(first posted 10/29/2014) 1981 was a tough year in Britain. There were riots in many cities that summer, against government policies, or more accurately the perceived lack of effect—or even negative effect—of government policies in the face of economic woes. The Thatcher government appeared to be losing the fight to lead Britain’s recovery from the 1970s, and pro-active objection and even civil unrest seemed valid options.
In parallel, by 1977 to 1978, the truth about the state of British Leyland and its options for the future in its contemporary state started to hit home. By 1979, BL, and those who chose to understand it, had come to a series of conclusions about its future and its preparedness and the economic and political realities of the 1980s. The company was not big and strong enough, financially, in engineering capability, in production volume or product wise, to survive and prosper alone in its current form.
The idea of three ranges of cars – the Austin Allegro and Maxi, Morris Marina/Ital, the Princess which was sold through Austin-Morris dealers and the compact, sporting more upmarket but very dated Triumph Dolomite – although nominally complementary, but actually competing against each other in the middle of the market, was not logical or sustainable.
That Margaret Thatcher’s new Conservative government would not unquestioningly send money to BL like a gullible parent to a student was obvious to all, as was the fact that the company had to continue to address and resolve the industrial relations issues, even at the cost of short term disruption and strife.
Above all, any product had to be good, well made and attractive enough to compete effectively against European and Japanese competition. BL could no longer rely on Britain buying the cars out of patriotic duty.
Longer term, it was almost inevitable that the Thatcher government would want to divest itself of all of BL, and would be prepared to break the company up to do so. So, some tough decisions were needed, and were taken. BL had a new leader in Michael Edwardes, hired from outside the motor industry with no loyalty or preference to any particular constituent part of BL.
The sports cars (the Triumph Spitfire, TR7 and TR8, MGB and Midget) went and were not replaced, as the cars were conceptually dated, fading or failing in the market, and the development funds were not available in competition with core product replacements. The sterling to dollar exchange rate was a crucial factor in this, as sterling reached $2.40 to the pound at one point, and BL lost out as the pound got stronger against the dollar.
BL claimed that the TR7 and TR8 had never made any money and that Abingdon, the home of MG for over 40 years, lost £26m in its last year. It was closed for good in late 1980, to much enthusiast and public outcry. Factory rationalisation was sped up – the extension to the Rover factory in Solihull, built for the Rover 3500 SD1 in 1976 was closed in 1981, and SD1 production moved to Cowley, and the Triumph factory at Canley in Coventry closed for production in 1981 (of Dolomite and TR7s) as well, although it remained BL’s engineering and design (what used to be known as styling) centre.
Product wise, it was glaringly obvious BL had a severe need for a competent, salable mid range car, as the Allegro and Marina/Ital were rapidly falling way behind, the 1968 Maxi never had been good enough, the Princess not had achieved its potential and the Dolomite range was now very dated, being based on the 1965 Triumph 1300, and crucially was starting to suffer from serious quality issues, many traceable to old and very worn tooling. The Austin mini-Metro came on stream in 1980, and did well at the entry level into the market though.
BL was looking for a saviour, and found one. Enter Honda, who signed a collaborative agreement with BL in December 1979 to produce a small saloon, which for BL would replace the Dolomite range – the Triumph Acclaim. What was not made so clear, at least publicly, is that at this time BL effectively committed to developing the next full size Rover with Honda, which would become the 800 series (or Sterling 825) in 1986.
The Acclaim was nothing more than a licence built Honda Ballade (essentially an alternate version of the gen2 Honda Civic with modest external sheet metal changes) assembled at Cowley, alongside the Ital and Princess. The car had some trim and badging changes from the Honda version, which was not sold in Europe. The engine was the 1335cc Honda OHC, with an ability to rev to 6000rpm and a five speed gearbox – both unusual traits for BL in 1981. A three speed automatic transmission, named Trio-matic and of course a Hondamatic H3, was an option. The suspension was by Macpherson struts front and rear, which was allegedly tuned by BL for European tastes. Thing is, you can tune, but if you can’t increase wheel travel the options are limited…
The weakest point about the Acclaim was the size – the wheelbase was just 91 inches, just 3 inches longer than the Metro, and significantly shorter than the Allegro, and the roof quite low, so interior space was at a premium. But BL had no choice – Honda was the only show in town, as talks on co-operation with Renault and Chrysler UK had come to nothing, and this was the product Honda could offer.
