there are a couple of small niche manufacturers

...like Rover themselves? Or Jaguar?

Oh, there's AC ACE, Lotus, Reliant, Bristol, Caterham, MD (builders of the truly unbelievable MD-5 - now THAT's a car I would like to put an empeg in); there's still MG (seperate production division of Rover) and Healey (still making the AH 1000) and Jensen (still struggling to put Interceptors out to special order); finally, don't forget Morgan who are thriving and have brought out a really beautiful, modern new car recently - a genuine advance for them. The industry thrives, but you can no longer point at a huge monolith and say "Look! The British Car Industry! (TM)".

In fact, there are very few indigenously owned manufacturers - AM and Jag are owned by Ford, Ford itself sprawls over various sites, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Toyota and Honda all have large plants, so how do you say what the "British" car industry is, any more? Taken on pure production volume, the UK is now one of the largest (and most modern/efficient) car production bases in Europe (a point the Japanese manufacturers have been quick to note - they have even laid of people in Japan and maintained production in England because the cars were better quality and cheaper to make!).

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015