In article , Dave Plowman (News)
wrote:
BMC - basically the amalgamation between Austin and the Nuffield
group took place in the early '50s.

Manufacturing yes. Dealerships no. If you read the histories of BMC
one of the various reasons for its slide was the power of the
dealers, unlike Ford who IIRC had a policy of not allowing any
dealership chain to take more than x% of its production (where x was
a very small number) so that Ford controlled its dealers rather than
the other way round.

"Rather than tackling these issues head-on – something that really
should have been done years previously – Harriman acceded to the
wishes of the Nuffield dealers, and agreed to release ADO16 [1100]
just as a Morris model initially. An Austin version would appear
only after a sufficiently long delay. This sop to the dealers may
have seemed like a good idea at the time as a way of pacifying any
dissenting voices, but it undoubtedly cost BMC sales"

http://www.austin-rover.co.uk/index.htm?ado16storyf.htm

"As Morris dealers had first bite at the cherry with the 1100,
Austin dealers were first to get the new big car [1800] with the
Morris version making its debut in 1966"

http://www.landcrab.net/mainframes/main_production.htm

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