The interior, as well as being relatively tight on space, was totally Honda, except for the steering wheel badge. Frankly, it was so Japanese that we Brits were fortunate to drive on the left, like the Japanese, or else the steering wheel would have been in the wrong place.
Assembly of the car was completed at Cowley in Oxford, alongside the Morris Ital, Princess and, later, the Rover 2000/2300/2600/3500 SD 1 range. This was assembly though – many parts were imported from Japan, including the engine and gearbox, although BL managed to claim that 70% of the ex-works cost was British, including the manufacturing labour and overheads.
Sales wise, the car was reasonably successful, taking nearly 3% of the UK market at one time. It wasn’t a car to get excited about at all – its real significance was in the industrial context.
There were 3 versions of the car, differing only in trim and equipment, with the plushest specification, known as the CD, having electric windows, headlamp washers, chrome bumpers, velour upholstery and the headrests denied to the rest of range, presumably because they made a small and cramped interior seem even smaller and more cramped. Even this version missed out on the traditional British wood trim, although the aftermarket converters soon offered trim kits.
By 1982, BL had formally (if quietly) given up the idea of running a VW and Audi kind of pairing between the mass market cars and the premium products, and bowed to the inevitable by grouping all the car manufacturing businesses, except Jaguar, under the Austin-Rover banner. Finally, only 30 years after the original merger that created BMC, and 15 years after BLMC had been created, BL had an integrated UK dealer and distribution network. The Acclaim benefited from this, as owners came back for another Allegro (“perhaps if we get a blue one, we’ll be alright?”), saw the (Triumph) Acclaim, thought “Japanese” and “reliability” and had a new reality of their own.
It therefore kept BL, and the dealer network, on a sort of life support in the market whilst the midnight oil was burned on the development of the 1983 Austin Maestro and 1984 Austin Montego.
One thing the Acclaim did do was disprove the theory that cars assembled in Britain were all unreliable. It soon gained a reputation for being as reliable as a Honda, and showed that the British plants could make build a reliable car. The missing ingredients had been basic factors, such as proper tooling, dependable sub-assemblies and the principle of designing for assembly and manufacture from the beginning.
After 3 years and 134,000 copies, the Acclaim was retired, and the Triumph name died too, although BMW have kept the rights to it, even now. One of the features of a joint venture like this is that BL, as the junior partner, was confined to Honda’s product cycle for this car, which was replaced in Japan in 1983. Today, an Acclaim is a rare sight – corrosion claimed many and there are perhaps 200 roadworthy cars left.
The Acclaim had done well for BL and was successful enough not only for the policy of using a Honda as a basis for a compact premium BL product, but for that product to be promoted up the BL hierarchy to the Rover brand, as the Rover 213/216 series, based on the significantly larger 1983 third generation Civic, and with a lot more Rover input, including some Rover engines. BL stated that this marked significant progress in the recovery of the business, as it was the first time in over 10 years that BL were replacing a car that had achieved its target, that “we’re satisfied with”.
By my reckoning, BL could say that only twice more in the next 20 years.
First time I ever see a Triumph Acclaim like this…as the brand had never reached some parts/markets of the old continent…
I would think that many cars of this vintage rusted to death. I would think, mechanically being a Honda, the Acclaim and the Ballade were good cars.
A sad end to a once great car maker even if the Acclaim was a decent car.Once again another fine read from Roger and another might have been from BL.Hard to believe that Triumph had a range of cars for everyone,small 1300 cc runabouts,sports cars and large fast luxury 6 cylinder saloons and estates a few years before.The Dolomite shown was an attractive car and the Sprint version very fast(when properly maintained) and could have(and should have) been a BMW/Lotus Cortina fighter had it been around a bit sooner and properly sorted.The cylinder head would curl up at the corners like a 3 day old sandwich if the car overheated sending many to the scrapyard.
BL was a dead man walking when the Acclaim came out,the Daily Mail and Daily Express would print stories about BL(ironic since their readers were the class of people who would probably drive a Triumph) telling how much the taxpayer was coughing up to keep BL afloat on a daily basis.
A very long time since I saw an Acclaim,the rust monster killed off most of them in the UK long ago.
Looking at the Dolomite and Acclaim together, in many ways it’s the Acclaim that looks more old fashioned. What dates the Dolly are the windscreen rake and flat side glass.
