British Motor Holdings
British Motor Holding (BMH) was a
British motor company created in an attempt to halt the decline in Britain's manufacturing base in the 1960s.
The
Wilson Labour Government (1964â€"1970) came to power at a time when British manufacturing industry was in decline and decided that the remedy was to promote more mergers, particularly in the motor industry.
Chrysler was already buying into the
Rootes Group,
Leyland Motors had acquired
Standard Triumph and
Rover and had become a major automotive force. The
British Motor Corporation (BMC) was suffering a dramatic drop in its share of the home market, and in 1966 it succombed to the pressures, and along with
Pressed Steel, the car body manufacturer, merged with
Jaguar Cars to form
British Motor Holdings.
From the Jaguar perspective, the merger came about because
Sir William Lyons, the managing director and founder of Jaguar Cars Ltd was nearing retirement, and did not have a viable succession plan within the company. His only son John Lyons had been killed in a car accident in 1955, and his other board members were of a similar age to himself.Another factor was that bodyshells for Jaguar production were fabricated by
Pressed Steel, a supplier critical to
Jaguar Cars and now controlled by
BMC.
From the
BMC perspective,
Jaguar Cars was attractive because it was a success in the USA market, and was at that time hugely profitable.
BMH thus inherited a plethora of British automotive marques:
* From
Jaguar Cars came:*
Jaguar:*
Daimler:*
Coventry Climax* From BMC came:*
Austin:*
Morris:*
MG:*
Riley:*
Wolseley:*
Vanden Plas:*
BMCBMH, however, had a short life because in 1968, still struggling, it merged with the prosperous
Leyland Motor Corporation to form the
British Leyland Motor Corporation (BLMC).
