Manufacturing hasn't been wanted nor supported in this country for decades, its been shackled with increasing costs such as energy as we pursued another agenda, we went with service non industry and financial and eventually became a massive warehouse stuffed to the rafters with Chinese plastic and electronic tat, and we are going to pay the cost for that neglect of wealth making and the real productive careers and skills it nurtures dearly for decades to come.

I agree that Honda was the best thing that could have happened to BL, put some much needed quality into the product, sheer greed saw them disregarded but one has to wonder now if this wasn't just part of the design of the handing over of economic (read manufacturing) control of europe to Germany.

This country has elected poor unpatriotic leaders for the past 40 years, those who were visionaries or who didn't read from the hymnsheet of the day castigated and cast aside, quite why we put such creatures into number 10 time after time i really can't fathom, maybe we have a national death wish.

£1.5 Trillion national debt is the result and showing no signs of slowing.

I did fly the flag for years on end, eventually discovered i was one of a handful left insisting everything i bought (new at least) had to be made in Britain, what a silly fool i was, the last straw was when i went to buy a microwave oven and there on the shelf was a Belling, complete with proud union jack sticker on the front, that'll do me, you guessed it made in China, didn't buy it, that was probably when i realised it was game over.

Sorry that turned into a bit of a rant, ignore me, back to motoring,

Toyota seem to be as honourable in their dealings and committed to the country as Honda too.

Honda wanted to sell the F1 team...and not sure the government should be getting into F1!?!?

Also why no mention of Toyota in the UK?

Unlike Nissan, Tata - Land Rover Ford and GM they have taken no government handouts while supporting thousands of jobs in Swindon.

Back in the mid noughties after some years under Ford ownership, JLR very nearly went to the wall. Then a German CEO was brought in under Tata (Indian) ownership. Since then Tata have invested £billions and sales worldwide have more than doubled and the range of cars is very impressive. Such is the rate of expension JLR have had to employ Engineers from Fiat, Renault and more. UK manufacturing plants can't cope with demand so JLR are opening plants in Slovakia, China and Brazil. JLR employ over 30,000 directly and something like 200,000 UK jobs are dependant. Not to mention workers in many other countries making parts, selling and servicing cars, transporting them etc etc etc.
Does this sound like a failing company to you? Do you suppose our CEO knows his stuff?

You do a grave injustice by supposing that being in receipt of a Government grant is the only worthy measure of success. And as an R&D Engineer whose returned to JLR after a few years away and now playing my small part, I'm insulted!

The British motor industry is at it's healthiest for decades. We're producing more cars here than we've ever done in the past.

Government 'handouts' are usually used to encourage investment and employment. Although Honda didn't receive any Government money for Swindon, the close proximity of Swindon to the Rover Group, and especially Pressed Steel at Swindon (now part of BMW - Swindon Pressings Ltd), made sense for Honda., and it was also a way to circumnavigate the import quota on Japanese cars.

An extract from Honda of the UK Manufacturing's website:

"1979 Honda developed its long-term strategy for Europe. At the time, a government agreement limited the import quota of Japanese cars into Europe, so Honda decided on a partnership approach with British Leyland. This evolved through the 1980s, with the Rover Group building Honda models and Rover equivalents. Honda of the UK Manufacturing Ltd (HUM) was originally established to serve three main functions: to provide a Pre-Delivery Inspection (PDI) centre; to centralise the UK PDI function for all Honda cars imported to the UK; and to manufacture and supply the closing panels of the Honda Ballade which were being made by Rover.

The Greenfield site itself, which was previously used to construct and test Spitfires, was purchased from Vickers Supermarine in 1985."

The Rover version of the Ballade was the original Rover 200.

Honda also undertook quality control inspections of the Honda version of the Rover R8 (Honda Concerto) at Swindon. The Concerto was built by Rover at Longbridge, and completed Concertos were transported to Swindon to undergo the Honda QC process. Those that paased the process progressed into the Honda dealer network, those that didn't were returned to Longbridge for rectification, before being re-submitted.