Oh these… When I arrived in the UK (early 1990s) they already had the image of the most boring car on earth, you would not be seen dead in one unless you were an Old Age Pensioner and had a pork pie hat on the rear shelf. But yes, most of the time they were relible-ish…
Great write-up but not even a passing mention of the “co-starring” role one of these cars had in the Britcom: Keeping up Appearances….?
I think this car must have presented a real challenge to writers of car magazines when it hit the showrooms of Great Britain. For most of the 60s and 70s Japanese cars were derided as junk, certainly not in the same league as British cars. The best thing that writers of the time could say was that they were reliable. And now, BL was building a “badge-engineered” Japanese car.
In the end, the British auto worker(thought) they had the last laugh as the Rover/Sterling may have been somewhat Japanese but the quality….for better or worse was still British.
One of my mum’s favourite shows! The Buckets drove a first-generation Rover 200. A little bit more classy for the upwardly mobile Hyacinth.
Sadly, she had no room for a Mercedes or pony.
Or a swimming pool
Though there was enough room to bring home some of Dowager Lady Ursula’s Homemade Gooseberry Wine…..
Oddly enough New Zealand BL dealers began selling Hondas as the local assembly was done by the prior BL works finally they had something that didnt leak oil on the showroom floor and was still running under its own steam when servicing was due, sdomething BL FWD cars werent good at.
I was used to seeing oil stains from my brother’s 2nd hand BSA & Triumph motorcycles but BL was the only car maker I can remember that leaked oil from new.They were parked over large pieces of card board in my local BL showroom
Very interesting story. The Acclaim must have been a huge difference for those used to cars like the Princess and the Triumph 1300. FWIW I think it was a nice little car for the early-’80s, even if it was too Japanese and not British enough for many U.K. tastes.
Like the constant highs and lows of American automakers, it’s a shame that after building this one “being as reliable as a Honda”, the British Leyland/Rover’s 800/Sterling 825 was much more poorly built. If I recall, they also built some U.K.-market Honda Legends (the basis for the 800/825), and most did not pass Honda’s quality standards.
Interesting story .
-Nate
Thanks, Roger. Never heard of these.
“…the principle of designing for assembly and manufacture from the beginning.”
Seems so obvious, but easy to lose sight of. Almost an organizational principle more than an engineering one. Are the designers/marketers/bean-counters REALLY cognizant of what happens on the factory floor?
If BMW owns the Triumph name, does that mean we could get a revived TR6 through a Mini dealer? Like a more affordable, less ugly Z4? Let the unfounded rumors begin! You heard it here first!
In terms of awareness of what was happening on the factory floor, in BL’s case the answer was pretty manifestly, “No.” One of BL’s biggest problems, aside from having inherited more capacity than they were ever likely to use, was that many of their factories were ancient and none too efficient — Edwardes’ word was “Dickensian” — and there were a lot of managerial and organizational problems on top of that, leading to stuff like cars and parts coming down the lines in the wrong order for what was to be assembled.
After the BL merger, they did recognize that their production engineering — designing things to be built efficiently as well as cleverly — was deficient and brought in a bunch of people from Ford and elsewhere with greater expertise in making things cost-effective to build, but BL was such a mess that actually doing anything about it took forever. I think the first in-house project to really reflect that shift was probably the Metro, which didn’t arrive until 1980…
Production engineering, design for manufacture, product planning and project accounting were all deficient for BL, and had been over 30 years.
Labour unrest was a publicly understandable issue but not the cause of the ultimate demise. That was the product investment, or rather the lack if it
be interesting to know what BL’s typical inventory levels were over the 70s period. If unsold cars were filling airfields then strikes wouldnt have mattered. I thought strikes did affect the Rover 3500 though.
A new Triumph, made by BMW? Not a f*****g chance. They’re already stretched selling the “ultimate yuppie show-off machines – usually leased”, and bringing out another marque wouldn’t be worth while. After all, anything named Triumph would only compete with the 1-series, and possibly a more bare bones 3.
BMW keeps the rights to the name to insure that nobody else can bring out a Triumph automobile. Ditto, Ford with the Rover marque.
In the ’90s, BMW had made noises about wanting to revive not only Triumph and MINI, but also Riley. At the time, I think they were semi-serious about it, but their interest was based on wanting to avoid diluting the BMW brand. After dumping Rover, BMW held onto those three names, but since then, they’ve clearly decided there’s more money to be made in slapping the BMW badge on everything, so I agree it’s unlikely that they’ll actually use Triumph or Riley in the foreseeable future.
