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{{Short description|Automobile manufacturer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=
{{Use British English|date=June 2013}}
{{Infobox company
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| successor = [[British Motor Holdings]]
| foundation = 1952 amalgamating Morris and Austin
| founders={{Plainlist|
*[[Leonard Lord]]
*[[William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield|William Richard Morris]]
}}
| defunct = 1966
| location = [[Longbridge plant|Longbridge]], United Kingdom
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In September 1965, BMC took control of its major supplier of bodies, [[Pressed Steel Company|Pressed Steel]], acquiring [[Jaguar Cars|Jaguar's]] body supplier in the process. In September 1966, BMC merged with Jaguar Cars.<ref>"Jaguar Group of companies is to merge with The British Motor Corporation Ltd., as the first step towards the sitting up of a joint holding company to be called British Motor (Holdings) Limited." Joint merger statement, 11 July 1966 issued at the press conference at the Great Eastern Hotel, London</ref> In December 1966, BMC changed its name to [[British Motor Holdings|British Motor Holdings Limited]] (BMH).<ref name=NLabel>British Motor Takes That New Label ''The Times'', Thursday, 15 December 1966; pg. 17; Issue 56815</ref>
BMH merged, in May 1968, with [[Leyland Motor Corporation|Leyland Motor Corporation Limited]], which made trucks and buses and owned both [[Triumph Motor Company#Leyland and beyond|Standard-Triumph International Limited]]
==Organisation==
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At the time of the mergers, a well established dealership network was in place for each of the marques. Among the car-buying British public was a tendency of loyalty to a particular marque and marques appealed to different market segments. This meant that marques competed against each other in some areas, though some marques had a larger range than others. The [[Riley (car)|Riley]] and [[Wolseley Motors|Wolseley]] models were selling in very small numbers. Styling was also getting distinctly old-fashioned and this caused Leonard Lord, in an unusual move for him, to call upon the services of an external stylist.
As well as the car manufacturing arms, the company had its own printing and publishing firm, the [[Nuffield Press]], inherited from the Morris Motors group.
==BMC Farina==
In 1958, BMC hired [[Battista Farina]] to redesign its entire car line. This resulted in the creation of three "Farina" [[sedan (car)|saloons]], each of which was [[badge engineering|badge-engineered]] to fit the various BMC car lines.
The compact Farina model
The mid-sized Farinas were launched in 1958 with the [[Wolseley 15/60]]. Other members of the group included the [[Riley 4#Riley 4 / Sixty Eight|Riley 4/68]], [[Austin Cambridge#A55 Cambridge Mark II|Austin A55 Cambridge Mk. II]], [[MG Magnette#Magnette Mark III|MG Magnette Mk. III]], and [[Morris Oxford Farina#Oxford series V (
Most of these cars lasted until 1961, though the Di Tellas remained until 1966. They were replaced with a new Farina body style and most were renamed. These were the [[Austin Cambridge#A60 Cambridge|Austin A60 Cambridge]], [[MG Magnette#Magnette Mark IV|MG Magnette Mk. IV]], [[Morris Oxford Farina#Oxford series VI (
Farina also designed a large car. Launched in 1959 as the [[Austin Westminster|Austin A99 Westminster]], [[Vanden Plas Princess|Vanden Plas Princess 3-Litre]], and [[Wolseley 6/99]], it used the large [[BMC C-Series engine|C-Series]] [[straight-6]] engine. The large Farinas were updated in 1961 as the [[Austin Westminster|Austin A110 Westminster]], [[Vanden Plas Princess|Vanden Plas Princess 3-Litre Mk. II]], and [[Wolseley 6/110]]. These remained in production until 1968.
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* [[Morris Marshal]] (Australia) 1957–60
* [[Morris Major]] (Australia) 1958–64
* [[Morris Mini|Morris Mini Minor (Mini)]] 1959–2000
* [[BMC ADO16|Morris 1100/1300]] 1963–74
* [[Morris 1800]] 1964–75
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[[File:Mgb.bristol.750pix.jpg|right|thumb|A 1966 MGB (ADO 23)]]
Most BMC projects followed the earlier Austin practice of describing vehicles with an 'ADO' number (which stood for 'Austin Design Office' but after the merger 'Amalgamated Drawing Office'). Hence, cars that had more than one marque name (e.g. Morris Mini Minor and Austin Mini) would have the same ADO number.<!--need this be even thought?--> Given the often complex badge-engineering<!--any examples of this "complexity"?--> that BMC undertook, it is common amongst enthusiasts to use the ADO number when referring to vehicles which were a single design (for example, saying 'The ADO15 entered production in 1959'- this encompasses the fact that when launched, the ADO15 was marketed as the Morris Mini Minor and, later, the Austin Seven—soon replaced with Austin Mini). The ADO numbering system did continue for some time after the creation of British Leyland
==Commercial vehicles==
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*Morris FG 1960–68
*Morris FM 1961–68
*[[Morris WE]] 1955–64
*Morris WF 1964–81
*Morris FF 1958–61
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}}</ref>
[[Denmark]] was a particularly strong market for BMC products in Europe. In the postwar period, the Danish government closely regulated exports and imports to maintain the country's [[balance of trade]]. High-value imports such as cars were heavily taxed.
