Volvo 740 Trivia.

[Prufrock]

[QUOTE=AllHailKingVolvo;2431215I wonder how many old Volvos are sitting in the holding pen full of scrappage scheme cars in Folkestone or wherever it is...?[/QUOTE]

It is a scandal, but not in Folkestone, they're on a site in the Home Counties. Apparently many have been stripped for spares.

Jon.

[AllHailKingVolvo]

Originally Posted by Prufrock

It is a scandal, but not in Folkestone, they're on a site in the Home Counties. Apparently many have been stripped for spares.

Jon.

Indeed...a great shame. I had a sniff around on google, lots of interesting pics online taken by urban explorer types, no Volvos in evidence but lots of other great cars gathering dust and moss.

[Laird Scooby]

Tony B. Liar aka Tony Blair has a lot to answer for!

First he announces in 1998 we would become a "service industry" country destroying the manufacturing industry in a matter of a few words and then he scraps all our classics!

Granted not all of them but a large proportion of them. Now as has been pointed out by many and brought to our attention again by Jon, we can see it in his link earlier that now seems to have disappeared?

[Prufrock]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Tony B. Liar aka Tony Blair has a lot to answer for!

First he announces in 1998 we would become a "service industry" country destroying the manufacturing industry in a matter of a few words and then he scraps all our classics!

Granted not all of them but a large proportion of them. Now as has been pointed out by many and brought to our attention again by Jon, we can see it in his link earlier that now seems to have disappeared?

Not fair to lay all British manufacturing's woes at Tony Blair's door Dave, anyway the link has returned -

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/thread...april15.95528/

J.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Prufrock

Not fair to lay all British manufacturing's woes at Tony Blair's door Dave, anyway the link has returned -

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/thread...april15.95528/

J.

Maybe not all the woes Jon, but with those words in 1998 he scuppered any hope for what was left of British manufacturing.

I agree successive governments before his tenure of Number 10 hadn't helped, when Maggie started buying coal from Russia because it was cheaper than mining our own (especially with Scargill and all his strikes) she paved the way for a change of attitude about quality and cost.

This is again reflected in the Scrappage Scheme - that and the national obsession with having the latest reg letter on the number plate........

[Prufrock]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Maybe not all the woes Jon, but with those words in 1998 he scuppered any hope for what was left of British manufacturing.

Manufacturing was flatlining in the years before the Labour landslide, the rise of Sterling didn't help and neither did a lack of investment, particularly in R&D. Now the UK has become a very attractive place for Foreign Direct Industrial Investment this is why so many British firms are now foreign owned.

And we will be paying the ultimate price for this.

J.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Prufrock

Manufacturing was flatlining in the years before the Labour landslide, the rise of Sterling didn't help and neither did a lack of investment, particularly in R&D. Now the UK has become a very attractive place for Foreign Direct Industrial Investment this is why so many British firms are now foreign owned.

And we will be paying the ultimate price for this.

J.

It was indeed Jon, as i suggested in my last post, previous successive governments hadn't helped.

A person who was minded to consider conspiracy theories could easily formulate a theory that various Prime Ministers since WW II had slowly but surely sold the country out to the Europeans.

I was recently on Google Streetview taking a trip down Memory Lane and looked at where i did my apprenticeship, then one of the foremost semiconductor houses in Europe with a healthy R&D dept (the CD system as we know it now was developed there) and now there is nothing left of the company i worked for.
Something i found ironic is where the Building Section was (where prototypes, test-beds, bespoke items and similar were made) is now a Builders Merchants but that aside, it shows the lack of investment in this country and the loss of manufacturing.

[john.wigley]

Originally Posted by Prufrock

Manufacturing was flatlining in the years before the Labour landslide, the rise of Sterling didn't help and neither did a lack of investment, particularly in R&D. Now the UK has become a very attractive place for Foreign Direct Industrial Investment this is why so many British firms are now foreign owned.

And we will be paying the ultimate price for this.

J.

Off topic, Jon, but not irrelevant. I have seen this many times in my working life. It was epitomised, in my view, by the large struggling hosiery manufacturer that sold its plant and equipment to an overseas concern and then bought back the products because it was cheaper that way. What a waste!

Regards, John.

[Prufrock]

You can see my Volvo buys British signature ? This was a sticker found in the bookpack of many a Volvo in the late 70s through to the mid 1980s.

Imagine if it were true today, and how that relationship might be in jeopardy ? Volvo made their purchases from British manufacturing companies back then because they were buying the best (I'm paraphrasing Volvo here) - the majority of those British companies no longer exist.

I'm old enough to remember the Buy British campaigns, I might have been a schoolboy but I remember, I remember (paraphrasing Orwell now).

Discuss.

Jon.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Prufrock

You can see my Volvo buys British signature ? This was a sticker found in the bookpack of many a Volvo in the late 70s through to the mid 1980s.

Imagine if it were true today, and how that relationship might be in jeopardy ? Volvo made their purchases from British manufacturing companies back then because they were buying the best (I'm paraphrasing Volvo here) - the majority of those British companies no longer exist.

I'm old enough to remember the Buy British campaigns, I might have been a schoolboy but I remember, I remember (paraphrasing Orwell now).

Discuss.

Jon.

That was the thing Jon - back then we were the best at manufacturing. We led the world in technological innovation and umpteen other areas but, as had previously happened so many times, anything new that was developed here had scorn poured upon it and the inventors then took their ideas elsewhere.

At least Volvo had the sense to Buy British and it shows with how many 70s, 80s and 90s Volvos still around.