly contemporary body, styled by Rover’s David Bache, looked rangy, stylish and fast, and recalled the lines of the fabled Citroën DS. (Indeed, it borrowed the DS concept of a unitary body fitted with large, stressed-steel panels.) It had tube suspension at the rear, giving an extremely comfortable ride, and disc brakes on all four wheels – the first mass-produced European model to include such an advanced feature. It was the first large saloon car to add Cortina-style fresh-air vents. And by the standards of the day it was extremely safe, carrying a collapsible steering wheel six years before this feature was made mandatory in the US.

  David Bache was born in Mannheim, in Germany, but brought up in the heart of the Britain’s motor country, the West Midlands. The son of Aston Villa footballer Joe Bache, he studied at Birmingham College of Art (now part of Birmingham City University), joined Austin in 1948, and six years later was headhunted by Rover at Solihull. Bache’s first complete design for Rover was inspired; his classic, owlish Rover P5 of 1958 became the sturdy, reliable favourite of government ministers and senior executives.1 However, following the problems encountered with the P6’s much-troubled successor, Bache retired from British Leyland to found his own design consultancy in 1981. He died in 1994.

  Lauded across the globe, Bache’s Rover 2000 became the media’s first-ever Car of the Year, a designation invented by the Dutch magazine Autovisie in 1963. It was bought by executives, by families, and by young and old alike. It was even bought by celebrities; Princess Grace of Monaco was tragically killed at the wheel of a P6 in 1982 after suffering a stroke. And it was coveted by police forces across the UK, particularly in its 3500 guise of 1968. (The compact, lightweight but powerful 3.5 litre engine had been adapted from an American V-8 originally developed by Buick. Rover’s managing director, William Martin-Hirst, came across the engine by accident during a visit to Detroit.)

  The Rover 2000/3500’s international success was paralleled by British car makers’ domination of the worldwide sports car market. Serious customers bought ACs, Lotuses and Jaguars. (Those with deep pockets might even have looked at the Jensen FF of 1968 which introduced four-wheel control to the sports car, but was also hideously expensive.) For those drivers who wanted sports car styling allied to a more manageable engine – and price – there was the perky Sunbeam Alpine, the classic Austin Healey, the evergreen MG range, Triumph’s traditionally styled TR series, the Michelotti-styled Triumph Spitfire, and the beautiful E-Type from Jaguar. And after 1964, the year of Goldfinger’s gilded DB5, the Bond-inspired phenomenon of Aston Martin, too, conquered the world.

  MG’s Midget of 1961 was a tiny but classless, affordable, nongendered sports car derived from the Austin-Healey Sprite Mark II and produced at MG’s Abingdon factory. It sold moderately well; 226,000 had been produced by the time the model was axed (without a replacement) in 1979. But MG’s international breakthrough came with the MGB of 1962, BMC’s first unitary sports car. Fast and nippy yet safe – it was one of the first cars to offer crumple zones – it proved a huge success in the US; over half a million MGBs were produced before the model, together with MG’s Abingdon works, was terminated in 1980, and most of those were exported to America.

  The failure of British Leyland and its successors to plan for the replacement of the Midget and the MGB effectively handed the sports car market, which in the sixties had been a largely British preserve, to the Germans and Japanese. One famous sporting marque of the 1960s, however, did manage to survive the vicissitudes of the late twentieth century. That it is still with us today is partly due to its illustrious movie heritage, as the transport of Britain’s most celebrated fictional spy.

  In 1963 Aston Martin1 released its DB5 luxury sports car. Developed from the DB4 of 1958 and powered by a new, aluminium, 4 litre engine, it offered reclining seats, wool pile carpets, electric windows, twin fuel tanks, chrome wire wheels, an oil cooler, full leather trim and even a fire extinguisher, and was the first car to have an alternator as standard. It was already selling relatively well when it was chosen to star in the 1964 Bond film Goldfinger, in which it was tricked out with weaponry, a bulletproof rear plate and an ejector seat.2 Bond’s DB5 was so successful that it returned for 1964’s follow-up movie, Thunderball – and again for 2012’s Skyfall. Aston continued to produce the DB5 and its similarly styled successor, the DB6, until 1971. The following year, even the Bond effect could not prevent the overstretched car maker’s bankruptcy; but after a troubled few years, Aston Martin recovered, renegotiated a link to the Bond film franchise, and today remains perhaps the world’s best-known independent sports car manufacturer.

