Auto Social impact

The 1920s were the great decade of expansion; private cars in use grew from 315,000 in 1922 to 1,042,000 in 1930, along with 334,000 trucks and 700,000 motorcycles. The gentry who bought cars before 1939 found driving was easy on rural Britain’s smooth road surfaces in its generally mild weather. The rural roads were famously narrow and winding, so cars were small with stiff springs for good handling characteristics on them. High taxes on gasoline and crowded streets encouraged smaller, fuel-efficient cars in the cities, where traffic lights came into use in the 1930s. Most cities replaced their trams with trolley-buses between 1926 and 1939. In London the first double-decker buses appeared in 1923

During the war all production was concentrated on war materials. After 1945 Britain became the world's largest automobile exporter, providing 52% of the world's exported vehicles in 1950. In 1953 Morris merged with Austin to form the British Motor Corporation (BMC), becoming the UK's largest producer. BMC specialized in small, economy sedans and sports cars, with 4 cylinder engines.

By the late 1950s, West German automobile manufacturers were benefiting from the Economic Miracle and rapidly gained market share, followed soon by the French and Italian producers, and the UK lost most of its continental market through neglect and stagnation. At the end of the 1950s, the Rootes group acquired Singer. In 1966 BMC merged with Jaguar Cars and Pressed Steel to form British Motor Holdings, which then merged, in 1968, with the Leyland Motor Corporation, which had by then acquired the Rover Company and the Triumph Motor Company, to form the British Leyland Motor Corporation (BLMC) as Europe's fourth largest automaker. Chrysler UK finished acquiring the Rootes group in 1967, a process it had started in 1964.

By 1970 Japanese firms identified the British market as the first major European market to attack because of the relative weakness of the domestic car industry.

Stiff competition from Japanese and German cars, a reputation for shoddy workmanship and a breakdown in labor relations brought the British companies to near bankruptcy by 1975. The UK government effectively nationalized the bankrupt BLMC in 1975, rationalising the company into British Leyland, which produced 40% of the cars sold in Britain. The government provided £11 billion (in terms of 2008 £, or $16.5 billion in 2008 $) in bailouts. Wildcat strikes consumed more than 32 million worker-hours in 1977. Management cut employment in half, from 200,000 to 105,000 to cut expenses. In 1977 Chrysler sold its European interests to Peugeot, with Chrysler UK being renamed Peugeot Talbot.

After a decline in the UK market's significance for multinational automakers, Japanese manufacturers hoping to get around EEC trade restrictions established manufacturing plants in the UK. Nissan, Toyota and Honda all manufacture passenger cars in UK factories, primarily for car markets in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

After a series of divestitures, British Leyland was renamed the Rover Group, which was eventually acquired by BMW, then split up into various divisions that were sold separately. MG Rover finally went bankrupt in 2005, ending the era of mass production by UK-owned automobile manufacturers. The remnants were bought by the Chinese government-owned manufacturers, SAIC and NAC, which later merged. Former British Leyland car brands include Jaguar and Land Rover, now owned by Tata Motors, MINI, owned by BMW and MG owned by SAIC/NAC. Only 22,000 workers remain employed at successor firms.