They could sell the previous model 3 series as a triumph to get more out of the tooling, like Seat are doing with the Audi A4.
Another fine installment in the slow-motion train-wreck that was the British motor industry. I don’t think I ever knew that the last Triumph was really a Honda. I continue to scratch my head that the birthplace of the industrial revolution was, in the end, unable to build a suitably reliable car.
Great article. Likely a very competent car but doesn’t say “Triumph” to me. North America, of course, mostly got Triumph sports cars with only the occasional sedan so my view might tainted a bit.
Triumph really sold a lot of sedans in the British market — the Herald, of course, the FWD sedans, and then the Toledo/Dolomite, which were RWD versions of the former, and the bigger 2000/2500. The Dolomite and 2000/2500 were surprisingly popular till the end of their lives and the 2000/2500 (along with the Rover P6) really defined their class until the Germans took it over.
You’re right that the 1300/1500/Dolomite and 2000/2500 defined their sectors, but both were products of the early 1960s, Dolomite engine apart, and looking very dated by the mid 1970s, when BL could not afford to directly replace them.
Looking back, 1978-80 were probably the years when BL was closest to absolute failure, and the Acclaim deal really was a last gasp at slavaging something in the mid market, and a deal like this one with Honda an absolute requirement for any real future
A good overview of an often-forgotten car. Several clarifications worth mentioning:
– Michael Edwardes was actually not appointed by the Thatcher government. Labour had brought him in more than a year before the Tories took power, recognizing that BL’s losses were becoming a political liability.
– BL had developed two in-house successors for the Toledo/Dolomite (the SD2 and TM1), which were supposed to share components with the TR7 in the interests of cost-savings. Both projects were canceled for financial reasons.
– I think the idea of going to Honda was actually suggested by the government in mid-1978; Edwardes opened the talks, but I believe it wasn’t actually his idea. Of course, the Chrysler deal probably wouldn’t have happened in any case, given Chrysler’s own financial problems.
The Ballade is often described in English-language sources as an upmarket Civic, which is kind of misunderstanding the JDM marketing strategy. The favorite Japanese tactic, originated by Toyota, was to expand their sales reach by adding new dealer chains. Each new channel would have a couple of unique products and then an assortment of made-over versions of existing ones, just distinct enough that the manufacturer could say to existing dealers, “Look, these are different products than yours.” There wasn’t really a hierarchy, since most of the channels had the same brands (although that’s changed a bit in the past 20 years).
Honda got into that in 1978 with the new Verno stores, which had the Prelude (unique) and then the Quint (sort of unique), Ballade (restyled Civic sedan), and later the Vigor (restyled Accord). The original Civic four-door was actually positioned as a bit more upscale than the Ballade (the Civic was 1500 only, for instance), but mainly it was like the difference between Austin- and Morris-badged 1100s or between a Dodge Dart and Plymouth Valiant — distinct, sort of, but not that different and you’d be hard-pressed to say one was better than the other. The second-generation Ballade and Civic were even more similar, although the Ballade didn’t have a wagon and the only three-door version was the CR-X.
A small typo: In the third paragraph, you want, “nominally complementary.”
Thanks for the explanation of Honda marketing. I’d always tried to figure out what a Ballade was, since everything I’d read said it wasn’t a Civic. Which it sure looked like to me. The Valiant/Dart match-up made sense immediately.
Yeah, it’s really mystifying if you’re not familiar with how the different dealer channels work. Even in JDM buyer’s guides, the related cars are often listed together unless one has some variation the others don’t.
I think that strategy is on the wane — it seems like in the past decade or so, dealers’ desire to have the the most popular or appealing products has begun to overcome the territorial impulse, and the need to come up with multiple cosmetic variations of the same product is an expense I imagine the automakers wouldn’t mind eliminating.
Michael Edwardes was appointed in 1977 by the previous government and the Honda proposal first cam in 1977/78, though I’m not sure it was from he government. Going with Chrysler would have been 2 drunks propping each other up and buying more drinks, though Chrysler nominally had access to some competitive products. Renault was the other option, but the French saw the light and chose AMC instead
ideally, would have wanted to do the TM1/SD2 pairing, assuming they could accept internally that sharing a platform made sense.
