Comments by "Keit Hammleter" (@keithammleter3824) on "1948: Britain's First POST-WAR MOTOR SHOW | Newsreel | Retro Transport | BBC Archive" video.

  1. Actually, the film illustrated part of why Britain declined after the War. Many of the cars shown have essentially pre-war styling, whereas American cars of the same year were more up to date. Many of the cars are small, with small engines & built down to a price which, since people in export markets were getting increasingly more affluent, spelt the end of British exports.
    6
  2. ​ @RobertJarecki  The MG TC was a niche market thing. The Jaguar XK120 open top featured in this old film only sold about 1700 cars - that's a total for all markets, 4 years sales. 1,700 cars is negligible. The only reason it sold at all was because it had a high top speed - 120 MPH claimed. The US car production in 1950 was 8,000,000 cars. The most up to date car in the film, the Morris Minor, sold 130,000 cars in 1950. Jaguar didn't sell well in the USA until the Mark 1, released in 1955, with styling very different to typical US cars, but quite new and quite good. RR has always sold very small numbers in the US due to it being a statement - "Look - I'm filthy rich. I'm got pots of cash to waste." In 1950 Cadillac sold about 100,000 cars. It was a much better car - better styling, better finish, better handling, better mechanically. The entire production of Rolls Royce in 1950 was only 2238 cars, so the sales in the USA must have been just about negligible. If RR had post war styling it could have sold much better. But better styling would have needed a lower radiator height, and that old F-head Rolls engine needed a stupendous amount of cooling. Eventually Rolls Royce obtained a Cadillac V8 OHV engine and copied it, production beginning 1959 - and that let them finally use modern styling and sell well.
    2
  3.  @peterdaisleyworrall9458  So Clarke Gable got one car? Bully for him. I couldn't find out how many open-top XK120's sold in the USA but the total production was only 1,700 over 4 years. That's 0.005% of the US market. Doesn't change my point that British cars were out of date one iota.
    1