From 1963 to 1975, a company was established in Spain to produce BMC cars under licence, its name was: 'AUTHI' -'Automoviles de Turismo Hispano-Ingleses' -'Spanish-English Tourism Automobiles'. The factory was in Pamplona, Navarra, Spain, and when the production of Austin and Mini cars was discontinued, Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo ([[SEAT]]), owned by the state and some banks and industrial investors, purchased the factory. After the takeover of SEAT by Volkswagen, SEAT made an 'internal' resale of the Pamplona factory, formerly Authi, to Volkswagen, which soon started producing there the 'Polo'.
In 1964, BMC Turkey was established in cooperation with the British Motor Corporation. The Turkish partners retained the 74% of the capital while 26% held by the UK-based British Motor Corporation.
==Government takes over==
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===British Leyland===
{{Main|British Leyland}}
Little more than 12 months later in January 1968, under pressure from the [[Labour Party(UK)|Labour]] [[British
Within the new conglomerate, the various marques were grouped together into two main divisions, based largely on the original BMC and LMC businesses; with the former mass market BMC marques becoming part of the ''Austin-Morris'' division of BLMC, whilst LMC stablemates [[Rover (marque)|Rover]] and [[Triumph Motor Company|Triumph]] joined Jaguar in the Specialist Division.
==Post mortem==
Following the merger with Leyland, a review of company records undertaken with the support of the new board, author Graham Turner stated that at the time of the merger, 16 versions of the Mini were being produced, yielding an average profit of just £16 per car, while every [[Morris Minor]] sold lost the group £9 and every [[Austin Westminster]] sold lost £17.<ref name=Autocar197110>{{Cite magazine|magazine=[[Autocar (magazine)|Autocar]] |title = The cars then and now| page =57| date = 28 October 1971}}</ref> This helps to explain why the Westminster and Minor were among the early casualties of the merger, as well as the introduction of the [[Mini#Mini Clubman and 1275GT: 1969–1980|Mini Clubman]], capable of being built for less, but sold for more than a standard Mini thanks to simplified ("modernised") front panels. Even the UK's best seller, the [[BMC ADO16|Austin/Morris 1100]], had to be subjected to an emergency cost-reduction programme which removed about £10 from the cost of each car, applying changes that included the omission of lead sealing from body joints (£2.40 per car), removing provision for optional reversing lamps (£0.10) and "changes in body finish" (£0.75).<ref name=Autocar197110/> Rebuilding the [[Plant Oxford|Cowley plant]] to include "new automated body building facilities" saved £2.00 in transport costs per car for bodies that no longer needed to be transported from the corporation's [[Swindon]] plant and in the longer term further transport costs were saved by concentrating assembly of the model at a single plant, rather than splitting it between plants at Cowley and Longbridge.<ref name=Autocar197110/> Because of the high proportion of auto-production costs represented by fixed costs that needed to be allocated over a planned production volume, and the use in the 1960s of investment appraisal criteria that were ill-suited to accounting for volume fluctuations and the rapidly changing value of the UK currency in the 1960s, the precise figures quoted may be open to challenge, but the new management's diagnosis that BMC's profitability was insufficient to fund support and new model investment to cover its disparate range of brands and models was hard to refute.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}} Throughout the 1960s, the failure of the United Kingdom to join the [[European Economic Community]] meant that the company could not exploit the lucrative European markets due to high import tariffs, whereas BMC's key rivals Ford and General Motors both had German subsidiaries producing and selling within the bloc, and were therefore immune from those import tariffs.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}
==Legacy==
In 2002, [[BMC (Turkey)]], a [[Turkey|Turkish]] commercial vehicle builder, originally set up by the British Motor Corporation to build its designs under licence in the 1950s, began exporting its vehicles to Britain. This allowed the return of the BMC brand to British roads for the first time in over 40 years.
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* [[Bathgate|Bathgate Lorry Plant]]
* [[British Motor Corporation (Australia)]]
==References==
{{Reflist
==External links==
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