Text by Stewart Holbeche and John Barnett, pictures Stewart Holbeche and John Baker

In September 2008 John Barnett made a visit to former Land Rover colleague Ian Pogson to confer on East Works diesel engines. He was surprised to discover that Ian, who had been working for the Shanghai Automobile Industry Corporation (SAIC) at their former Leamington premises, as well as spending time in Shanghai, had been transferred to Longbridge. He had become the new chief engineer of current engineering and occupied one of Alec Issigonis' old offices in the 'Kremlin', the Engineering Design Block being uninhabitable. They talked about the Longbridge 2-litre diesel engines for a while until Ian said ‘why don't you come to Longbridge and see what we are doing’. Needless to say, John didn't need a second invitation, but merely asked ‘Can I bring some of my OF 2 colleagues?’ OF 2 is a local car group comprising a combination of MG Car Club members, Austin Ex-apprentices and former Longbridge employees, which holds monthly meetings at local venues of interest, followed by a pub lunch. This was a trip none of them would want to miss! Ian agreed he could accommodate a group of up to 12, and in return John arranged for them to turn up in either MG or Austin cars.

The group duly arrived at Q Gate on the appointed day and lined up outside in anticipation of an exciting trip. This part of the site is leased from owners St Modwen and operated by SAIC (who recently merged with Nanjing). The cars on show included Stewart Holbeche’s 1933 Austin Ten, Jon Nightingale’s 1935 Austin Lichfield, plus a party of a dozen mainly old MG enthusiasts (old MGs that is, although most of the drivers also qualify). We were welcomed by our host Ian Pogson and after the signing-in formalities we were invited to park in front of the Round House (Elephant house) – with the two Austins claiming pole position.

Having told us there would be no restriction on taking photographs, Ian then gave a very frank and informative presentation, with no side-stepping of questions. He told us that SAIC are about to move their engineering function from Leamington Spa into the old Sales Block next to the Exhibition Hall Dining Room. The office is to be refurbished and the wall overlooking the Round House will be replaced with glass.

70% of the car is Chinese sourced and there is a 6-week delivery time to Britain with a 5-day emergency fly-in. Parts supply and quality has been an issue but the problem is improving. All functions such as purchasing,  sales etc are now based at Longbridge. In Rover days the bodies were built by Stadco in Coventry but by early 2007 they had been relocated at Longbridge in the old CAB 2 facility. Now they have moved again to China! The bodies are electro-coated in China and then shipped back to Britain. The engines are made in China too and are mated to old-stock PG1 gearboxes. The Shanghai built engines are good with improvements, while the Nanjing built units are reworked at Longbridge. Of course some complete MG TFs are built in China too.

During his sometimes amusing talk Ian went on to explain his view that ‘the Chinese sometimes find it difficult to link Action with Consequences – you can warn them that if you do this, that will happen, but they still do this, and are surprised when that happens’. He explained that the engine manufacturing facilities from East Works have been moved to China even including the lockers; everything has been recreated as it was. For cost reasons when the MG TF was designed the front suspension of the front wheel drive Metro was used, including the connection for the drive shaft constant velocity joint. When the front suspension for the new Chinese-built MG TF was sourced in China it retained this connection even though it was no longer required. Ian found that forward planning could be a problem which was very frustrating. When asked about rates of pay, he told us that a young engineer in China was paid approximately £6.00 a day.

We then went to the Exhibition Hall dining room for coffee and on to CAB 1 to see the assembly lines. This was quite depressing. Here as every where on the site there were very few people about,  lots of empty space and mostly empty production lines. We were told that heating isn’t a problem – it’s not switched on! Apparently, last winter it was extra coats and local torpedo heaters; just imagine Red Robbo’s response to that!  We were introduced to the Production Manager who is an ex-Rover Longbridge man, made redundant in June 2005 and re-employed last year. A few, it seemed about half a dozen men, do all the build operations. They trim for a time, then move to the assembly line and so on.

About 38 units a week are being made at the moment. We watched a body being dropped onto the sub-frames on the assembly line.  The elevated cake-stand trim tracks had empty stations between bodies with sheets of plywood covering the gaps. Getting the quality right is the big focus. We looked at their Quality Audit Bay which had one of their first Longbridge built cars in it. During the whole visit we saw only one Chinese person – it seems all the production people are British.  Many of us had begun to believe that production would never re-commence at Longbridge. It was very encouraging to see that it has, although only at a low volume. Hopefully we will see this volume increase and new models introduced, which will make Longbridge seem more like it the factory it once was.

Gillian Bardsley, archive picture by BMIHT

In May 2008 Gillian and Rev Colin were busy saving items from Longbridge once again, this time prior to the demolition of General Office Block (GOB), the long thin building which ran alongside Lickey Road and was one of the oldest surviving buildings at the start of 2008.  David Kear of the Austin Ten Driver’s Club then asked the sensible question

‘What kind of things did you save?’

Which, when put on the spot, was not so easy to answer as it might seem. 

We began as usual by making a photographic survey.  GOB housed the now silent workshops where the Mini and many other prototypes were developed, not to mention the remains of the factory’s telephone exchange, a spaghetti of IT cabling of different eras,  the Salaries Office boasting an impressive collection of huge empty safes,  mostly still firmly locked,  and the leftovers of its sales and marketing activities.  Though still impressive from the outside, much of the building had been unused since the late 1990s and the heating and maintenance had been discontinued since 2005. The resulting decay can be seen above, meaning that St Modwen had little option other than to demolish it. 

Gillian and Colin were given permission by St Modwen to go in and prise notices off the wall, take down the numerous signs,  advertising posters and site plans, and pick up the paperwork and branded stationary lying everywhere around.  These were brought back to the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust Archive at Gaydon to join the artefacts and ocumentation rescued on earlier occasions from other parts of the site. 

With the demolition of General Office Block and New West Works in the summer of 2008,  all of the factory buildings remaining outside the area leased back to Nanjing have now gone and remediation of the land is underway to ready the site for its redevelopment. Housing is planned for this particular area of the site.