But, as you point out, there was no money left
I didn’t mean that the government had approached Honda, just that my recollection was that they suggested Edwardes look at a Japanese manufacturer. (I think I read that in Graham Robson and Richard Langworth’s book on Triumph, which I’ve read but don’t own, so I can’t check at the moment.)
And a proud marque goes under, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
I’m happy that nobody in the US has ever bothered to import an Acclaim, so the last Triumphs we see at vintage car shows are TR7’s and TR8’s. I’d prefer to not have to notice the final end of what has always been my favorite British marque (both automobile and motorcycle).
Better the way the motorcycle company ended, three years later. Right up to the 1984 models (which came out in pre-production only) Meriden was still making Bonnevilles to the end, but with electric start, touring and dual sport versions, and even well into development of a 900cc water cooled twin that would have replaced the classic 750 vertical twin in 1985 – had the money not run out.
The last I heard at that point was the factory was closed, and some big British developer named Bloor was buying the property with the intention of tearing down the old plant and putting up a car park. A few toasts to the old brand were drunk at the local watering hole, and we didn’t really care how drunk we got. We’d still get our Bonnies kicked over.
Little did we dream . . . . . .
Better the way the motorcycle company ended, three years later.
Someone bought the rights to the name. I noticed a Triumph bike dealership opening near casa del Steve a year ago.
http://www.triumphmotorcycles.com/
See my last paragraph. That Bloor fellow (John Bloor) found out that he had purchased the Triumph name and all rights along with the building and property. The Bonneville was farmed out for 1985-89 (England only, made in Devon by Les Williams), theN Triumph burst back onto the scene with completely modern motorcycles in 1990 with 1991 bikes. Back in Canada in ’94, the US in ’95, and they’ve been trucking along ever since.
My ’95 Trident is still running like a beast with 116,800 miles on it as of the commute to work this morning.
Like I said, we never dreamed. If someone had told me in 1984 that I’d have a new Triumph 11 years later, I’d have laughed in his face. If he’d have further stated that it wouldn’t leak, have no electrical problems, and be reliable I’d have considered him a madman. And, by the way, this isn’t a revival. Despite seven different owners since 1902, this Triumph is still the same unbroken line from the first bikes built in Coventry.
I don’t know how the Bloor triumphs have progressed, but I do remember when they first came out how massively over engineered they were. A flatmate had the triple (probably even the same year as yours) and the solidity of it was amazing. A good bike to keep hold of for the long haul.
6 year later reply: That ’95 Trident of mine died a month after doing last post. I T-boned a deer at 60mph on the way home from work that night. At it’s death, it had 117,200 essentially trouble free (one major repair, a broken starter sprag clutch at 96,000) miles behind and will always be the best bike I’ve ever owned.
Triumph continues onward. The Bonneville is now 1200cc and water cooled (boo!!!!), most Triumph now come out of their Thailand plant (double boo!!!!), and they’ve just announced the new Trident. 660cc naked sport bike, looks quite interesting, I’ll be giving it a look when it hits the local dealer.
Never had the pleasure wrt the Acclaim. I remember a Sterling test in R&T. The test noted that, as the ignition key was turned through the accessory position toward “on”, all the relays in the car would start cycling, clicking like a herd of crazed crickets, but they would stop when the “on” position was reached.
Found a video on youtube put out by BL in the 70s about product quality. The film admits the factories are old and cramped, and the equipment worn out, but still insists it’s up to the workers to turn out a decent product, in spite of what they have to work with.
I’ve seen this video. I’ve never understood how a car company, with so many years building cars under its belt could screw it up so badly.
…how a car company, with so many years building cars under its belt could screw it up so badly.
Actually, failure is the norm in the industry. The US has had hundreds of automakers. Studebaker celebrated it’s 100th anniversary as a vehicle producer in 1952. In the 1920s, the most highly regarded US autos were not Cadillac and Lincoln, but Peerless, Pierce Arrow and Packard. Only Packard survived the depression but collapsed in ruins in 1956. Everyone who went to the CC meetup saw another case up close and personal: stunning works of art, innovative engineering, fail. Two of the surviving three have been bailed out by the government because they were “too big to fail”.
As I saw another auto industry analyst say “rather than ask why a company failed, wonder how the other handful have survived”
I feel for the white haired guy in the video. One month in, and he already has 11 faults in his new car. Been there, have the scars.
