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Moon Cat wrote: The decline in British made cars and bikes in the UK wasn't just simply down to people choosing to buy foreign, cheaper models. It was also quite a lot to do with the then Tory government deciding to pretty much dismantle and destroy manufacturing industry as it was often seen as being more trouble than it was 'worth'. The same flag-wavers that would bang on about "Great" Britain saw fit to essentially render its industries inert.
As stated by dodge one the decline of British Industry started long before Thatcher. She just put it out of its misery in a foul and terrible way. It started early, but was accelerated during the big Buy British campaign during the 70s. This worked too well. Everyone bought British stuff and realised how poor a lot of it really was!
It was just good business - cheaper manufacture, better advertising, better reliability, better features - on the part of the foreign manufacturers that drove Britain out of that race. The exotic became the everyday and the old everyday became exotic.
A note on the British car industry. There was a time around 15 years ago when you could buy an MG-F (made in England) from Japan ,ship it all the way back to England and pay all the proper duty and it would still be cheaper than buying from your local dealer! Probably still can do similar.
It still goes on. The base cost of a British manufactured car in Ireland is cheaper than it is in the UK. This is because the Irish gov't load a huge tax on new cars and the lower base cost keeps the total price 'sensible' (still a higher total cost than the in UK). If the base price can be that low here, why isn't it that low in the UK? Some would say greed or rip-off others would say it's what the market can bear .
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