Rearview Mirror: British automakers "Brexited" long ago

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Britain’s departure from the European Union, the so-called Brexit, is going to have an effect on the country’s auto industry.

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But this isn’t the first time the industry has done a “Brexit.” Although a number of automakers still build vehicles in Britain, almost all now belong to parent companies in other countries.

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Rearview Mirror: British automakers "Brexited" long ago Back to video

Rolls-Royce & Bentley – Germany

Rolls-Royce dates to 1904, when Charles Rolls and Henry Royce joined forces to build a car. It also built aircraft engines for the military during the First World War, and kept that division afterwards.

Bentley was founded in 1919 by Walter Owen Bentley. His company’s finances were always precarious and it went under in 1931. Rolls-Royce bought its assets and produced cars under both names.

Rolls-Royce went bankrupt in the 1960s, when its aircraft division developed a new engine for Lockheed and then couldn’t deliver on the promised price due to fluctuating global exchange rates. The British government bailed it out and sold it to engineering company Vickers, which put it on the market in 1998. And then things got weird.

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BMW figured its $550 million bid would win, since it sold engines to Vickers. But Volkswagen bid $900 million and Vickers, beholden to shareholders, had to accept. However, Volkswagen only got the car operations, while the aircraft division – now independent because of the deal – owned the Rolls-Royce name, which it promptly licensed to BMW. Neither one could build the whole vehicle. They finally split it down the middle, with BMW getting Rolls-Royce, and Volkswagen getting Bentley.

Mini – Germany

In 1952, automakers Austin and Morris joined to form the British Motor Corporation. Gas prices soared five years later, and company engineer Alec Issigonis was asked to design an inexpensive, fuel-sipping four-seater. The resulting Mini, released in 1959, was sold as both an Austin and a Morris.

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Leyland, another British firm, had been making commercial vehicles – initially steam-powered – since 1896. It began producing cars in 1961 after buying car and motorcycle manufacturer Triumph, and in 1966 bought automaker Rover. That same year, British Motor bought Jaguar. Two years later, British Motor and Leyland merged to form the new British Leyland.

Over the next decade, Britain’s economy worsened, and the auto industry paid the price. British Leyland got a government bailout in 1975, but eventually sold off its properties. BMW bought its Rover Group, including Mini, in 1994. It later sold the Land Rover sport-utility division to Ford, but kept the little car, which it relaunched as the modern Mini Cooper lineup in 2001.

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Jaguar & Land Rover – India

The names are linked today, both owned by Tata Motors of India, but they started as independent firms. Jaguar dates to the Swallow Sidecar Company, formed in 1922 to make motorcycle sidecars. The firm switched to cars in 1931, called S.S. for the company’s initials. When Hitler’s troops made the name a liability during the war, it switched to Jaguar, the name of one of its models.

Rover, originally a sewing machine company founded in the 1860s, switched to bicycles and then to cars. Maurice Wilks, Rover’s chief engineer, bought a US Army surplus Jeep after the war to use on his farm. When he couldn’t buy parts for it, he designed one of his own, which the company built as the Land Rover.

Both became part of British Leyland but were put on the market in the 1990s. Ford bought the two companies, along with Aston Martin, to form a new high-end division it called Premier Auto Group. But it was a money-loser, and Ford eventually dismantled it. Tata Motors bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford in 2008.

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Lotus – China and Malaysia

Lotus was founded in 1952 by Colin Chapman, who had originally modified an Austin Seven to use as a race car before developing his own lightweight racers. Over the years, he worked with companies like Ford and Renault, using their driveline components and, in turn, tweaking some of their performance vehicles for them. Tesla’s first production car was based on a highly-modified Lotus Elise chassis.

Lotus’ fortunes sagged in the 1980s, due primarily to Britain’s recession. There was also a scandal: John DeLorean, who was building a stainless-steel sports car in Ireland in the 1970s, hired Lotus to engineer it. The government helped bankroll the doomed project, but later discovered that £10 million in development money had disappeared through a Swiss company that Chapman established with Fred Bushell, Lotus’ financial director. Chapman died in 1982 and so escaped scrutiny, but Bushell went to jail for fraud.

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General Motors bought Lotus in 1986, mostly for its engineering, but sold it to Bugatti in 1993. Three years later, it was sold to Malaysian automaker Proton. Geely, the Chinese automaker that also owns Volvo, bought Proton and Lotus in partnership with Malaysia’s Etika Automotive in 2017.

Morgan – Italy

Founded in 1909, Morgan turns out about 700 hand-built cars a year, and was one of the last firms still owned by the family of its British founder. But in March 2019, it sold a majority share to Italian private equity firm Investindustrial, which also owns such companies as Jacuzzi, Sergio Rossi shoes and John Galliano perfume, along with stakes in Aston Martin and Ducati motorcycles.

McLaren – Bahrain and Luxembourg

McLaren traces back to New Zealand-born Bruce McLaren, a Formula 1 driver who founded a race car company and team in Britain in 1963. He was killed in 1970 while test-driving.

McLaren’s funding came from various sources over the years; Germany’s Daimler bought into the racing team, which led to the creation of the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. McLaren Automotive launched in 2010 to sell supercars. In 2017, the company’s racing technology and car divisions were blended into the McLaren Group, headquartered in Britain, but with Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding and TAG Group as its majority shareholders. As with many companies today, familiar names may be headquartered in their home countries, but they’re actually owned by multinationals from around the world.