Our contract hire and lease cars are made throughout the World, with very few of them being British. So what exactly happened to the British car industry and all the famous British brands?

Some say it lost out due to lack of competitiveness, some say it was the unions that brought about its downfall, whilst others blame management. In reality it was more than likely a combination of these and several other factors, rather than simply being attributable to one or the other.

Whereas British manufacturing was quickly deteriorating, foreign car manufacturers were focusing on steadily improving both their quality and standard of work. During the British car industry’s darkest period (the 1970’s), unions saw management so afraid of them that they were able to dictate to management the maximum number of cars that could be failed by the quality control team (meaning scores of unfit cars made it to the sales courts in the UK).

What the unions and their members failed to consider however was the British consumers right to look elsewhere for their vehicles; a right they began to excercise wholeheartedly in the late 70’s.. That is what happened and the number of foreign cars on Britain’s roads steadily increased. British cars gradually acquired a global reputation for being poor quality cars, that were always surpassed by foreign models.

Nowadays things are different, British cars are of vastly improved quality and reliability but how British are the British cars of today? Land Rover and the ever popular Jaguar are both owned by Tata (a huge Indian corporation) and were previously owned by American car makers, Ford. Bentley is owned by Volkswagen and the quintessentially British Rolls Royce are owned by German giants, BMW. Aston Martin’s controlling stake is represented by Investment Dar (an Islamic investment group) and Lotus is owned by Malaysian car manufacturer Proton.

So can we expect British cars to compete in the car leasing market? It doesn’t look too hopeful, with Audi, BMW and Ford car leasing selling much better than British counterparts. As more and more foreign cars begin to flood the British market it looks unlikely that successful foreign brands and manufacturers are unlikely to be replaced with British brands anytime soon.