I agree. Some car companies deserve to be bailed out while others should’ve just been allowed to sink into oblivion. I like Ted, the lorry driver. He does everything he can to make sure car parts get to the factory safely as safely as possible.
Very interesting history about a car that I never knew existed!
On a conceptual level, I fail to see much difference between BL assembling Honda Ballades in the early 80s and badging them as Triumphs, and GM workers in Lordstown assembling Daewoo Lacettis today and calling them the Chevy Cruze. Each was/is a capitulation to the fact that the “home” team couldn’t engineer a superior product…
Not quite. In the case of the Acclaim, it was because BL couldn’t design a car as good. In the case of the current Cruze, it’s because GM couldn’t design a car AT A PRICE WHERE THEY COULD MAKE A PROFIT.
Big difference between the two.
It wasn’t a matter of whether BL could design a car as good — it was that BL couldn’t afford much and the Dolomite was a secondary priority. I don’t know that the SD2 would have been a particularly good car (it was a peculiar-looking thing), but that or the TM1 was what BL would have built if they were not teetering on the brink.
Except for the teeeeeny tiny difference of Rover not OWNING Honda the difference between Rover shipping in parts from Honda as part of an agreement and the fact that GM OWNS Daewoo lock stock and barrel, also, very little if nothing is actually sourced from Daewoo parts wise, even if they designed the car, and again, its still a GM design from a GM owned company, so, yeah, besides that, its exactly the same, NOT.
I don’t think that distinction is as important as you’d like it to be.
Whatever.
An interesting tale about a very ordinary car. There’s a definite parallel here between the Triumph/Honda Acclain and the Chevy/Toyota/Geo Nova/Prizm, which were made in California, but were basically just Toyotas wearing bowties.
I remember the Toyota/Chevrolet/Geo badging. At the time I thought “are you kidding me?”. There’s rebadging, and there’s rebadging.
That’s about right, although in GM’s case, it was sort of a bet-hedging move (and probably a desire to get a close look at Toyota’s production methodology) rather than a desperate, “Well, this is all we can afford” tactic.
The Nova was not quite a badge job (it was based on the E80 Sprinter rather than the five-door Corolla and had some sheet metal changes from the JDM Sprinter), but it certainly wasn’t far removed from the template — it’s like the Rover 200 and the second-generation Ballade in that.
^Exactly. The Nova and the Corolla were decently well differentiated on the market. The Prizm, on the other hand, was a Corolla with different badges and maybe a little less content (though even that is debatable.) No sheetmetal differentation whatsoever, which seemed like a step backwards.
That Acclaim is practically Acura’s ancestor. I wonder if the autotrans was a two speed HondaMatic. Funny how Honda got mixed up with the Limey car industry. I had such high hopes for Sterling, we probably would have got the Rover 200 as an junior model if they hadn’t bombed. I saw a 200 in Barbados, it was plush and sharp, and the same color as the Bucket’s. More luxury than the Integra or top Civic.
How could a Legend be so profoundly ruined? I flirted with buying one in the early 90’s, with the delusion I could keep it going.
My mistake, I missed the part of the TrioMatic three speed. US Hondas still had two speeds in 81, my ex had an 81 Accord with the self shifting two speed, and oddly a lockup torque converter. Earlier ones were driver shifted like Torque Drive PowerGlides. I had one of those in my 70? Nova, I broke it within a month. Forced downshifts by a 17 year old, who was told by the previous owner to only use low on hills from complete stops.
All my information says that US Accords got the three-speed automatic in 1980, and the Civic no later than 1981. And by 1983, the Accord already had a four speed automatic.
That may explain why I thought it had a lock up torque convertor, which was third. It did have only Drive and Low on the selector, though many early four speed trans, such as Ford AOD only had three forward gear selections- OD,D,L.
If I keep being wrong so embarrassingly often, I’ll ban myself from this forum!
Not likely 🙂 We’re all here to learn, that’s the main purpose. And your comment got me going on learning more about the history and unique design of Honda’s automatics, which are quite different than all the others. I should really do a post on them sometime.
The automatic transaxle,in real Saturns, was not used by other GM divisions, and is very similar to Honda autos.They both have more in common with a manual gearbox than other automatics. The Saturn even had a external disposable spin on fluid filter-a nice touch and not one you would expect, given GM’s tendency to lean on the cheap side of the fence.
Interesting story Roger, I don’t think these were brought to Australia although I remember seeing the odd Rover Quintet over the years.