Government 'handouts' are usually used to encourage investment and employment. Although Honda didn't receive any Government money for Swindon, the close proximity of Swindon to the Rover Group, and especially Pressed Steel at Swindon (now part of BMW - Swindon Pressings Ltd), made sense for Honda, and it was also a way to circumnavigate the import quota on Japanese cars.

An extract from Honda of the UK Manufacturing's website:

"1979 Honda developed its long-term strategy for Europe. At the time, a government agreement limited the import quota of Japanese cars into Europe, so Honda decided on a partnership approach with British Leyland. This evolved through the 1980s, with the Rover Group building Honda models and Rover equivalents. Honda of the UK Manufacturing Ltd (HUM) was originally established to serve three main functions: to provide a Pre-Delivery Inspection (PDI) centre; to centralise the UK PDI function for all Honda cars imported to the UK; and to manufacture and supply the closing panels of the Honda Ballade which were being made by Rover.

The Greenfield site itself, which was previously used to construct and test Spitfires, was purchased from Vickers Supermarine in 1985."

The Rover version of the Ballade was the original Rover 200.

Honda also undertook quality control inspections of the Honda version of the Rover R8 (Honda Concerto) at Swindon. The Concerto was built by Rover at Longbridge, and completed Concertos were transported to Swindon to undergo the Honda QC process. Those that passed the process progressed into the Honda dealer network; those that didn't were returned to Longbridge for rectification, before being re-submitted to Swindon.

Edited by Auristocrat on 11/06/2016 at 16:51

Honda are a good company however they had and are having their fair share of problems in F1.

Apparently in the year before Brawn, Honda were so concerned about reliability that they turned the engine right down. As a result the car was not competitive. The engineers tried to get Honda to tune the engine for more power but they wouldn't do it.

One of the reasons why the Brawn went on to win the championship was the switch to a competitive engine. Of course the diffuser played a major role too.

Honda did a good job in the past with reasonable products that appealed to a wide audience. But two things happened at the same time that removed most of their market.

They started to go backwards design wise with the eighth generation Civic (2015) and they followed with the same failing theme with the ninth generation.

Hyundai and Kia started selling very competitive European built and taylored cars. Moderately styled, good value and well enginered, with the right specification for the target market.

Honda needs to move away from their present styling, build reliable and comfortable cars (The present ones are tiny inside). Giving a 5 year warranty and dropping the cost of the products will help too. Mazda now seem to be where Honda was 15 years ago.

"Manufacturing hasn't been wanted nor supported in this country for decades, its been shackled with increasing costs such as energy as we pursued another agenda,"

The Government worked hard to attract investment from Jaguar, Toyota, Nissan, Honda. However, if you look at how each of those regions voted, they voted for a Brexit.

Sunderland, which relies on a single employer Nissan voted 61.3% to leave the EU!!!.

Now the reason cars are made in the UK rather imported from Japan, is to avoid all the tarrifs. Nissan chose the UK!. Those jobs were created as a result of being in the EU. Nissan's loyalty has been kicked in the teeth. If the UK is outside the EU, it puts all those car manufacturing plants outside the EU and car would be subject to tariffs (until those trade deals are sorted out). It beggars belief why workers in car manufacturing regions would take a such a big risk?. Manufacturing jobs are a matter of pride for this country, but also hard won.

Nissan, Toyota, Honda could have built their plants anywhere, but they chose the UK.

I am not a fan of the EU but Sunderland is not facing a migrant crisis.

These car workers are putting their own jobs at risk and car manufacturers would have to re-evaluate their future in the UK.

If Nissan car workers have no loyalty to the Nissan, how can I trust a Nissan factory worker to build with loyalty to the customer? May be they don't give a toss about the customer?. Would my car be built with due diligence? A car not plagued with faults?.

I have bought Nissan, largely because they were reliable and because my driver instructor had one. I have lost failth in Nissan and I guess my gut instincts not to a buy Nissan Qashqai were right. A Japanese Nissan worker would have never done this!

Sorry if this offends some people, but I cant beleive those who work in British manufacturing would do this....

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-3660150/C...l