motoring June 2022 71 www.bahrainthismonth.com anyone wanting to get anywhere in a hurry. It wasn’t until that man Henry Ford built a new factory in Manchester in 1913 that the industry got a foothold, building 7,310 cars that year to become the biggest manufacturer by a distance. Unfortunately, this ground to a halt as soon as it started due to the First World War and even after that, the green shoots of recovery were quickly stifled by the Second as almost all manufacturing was diverted to producing engines for British aircraft. Still, the requirements of war production led to the development of new mass-production techniques in the motor industry which proved invaluable in the post-war boom. By 1950, a year in which 75 percent of British car production and 60 percent of its commercial vehicle production was exported, the UK provided 52 percent of the world›s exported vehicles. By 1955, five companies produced 90 percent of the UK›s motor vehicle output: BMC, Ford, Rootes, Standard-Triumph and Vauxhall, supplemented by popular niche producers like Rover and Jaguar. Unfortunately, this wasn’t to last. By the Sixties, labour-intensive methods and wide model ranges hindered opportunities to reduce manufacturing costs – the UK›s unit costs were higher than those of their major Japanese, European and American competitors. The opening up of continental Europe also led to more imports than ever before, and it was clear the motoring pool was diversifying. By the 1980s, European cars such as Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Volkswagen and Fiat were more common on the roads than British vehicles. Luckily, offering tax incentives to international conglomerates resulted in a keen interest in setting up production facilities in the UK. In 1986, Nissan opened their first factory in Europe, choosing Sunderland as a location. It is still open to this day, and indeed, Britain is one of the biggest manufacturers of vehicles in the world … just for other countries’ cars! In a similar vein, a lot of the iconic ‘British’ cars are… well, not very British anymore. For example, Jaguar Land Rover is a subsidiary of Tata Motors, headquartered in India. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Volkswagen has taken Bentley under its umbrella and most noticeably to us here in the Kingdom, Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat owns 50 percent of McLaren! So while the British car industry is mainly an exporting business these days, its place in history will never be forgotten. For various periods of the 20 th century it was a pioneer in production and remains to this day a vital cog in the industry, relied on by marques across the globe. And of course, we’ll always have the DB5’s ejector seat.
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