Comments by "Alan hat" (@alanhat5252) on "Number 27"
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You've missed a couple of points or I misheard,
1) the relationship with the unions was antagonistic & combative, 'us & them', much as we're seeing with RMT/train companies/Government today whereas Japanese union relations were & are cooperative, unions actually sit on design teams because their viewpoint is appreciated & unions will often go to management with suggestions for improvements to company or products.
British unions know very little of what's going on till it's foisted on them & at that point their options are either to let it ride or to fight, often involving strikes. Unions are blamed for failures of both management & Government.
2) Sir Alec Issigonis seems to have been the only designer trusted by both management & Government, he designed the Morris Minor, BMC Mini, BL 1100, 1800 & Maxi without much interference but everyone else seems to have had a fight. The Sherpa is enlightening, BL decided their J4 & JU vans were seriously outdated & they needed a competitor for Ford's Transit so they did the initial work & determined it would take £4million to get the first one off the production line. The next step was to approach the owners, the Government, for the cash. Government agreed Sherpa was needed & they stumped up cash -- £1million, a quarter of what was needed, so Sherpa was built from the parts bin starting with the JU chassis & axles, J4 rear body, Marina engine & various other parts robbed from around the factory. It worked incredibly well considering but obviously not a patch on the Transit.
The billions Government spent was on social engineering not on vehicle engineering.
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