The Ten Worst Car Factories In History.
Remember the Volvo P1800? Well, you want the S version because it was built in Sweden instead of Scotland, along with many of the Chrysler-Rootes Group cars.ranwhenparked has more:
The Chrysler-Rootes plant in Linwood, Scotland was pretty terrible. It was constructed specifically to build the Hillman Imp (full disclosure, I actually kind of like that car, my dad’s British expatriate friend had one for decades).
Chrysler wanted to build the car at their existing factory in Ryton, but oh no no, the UK government had other ideas. With Scotland’s shipbuilding industry essentially dead (partly, OK, heavily due to government policy), the idea was to replace it with car production. So, Chrysler was denied the necessary permits to expand the Ryton plant, but was given generous subsidies to build a new factory in Linwood and really needed to build the car somewhere, so they went with it.
All their suppliers were still located in England, Linwood was basically in the middle of a vast no-man’s land for the auto industry, which led to high transportation costs and frequent parts shortages. The local workforce was inexperienced in car assembly, which led to poor quality and low productivity (the rush to get production going was also to blame, as it shortened training time). Turnover was high and labor problems were rampant – there were over two dozen strikes in one year alone. The factory operated deep in the red throughout its existence and was ultimately closed in the mid ’70s after only 13 years in operation.
http://jalopnik.com
Thanks for reading.
Tim
