A glorious industrial heritage?, or...

[pdk42]

just junk that led to our industrial demise?


A Glorious Industrial Heritage? by Paul Kaye, on Flickr

[pdk42]

Re: A glorious industrial heritage?, or...

We all know why the English have their beer warm don't we?... because Lucas made refrigerators too!

[Ricoh]

Re: A glorious industrial heritage?, or...

If I'm not mistaken, the Indians love 'em.

[Otto]

Re: A glorious industrial heritage?, or...

That looks like an Austin A95 or A105 to me? I guess Lucas made the battery and the starter motor too, hence the hole in the bumper for the starting handle .

I used to work for Joe Lucas when I were a lad; they used cardboard cell separators rather than plastic in the batteries fitted as original equipment in cars. That ensured the battery was as cheap as possible whilst just lasting the guarantee period. When they failed soon after the guarantee ran out, the irritated car owner would usually replace them with a different brand!

I believe there is a British Car Club in the USA somewhere that offers an annual Joseph Lucas Prince of Darkness award .

[pdk42]

Re: A glorious industrial heritage?, or...

My father worked for Joseph Lucas too - but in the Gas Turbine Equipment division. They made fuel systems for jet engines. I think that stuff was of good quality. They also had a foray into fuel injection for cars, but it was a mechanical system which proved very unreliable (hands up anyone who had a Triumph 2000i), being eclipsed by the Bosch piezo system which came a little after.

[Otto]

Re: A glorious industrial heritage?, or...

Ha! I was in the GTE division too, at Shaftmoor Lane around 1969-73; I was a student apprentice. I had a Triumph TR6 later on which also had that fuel injection system. It did about 12mpg when I first got it so I had a reconditioned metering unit fitted. That got it up into the 20s but it wasn't long before the signs of an over-rich mixture returned, so I made it my business to find out how it worked. Having done that, and tweaked my own car so that it ran as sweet as a nut and did 30+ mpg on a run, I wrote an article for the TR Register magazine. The Achilles heel of the system was a "flying shuttle" which delivered the petrol in amounts determined by how far it "flew". It had no lubrication other than the petrol itself thus leading to rapid wear. It was quite a clever and simple system but that was its downfall. Once electronics had become sufficiently cheap and reliable the mechanical system was abandoned.

Around that time colleagues were working on fuel systems for the Concorde and RB-211 projects, and super-glue was so new that wags were gluing half-crowns to the floor with it to see if anyone could pick one up. The Chief Engineer walked past, noticed one, kicked it with the heel of his shoe, pocketed it and walked on without a murmur .

[OM USer]

Re: A glorious industrial heritage?, or...

Just requires a quick brush up and it'll be fine.

[pdk42]

Re: A glorious industrial heritage?, or...

Ha! I was in the GTE division too, at Shaftmoor Lane around 1969-73; I was a student apprentice. I had a Triumph TR6 later on which also had that fuel injection system. It did about 12mpg when I first got it so I had a reconditioned metering unit fitted. That got it up into the 20s but it wasn't long before the signs of an over-rich mixture returned, so I made it my business to find out how it worked. Having done that, and tweaked my own car so that it ran as sweet as a nut and did 30+ mpg on a run, I wrote an article for the TR Register magazine. The Achilles heel of the system was a "flying shuttle" which delivered the petrol in amounts determined by how far it "flew". It had no lubrication other than the petrol itself thus leading to rapid wear. It was quite a clever and simple system but that was its downfall. Once electronics had become sufficiently cheap and reliable the mechanical system was abandoned.

Around that time colleagues were working on fuel systems for the Concorde and RB-211 projects, and super-glue was so new that wags were gluing half-crowns to the floor with it to see if anyone could pick one up. The Chief Engineer walked past, noticed one, kicked it with the heel of his shoe, pocketed it and walked on without a murmur .

Small world. My father worked at the plant in Broadgreen, Liverpool. He was there from about 1950 something until he retired in 1982 (the year I graduated and got a real job ). He was a toolmaker all his life.

[pdk42]

Re: A glorious industrial heritage?, or...

Prompted by thinking of my father's old job, I did a bit of Googling about Lucas and what happened to it, falling on various references to many another UK manufacturing company that met its demise during the 80s. It seems that whilst other countries protected these sort of businesses, the UK let it all die (partly part of the political mood during the Thatcher years, but I suspect its origins significantly pre-date her).

Not much seems to have changed - GKN is in the process of being acquired by Melrose who, if they do what they've done with every other company they've acquired, will simply asset-strip and re-sell what's worth selling and dump the rest.

A few quotes:

Miller (director of Melrose): “Let me assure you that GKN is entering into very good hands.”

Michael Heseltine: “No other country would let this happen.”

The Labour MP Jack Dromey: “The British national interest sold down the river. A bleak day for British industry. The takeover by Melrose makes a mockery of any talk by government of an industrial strategy.”

Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary: “Ministers got involved far too late and effectively rolled over.”

As the Donald would say - SAD!

[Otto]

Re: A glorious industrial heritage?, or...

When I was at Lucas the unions ruled the roost and called strikes at the drop of a hat. A lot of Lucas products were pretty dire (though not the jet engine parts, fortunately!) and they simply didn't invest in product development.

They rebranded their packaging for bulbs etc. with a logo that was basically a capital letter L in a stripe that was intended to look like a ribbon around the corner of the box. It didn't take long for someone to point out that this looked exactly like a downward pointing arrow, indicating the direction of travel of the company!

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/9174yp4rsPL._SL1500_.jpg