page_title: British Motor Corporation
section_title: Organisation
hierarchical_section_title: British Motor Corporation / Organisation
caption_attribution_description: English: Most of these old lorry manufacturers where absorbed by BMC . The British Motor Corporation. This huge conglomerate became the but of many jokes because of the terrible labour relations and strikes there.
context_page_description: The British Motor Corporation Limited was a UK-based vehicle manufacturer, formed in early 1952 to give effect to an agreed merger of the Morris and Austin businesses.
  BMC acquired the shares in Morris Motors and the Austin Motor Company. Morris Motors, the holding company of the productive businesses of the Nuffield Organisation, owned MG, Riley, and Wolseley.
  The agreed exchange of shares in Morris or Austin for shares in the new holding company, BMC, became effective in mid-April 1952.
  In September 1965, BMC took control of its major supplier of bodies, Pressed Steel, acquiring Jaguar's body supplier in the process. In September 1966, BMC merged with Jaguar Cars. In December 1966, BMC changed its name to British Motor Holdings Limited.
  BMH merged, in May 1968, with Leyland Motor Corporation Limited, which made trucks and buses and owned Standard-Triumph International Limited, BMH becoming the major part of British Leyland Motor Corporation.
context_section_description: BMC was the largest British car company of its day, with (in 1952) 39% of British output, producing a wide range of cars under brand names including Austin, Morris, MG, Austin-Healey, Riley, and Wolseley, as well as commercial vehicles and agricultural tractors. The first chairman was Lord Nuffield (William Morris), but he was replaced at the end of 1952 by Austin's Leonard Lord, who continued in that role until his 65th birthday in 1961, but handing over, in theory at least, the managing director responsibilities to his deputy George Harriman in 1956.
  BMC's headquarters were at the Austin Longbridge plant, near Birmingham and Austin was the dominant partner in the group mainly because of the chairman. The use of Morris engine designs was dropped within three years and all new car designs were coded ADO from "Amalgamated Drawing Office". The Longbridge plant was up to date, having been thoroughly modernised in 1951, and compared very favourably with Nuffield's 16 different and often old-fashioned factories scattered over the Midlands. Austin's management systems, however, especially cost control and marketing, were not as good as Nuffield's and as the market changed from a shortage of cars to competition, this was to tell. The biggest-selling car, the Mini, was famously analysed by Ford Motor Company, which concluded that BMC must have been losing £30 on every one sold. The result was that although volumes held up well throughout the BMC era, market share fell as did profitability and hence investment in new models, triggering the 1966 merger with Jaguar Cars to form British Motor Holdings (BMH), and the government-sponsored merger of BMH with Leyland Motor Corporation in 1968.
  At the time of the mergers, a well established dealership network was in place for each of the marques. Among the car-buying British public was a tendency of loyalty to a particular marque and marques appealed to different market segments. This meant that marques competed against each other in some areas, though some marques had a larger range than others. The Riley and Wolseley models were selling in very small numbers. Styling was also getting distinctly old-fashioned and this caused Leonard Lord, in an unusual move for him, to call upon the services of an external stylist.
caption: A BMC ambulance
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