I Love BL cars me

British Leyland.....................A total waste of British Steel :LOL:

Just to remind everyone, we were way better at bikes.
 

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Robbied196":1ssjr7r4 said:
British Leyland.....................A total waste of British Steel :LOL:

Just to remind everyone, we were way better at bikes.

So why did the british bike industry collapse when the japs started importing bikes in the mid 70s if we were so good ?
I've had brit bikes and for nostalgia value they're great but own and ride one every day for a year and you'll understand.
 
B77":2z6d7wet said:
I've had brit bikes and for nostalgia value they're great but own and ride one every day for a year and you'll understand.

I do ride one nearly everyday. Not today though, its pissing down :)

1955 Ariel Square Four, 1969 BSA Bantam (Being Restored), Matchless 350 in boxes in the shed of dread :)

Its well known the Japs came over and bought British bikes, shipped them back to Japan and started copying them. The first Jap bikes were.....shit.

The move to cars had started to hit the British bike industry before the Japs even started.
 
Robbied196":jnuitpvb said:
B77":jnuitpvb said:
I've had brit bikes and for nostalgia value they're great but own and ride one every day for a year and you'll understand.

I do ride one nearly everyday. Not today though, its pissing down :)

1955 Ariel Square Four, 1969 BSA Bantam (Being Restored), Matchless 350 in boxes in the shed of dread :)

Its well known the Japs came over and bought British bikes, shipped them back to Japan and started copying them. The first Jap bikes were.....shit.
. Maybe the first batch of jap stuff was a bit crap but by the beginning of the 70s they had done something that british bike and car manufacturers hadn't, learned from their mistakes and evolved. British bikes hadn't really been improved on since the late fifties. Just a few of the brit bikes I've had....

Norton Dominator
Norton Commando
Triumph T140 engined rat
Triumph Tiger
Triumph Bonneville Jubilee
BSA C15
BSA Bantam
BSA Rocket Gold Star
Matchless/AJS 350 trials

Most pf them with the exception of the Matchless and C15 were bloody awful. As I said if nostalgia and regular stripping down and rebuilding is your thing the're fine but I really can't be arsed anymore, I could probably rebuild a C15 engine with my eyes shut, one good thing about them though is at meast they were easy to repair unlike the jap stuff, if your brit went tits up you stripped and rebuilt, if your jap died you threw another lump in there......
 
B77":1fbhn0pl said:
As I said if nostalgia and regular stripping down and rebuilding is your thing the're fine but I really can't be arsed anymore, I could probably rebuild a C15 engine with my eyes shut, one good thing about them though is at meast they were easy to repair unlike the jap stuff, if your brit went tits up you stripped and rebuilt, if your jap died you threw another lump in there......

I don't mind a bit of tinkering and rebuilding. In many ways that is the difference to today, if you bought a BSA Bantam you got a manual with it which covered pretty much a complete strip down. If you bought a Honda C90 and had any problems you went to the dealer.

Britain did what it always does, amalgamations, BSA, Norton, Villiers, Triumph and killed off the bike industry, the same as British Leyland killed off the car industry and Raleigh killed off the bicycle industry :shock:
 
You shouldn't have to tinker and rebuild constantly because it's leaking oil everywhere.

As to the amalgamation, if you pile shite together you just get a bigger pile of shite. I'm saying that as a BMC/BL fanboy who couldn't see past his BMC Mini as I grew up when Minis were winning the Monte, so my first 4 cars were Minis. Followed the progress of BL cars in motorsport, mainly rallying, up to the TR8 and the 6R4 before it all came to an end.
After my Minis, a couple of Imps and a couple of Metros, I got a MK1 VW Scirocco, basically had German cars ever since, including an E30 BMW 325i SE.

I've always had to work on my own cars as I've never had a new car, so found VWs much easier to work on. Compare the front suspension upper arm and hub on a Mini with it's needle roller bearings and ball-joints with the simplicity of the Macpherson strut and rubber bushes on my Golf GTI that I could take apart without special tools. The Metro was much like the Mini with the added annoyance factor of having both Imperial and Metric nuts and bolts on same components.
 
Robbied196":357pyjv9 said:
Its well known the Japs came over and bought British bikes, shipped them back to Japan and started copying them. The first Jap bikes were.....shit..

But they learned fast and continually developed their products; above all they made stuff that was totally reliable and lasted. Soon they were very good indeed. And they always started!

British companies were simply complacent and deservedly had their lunch eaten. Sad.
 

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