Did one car sink Leyland Australia?

Can anyone think of which car took out the 1973 wheel car of the year award?  It was the controversial Leyland P76. 

By the time the Leyland P76 went into production, (as we are experiencing today) an oil crisis hit the world economy.  The car however, was so popular that in the first month some five thousand units were ordered. Leyland was overwhelmed by this and couldn’t meet this large volume of orders as they were not prepared ahead of time as would be the case in the industry today. 

The assembly of the vehicle was very manual labor intensive and on a good day, fifty to 100 units would be a huge push.  Part of the problem was the amount of component parts being sub-contracted to outside companies, although this saved Leyland Australia Tens of Millions of dollars in tooling costs, it potentially cost it more then triple in losses due to non-delivery, cancellations and subsequent loss of customer faith in the company.

The Leyland Australia factory in Zetland was hit hard by constant power disruptions and industry strikes which crippled the car industry within weeks, Leyland Australia was a relatively small operation compared to Ford Australia, General Motors-Holden’s and Chrysler Australia yet the other manufacturers were able to ride out the storm due to huge stockpiles of parts and the in-house manufacturing of component parts.

Sometimes, a P76 would lay idle in the holing yards awaiting delivery for weeks on end awaiting a few simple parts such as door locks or door handles for example.  This infuriated some buyers who cancelled their orders after being groomed by opposition Ford and Holden dealerships promising delivery of a new car in a fraction of the time.  Fleet operators were the first to take up the offer by the opposition companies and so it went on.

1974 saw ailing sales figures when poor build quality plagued the P76 production. This was in part due to poor quality control practices and the lack of a dedicated P76 assembly line. The P76 shells often required rework due to bumps and knock on the skinny guttered production line designed for the Marina and Austin Tasman and Kimberly lines.

Again, 1974 saw further power and trades union strikes, the Whitlam Government’s policy of not assisting the slowly declining car company and labeling the car as a lemon also added to the inability of the car manufacturer to dig itself out of trouble. The Zetland plant closed its doors for the last time in November 1974 with some 18,000 P76 bodied cars being completed, only 18 months after its introduction, and saw nearly 5000 workers out of a job. The P76 was blamed for the demise of Leyland Australia as it was perceived as a failure.

In later years, the truth about the inside dealings of the Leyland company world wide operations came to the forefront.  It was revealed that the P76 was perhaps used as a convenient scapegoat for the parent company who’s financial position in England was less then to be desired.  When the figures are done, you can see the profits after the initial $19M euro loan was established to fund the P76 into production.  18,000 units multiplied by $4500 (being the average sales price of a P76) equal some $81M, a $62M profit, so where did the money go?  Mainly back to the parent company in the UK.  So the urban myth about the P76 sinking Leyland Australia must be nonsense.

The question remains, did the opposition companies aid in the long drawn out strikes to help sink the boot into Leyland?

Regards

Peter Balikoff