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Post by David on Mar 4, 2011 15:44:39 GMT
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Post by glennr on Mar 4, 2011 19:34:43 GMT
Very sad indeed  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2011 8:19:36 GMT
Sorry to hear the news. Not sure if they can restart in this market.
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Post by Colin McA on Mar 5, 2011 11:40:35 GMT
I was not aware that they were still making these cars. Must be quite exotic gentlemen transport
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Post by baconsdozen on Mar 10, 2011 8:25:16 GMT
Should we really be suprised,other than to hear Bristol have survived this long?.
Thousands of British based firms have vanished because joe public no longer values quality (unless the are rover p5 owners!) but buys on price and the lower the better.
Not so long I added a range of British made tools.Genuine British made,not far east imports stuffed in boxes with British sounding names.They are more expensive but the quality is superb.I've sold virtually none here but abroad they go down well even with the cost of postage added.
We really have only ourselves to blame.
R.I.P Bristol.
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Post by Warwick on Mar 11, 2011 2:28:19 GMT
We really have only ourselves to blame. R.I.P Bristol. Not necessarily. Don't be too hard on yourselves - it was inevitable. Until the industrial revolution changed Europe and the US, China was and probably had always been, the world's largest economy. We just happened to have been born during a brief blip in history. China will again become the world's largest economy. The industrial revolution began in Britain and so it was perhaps also inevitable that it would end there first. Industrialization enabled Britain to flood the world with cheap manufactured goods. The cycle just keeps being repeated in a new location. Australia took away British and Spanish dominance of the wool industry - by literally stealing some merinos from Spain. That is all changing again. Our wool now goes to China as wool. Our woollen products are no longer competitive. Our wine industry gave the French a hammering, and now South American wine producers are doing it to us. We pinched a goodly portion of the British steel market and now our raw iron ore and coaking coal goes to China. We just have to get used to it and find a new niche to fill until someone else seizes that. |
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Post by baconsdozen on Mar 11, 2011 9:05:41 GMT
Some of the tools I use today are ones I bought when I started as an apprentice.Some of the junk about now will last no longer than a tea break.
Sadly thats the stuff that sells.
We've turned into a nation that now the price of everthing but the value of nothing.
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Post by Warwick on Mar 15, 2011 3:06:48 GMT
You're certainly right there. I guess the big difference this time around is that in the past, when the next industrial challenger emerged, their product was usually just more affordable. I don't think we've ever experienced such extreme "cheapness" of manufactured goods before.
The lower cost has come from the new emerging industrial country being able to make and sell more cheaply because of lower labour costs, or lower raw material costs. But now with China and India we have these but also huge volume.
Other problems that are now arising include massive waste and the demise of quality manufacturers. The true cost of raw materials and energy to produce, let's say a cordless drill, in Germany or China is probably not that different. But because of poor design and poor production methods, one will last for decades while the other could be landfill in less than 12 months. Sheer waste.
Then, in order to survive, the quality manufacturer has to reduce the selling price and this may eventually result in them going under. Then you no longer have the choice between quality and rubbish.
Although I do remember my father buying a set of Japanese highspeed Chrome Vanadium twist drills in the early '60s. They were much cheaper than those from local manufacturers. The first time one jammed, it unwound!! It turned out that Chrome Vanadium was the brand name. Now Made in Japan is a label that you trust.
The current problem with buying Chinese products is that price is no indication of quality, and there are few if any brand names that we recognize. They produce some high quality stuff, but you never know until after you've owned it for awhile.
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Post by baconsdozen on Mar 15, 2011 8:27:51 GMT
Sadly a lot of the 'quality' manufacturers take the easy way out and simply source from abroad and stick the stuff in boxes carrying their trade name.It gives them a few extra years trading but the bad name they then earn catches up with them eventually.
I was playing with the Rover yesterday,looking at all the "Made in England" badges and lables.I wonder how few of the makers of the bits and bobs are left in the UK now.
Probably none.
I bought a water pump from a firm advertising "A British firm supplying parts for British Car"
The box it came in said "Made in Taiwan".I felt cheated.
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Post by Warwick on Mar 15, 2011 9:23:26 GMT
I've noticed a direct relationship between the use of label statements such as Australian Owned, Proudly Australian Owned, and An Australian Owned Family Company, and the likelihood that the package contents are imported.
Taiwan has now largely entered the area of reputable manufacturing, as Japan did before it, and Korea is doing now.
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Post by David on Apr 21, 2011 12:39:01 GMT
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Post by Warwick on Apr 21, 2011 12:45:45 GMT
Frazer-Nash! I had no idea they still existed. A name from the distant past.
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