Leyland - marque/manufacturer information
List of all Leyland cars
Leyland Motors Limited was a British vehicle manufacturer of lorries and buses. It gave its name to the British Leyland Motor Corporation formed when it merged with British Motor Holdings, later to become British Leyland after effectively becoming nationalized. British Leyland later changed its name to simply BL then in 1986 Rover Group.
History
Beginning
Leyland Motors has a long history dating from 1896, when the Sumner and Spurrier families founded the Lancashire Steam Motor Company in the town of Leyland in North West England. The company's first vehicle was a 1.5-ton-capacity steam powered van. The Lancashire Steam Motor Company was renamed Leyland Motors in 1907 when they took over Coulthards of Preston. They also built a second factory in the neighbouring town of Chorley which still remains today as the headquarters of the LEX leasing and parts company.
In 1920 Leyland Motors produced the Leyland 8 luxury touring car, a development of which was driven by J.G. Parry-Thomas at Brooklands. Parry-Thomas was later killed in attempt on the land speed record when a chain drive broke. At the other extreme, they also produced the Trojan Utility Car in the Kingston on Thames factory from 1922 to 1928.
Three generations of Spurriers controlled Leyland Motors from its foundation until the retirement of Sir Henry Spurrier in 1964. Sir Henry inherited control of Leyland Motors from his father in 1942, and successfully guided its growth during the postwar years. Whilst the Spurrier family were in control the company enjoyed excellent labour relations - reputedly never losing a day's production through industrial action.
World War 2
During the war, Leyland Motors along with most vehicle manufacturers was involved in war production. Leyland built the Cromwell tank at its works from 1943.
After the war, Leyland Motors continued military manufacture with the Centurion tank.
Post war
In 1946, AEC and Leyland Motors worked to form the British United Traction Ltd.
In 1955, through an equity agreement, manufacture of commercial vehicles under license from Leyland Motors commenced in Madras, India at the new Ashok factory. The products were branded as Ashok Leyland.
On the other hand, Leyland Motors acquired other companies in the post war years:
- 1951: Albion Motors
- 1955: Scammell Lorries Ltd - military and specialist lorry manufacturer
- 1960: Standard Triumph, cars, vans and some agricultural machinery interests
- 1962: Associated Commercial Vehicles (ACV), which incorporated AEC, Thornycroft, Park Royal Vehicles and Charles H. Roe. Then Leyland Motors was renamed Leyland Motor Corporation
- 1965: Bristol Commercial Vehicles, Eastern Coach Works
- 1967: Rover cars
Donald Stokes took over as head of the company in 1964 and in 1968 it merged with British Motor Holdings (BMH) to form the British Leyland Motor Corporation (BLMC). BMH brought with it more famous British goods vehicle and bus and coach marques, including Daimler, Guy, BMC, Austin and Morris into the new organization.
British Leyland era
The BLMC group was difficult to manage because of the many companies under its control, often making similar products. This, and other reasons, led to financial difficulties and in December 1974 British Leyland had to receive a guarantee from the British government.
In 1975, after the publication of the Ryder Report, BLMC nationalised as British Leyland (BL) and split into 4 divisions with the bus and truck production becoming the Leyland Truck & Bus division within the Land Rover Leyland Group. This division was spilt into Leyland Bus and Leyland Trucks in 1981. In 1986 BL changed its name to Rover Group. The equity stake in Ashok Leyland was controlled by Land Rover Leyland International Holdings, and sold in 1987.
Leyland name post-British Leyland
Buses
The bus operations were divested as a management buy-out to form Leyland Bus, and was subsequently bought by Volvo Buses in 1988, which discontinued most of its product range.
Trucks
- 1987 The Leyland Trucks division of Rover Group (formerly BL) merged with DAF Trucks of The Netherlands, and was floated on the Dutch stock exchange as DAF NV. The new company traded as Leyland DAF in the UK, and as DAF elsewhere.
- 1993 DAF NV went into bankruptcy. The UK truck division was bought through a management buy-out and became Leyland Trucks. The van division was also bought through a management buy-out and became LDV Limited. The Spare Parts Operation (Multipart) was also subject to a management buy-out before eventually becoming part of the LEX organisation.
- 1998 Leyland Trucks was acquired by the US truck manufacturer PACCAR. Leyland Trucks now operates as a division of PACCAR from the Leyland Assembly Plant in North West England manufacturing around 14,000 trucks per year of which about a third are sold in the EU.
Products
Buses
Historically, Leyland Motors was a major manufacturer of buses used in the United Kingdom and world-wide, being probably most famous for the trend-setting Atlantean rear-engined double decker bus design produced between 1956 and 1986.
See List of Leyland buses for the list of bus products.
Trucks
1920s
- Q-type 4 ton
- SQ2 7 ton
- SWQ2 10 ton six-wheeler
1930s
- Beaver
- Bison
- Buffalo
- Bull
- Hippo
- Octopus 22 ton eight-wheeler
- Steer
1940s
1960s
1970s
1980s
The Leyland Roadtrain was a range of heavy goods vehicle tractor units manufactured by Leyland Trucks between 1980 and 1990. The nomenclature "T45" refers to the cab design and encompasses models such as Freighter (4 wheel rigid truck) constructor (multi axle rigid tipper or mixer chassis) and Cruiser (basic spec low weight tractor unit).
The cab design was a joint effort between Leyland, BRS and Ogle design and was seen as the height of modernity when compared with its predecessors, the idea being to have one basic design to replace the various different outgoing models (for example, the Bathgate built G cab on the Terrier, the Ergomatic cabbed Lynx, Beaver etc).
Throughout its production run engine choices included the AEC-based TL12, a straight carry over from the preceding range, The Rolls-Royce Eagle 265 and the Cummins 290 and 14-litre 350 coupled to a Spicer or Eaton transmission, although all versions produced a distinctive whine from the propshaft knuckle joint when approaching 60 mph. The TL12 engine was dropped early on in the production run, most large fleet buyers choosing the Rolls-Royce engine.
The Roadtrain was available in day and sleeper cabbed form, in high and low datum versions - this refers to the cab height - high datum versions were intended as long haul vehicles with higher mounted cabs and more internal space. 6x2 versions were built in high cab form only on a Scammell chassis.
In 1986 the high roofed Roadtrain interstate was introduced, a top of the range long distance truck with standing room inside.
The Roadtrain was a common sight throughout most of the 1980s, with a great many of the major fleet users in the UK such as Tesco, Blue Circle (unusually with high datum day cabs) and BRS running them.
Production ended in 1990 with the sale of Leyland Trucks to Dutch firm DAF, although as a postscript DAF relaunched the model in low datum form (it was already manufacturing the large DAF 95) as the DAF 80, using the Roadtrain cab with the DAF 330 ATi engine (quite ironic, given that this engine had its roots in the Leyland O.680). This model was produced for a relatively short time until 1993 with the launch of the brand new cabbed DAF 85.
Due partly to the cab's propensity to rust and also to the admittedly short life of commercial vehicles, any Roadtrain in commercial operation is now a very rare sight indeed.
Diesel Multiple Units
- British Rail British United Traction
- Pacer (train)
- British Rail Class 155
List of all Leyland cars
Source: Wikipedia