  While the DB5 was the decade’s most famous sports model, perhaps the most accessible small sports car of the sixties was the Triumph Spitfire. Triumph had not originally wanted another sports car to sit beside the successful TR4/TR5, first introduced in 1961. But Triumph’s quicksilver Italian designer, Giovanni Michelotti had, unbidden, already designed one, based around the Triumph Herald’s 1147cc engine. Triumph boss Alick Dick later recalled: ‘Michelotti was always reeling off new designs; you just couldn’t stop him. If you took him out to dinner he’d practically get every menu card in the place, design cars and leave them as souvenirs for the waiters! He could design a car in four or five minutes, and the nice thing was that he would do it to our ideas, not just his own.’ Michelotti’s new design was clean, handsome and racy.1 And it was an instant hit, in Europe and particularly in America – so much so that the same basic model, with minor changes, was produced until 1980, when its Canley factory was closed.

  Even more successful in 1960s America than MG and Triumph was the British car maker Jaguar which, in the E-Type, created of one of the most beautiful and iconic cars of the era. Jaguar had started life in 1922 as the Swallow Sidecar Company, making motorcycle sidecars. The driving force behind Swallow was William Lyons, who was a rare animal in the British motor industry: an automotive entrepreneur who could not only run a company but also design cars. His wide-ranging talents put most of his industry rivals in the shade and were to prove crucial to Jaguar’s postwar success. Born in Blackpool in 1901, he was set to join the Barrow shipyards after the First World War when a friend recommended the motor business. There he learned both engineering (with Crossley of Manchester) and salesmanship (with the Sunbeam dealers Brown and Mallalieu of Blackpool). By 1922 he was making motorcycles and sidecars with William Walmsley, and six years later he took the firm, now known as Swallow Sidecars, to Coventry, in order to be closer to his suppliers. In 1931 Lyons unveiled his first models under the SS Cars brand: sleek, lowslung, twodoor coupés, designated the SS1 and SS2. Their immediate success, even at the height of the Great Depression, was due to Lyons’s unique qual
ities: as his own designer, he ensured that the cars looked good, giving them long bonnets and sinuous, curving lines; while the salesman in him ensured that they were all fully road-tested before their launch and, crucially, were heavily marketed. (The 1933 SS1 even graced the cover of Autocar magazine.)

  The Jaguar name first surfaced in 1935, when it was applied to a four-door variant of the SS1. This carried a distinctive, lozenge-like radiator which Lyons (using the example of Rolls-Royce) subsequently applied to all his Jaguars. In February 1945 the Jaguar brand was applied to the company’s entire product range, since SS Cars had become a somewhat inappropriate name following the atrocities of the Second World War.

  As we have seen, Jaguar’s big breakthrough came in 1949 with the XK120 sports car. Available as an open roadster or a closed coupé, it took America by storm, helped by a spectacular series of motor racing victories. (All the three premier racing drivers – Giuseppe Farina, Juan Manuel Fangio and Alberto Ascari – at one time drove Jaguars. Lyons’s own son, John, also drove for the Jaguar racing team.) In the early 1950s, the British motor industry’s the only real US export successes were Jaguar and MG. With Britain still immersed in a world of rationing and currency controls, few of its citizens could afford an XK120 – but the wealthy denizens of Eisenhower’s America certainly could. Even so, by 1952, twenty British police forces were using Jaguars, and were, moreover, sending their officers to Jaguar’s in-house mechanics’ training school. As Britain’s highway system expanded, the police were determined that they should be able to catch anything on the road and opted to buy the best sports car available.