I think it would be fair to say that BMC/BL really dropped off the pace from the mid-1960s onward. They did not have a proper product replacement plan across the board, and of what they did, didn’t work out. This did good things for the followers of Minis and MGBs among others, however.
Would the British motor industry have survived if they had stuck with Honda designs instead of degenerating down to the BMW world of throwaway cars at price points where the customers could ill afford it?
I noted your comment about the short wheelbase of the Acclaim relative to the cars it was ostensibly replacing, and its small interior. The Accord was still pretty small at this time. I wonder whether it would have made for a better fit as a Triumph?
A lot of 1980s cars seem very small now – and I mean small by European standards. The Acclaim was small in the 1980s – too small really for four doors.
Some lovely features, the engine was a gem ( I presume it came in a crate from Japan). The later Rover 213 was a nice compact saloon, but the Acclaim was a car for leprechauns.
“the engine was a gem”
Article says 1335 SOHC; was this the same 1335 “CVCC” with Keihin 3-barrel, that went into the US Civics?
My ’80 Civic blew up at 58K miles, sending #3 connecting rod through the front of the block. All the main bearings, and the other three rod bearings looked like new. The only connecting rod I’ve ever held in my hand that broke, WITHOUT having a rod-bolt failure. Digital photo of a damaged Polaroid photo attached.
Never mind rusty fenders, rusty hatch, rusty underbody. Mine rusted holes into the VALVE COVER which I had to patch with epoxy or it’d spit oil-spray.
The original, and the replacement 1335s that I had were no-power pieces of crap.
Don’t get me started on Honda seat belts.
Junk. Junkjunkjunk.
The Honda based cars built by BL were really good, first the Acclaim, then the 200, 400 and 600 series. One avoided the BL engined ones of course and bought the versions with Honda engines. We assumed Honda would take over the company and the future would be much better. What might have been…
As Roger says in his article, they proved that the problem wasn’t with the workforce and the subsequent Japanese factories here have reinforced the point.
There was a glorious Triumph swansong in the Stag. A beautifully elegant Italian styled car with a SOHC V8 (a short stroke engine much more advanced than the agricultural Buick lump). A proper four seater coupe which looked infinitely better than the R109 series Merc SL. Should have been a world beater but the water pump was too high up and cavitated leading to overheating. If BL had been better managed, and developed and tested its products properly instead of starting and cancelling projects all over the place, things could have been so different.
I have driven many of this generation of Civic and they were superb cars for the era. They were very well designed and built and had the old Honda Magic that died in Civics in 2006. Around here, the last ones were gone about 2005, so a 23 year run. Not bad for a 1982. I never found them that small inside, either.
I was already familiar with the Acclaim. It must have been very pleasant for UK car buyers to have a car that drove well, was cheap to run and didn’t go back to the dealer hardly at all, if ever. In the long term, the success of the Acclaim was the final gasp of the UK car industry. It showed that imported cars were just a better buy, be they imported from Europe via the EU or from Japan.
The current state of auto industry while not at the same level of desperation as the 80’s for american and british automakers is rather foreboding. All the recently announced domestic and japanese automaker partnerships means the shit has hit the boardroom fan. Makers have had eight years since Tesla’s model S went on sale and little success with there own electric offerings. Honest appraisal and acceptance of reality is likely to result in additional brand and make dissolutions equal to if not greater than the 2004 apocalypse. In ten to fifteen years the auto landscape will look quite different. The oft dismissed Chinese manufacturers will be far more prominent.
As a Triumph lover and owner of several, the Acclaim never did anything to me. Not Triumph developed, no Triumph elements in it, nothing. It is a business answer. It probably is a good car (however very boring, something that can never be said to any real Triumph) but it is not a Triumph. A Honda with some frills and another badge.
It may be good that there are a few still around, to remind us of that nasty period, but it is also good that most have rusted away.
Another terrific read, Roger. Glad this was re-posted. I know it sounds like my needle is skipping on the record, but the Triumph Acclaim was another car I remember seeing in England. I was thoroughly confused by what looked like straight-up “badge engineering” of a Honda Civic. I do remember seeing quite a few of them in London, along with the Honda Quint (which I thought was more attractive).
I give props to the Acclaim for being, as you pointed, out, one of this marque’s last true successes, regardless of its origins.
The Rover 213/216 will always remind me of the Hyacinth Bucket character from the sitcom “Keeping Up Appearances”.