Leyland's £40m axe
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ICTORY CAPACITY, in-house 'gine production, and agriculral tractors have all fallen vicn of Leyland Vehicles' axe, in a 10m move which will trim the bour force by 4,100 by the end next year.
In response to the company's ss of £47m in the first half of is year, Leyland is getting out ( tractor production cornetely, dropping two of its Inger-established engine nges, and is concentrating .oduction on fewer sites.
Leyland Group chairman avid Andrews announced on -iday of last week that the tracir business at Bathgate is in )urse of being sold to Marshall, ons and Co Ltd, which will reduce the range of vehicles at s Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, ictory from next spring.
The Bathgate plant, which 3ars the brunt of the job losses, ith 1,3 6 5 redundancies anned, is also to lose most of 3 lorry range as new T45-deed vehicles are introduced to iplace the Terrier, Boxer, and lastiff models. The new lorries ill be made at the Leyland asambly hall, in Lancashire.
Another 740 jobs will disapaar in Wolverhampton with the osure of the Guy factory, which produces Victory bus and Landtrain lorries for export. Landtrain assembly and packing will be transferred to Bathgate.
Bathgate is to concentrate on engine production, and will continue to build BMC-designed 98Series engines for use in lorries and tractors.
A major collaborative venture will be announced shortly, possibly involving a foreign manufacturer, on the eventual replacement for the 98-Series, and, meanwhile, turbocharged versions of the 6.98 will replace most of the Leyland-built 400Series, which is being dropped.
The company is plugging a gap in its engine range, by importing International Harvester's DT466 7.64-litre diesel from Chicago, to meet demands for a 160 to 205bhp power unit in place of the recently introduced 412 unit.
And as a further escape from the traps of vertical integration, production of the AEC-designed TL1 2 diesel used in the Roadtrain is to cease, and RollsRoyce's 265L will become standard.
In all, 1,120 jobs will disappear among production and product development staff at Leyland, and a further 285 staff jobs will go. The bus division (see p171 will lose 450 staff, and 140 jobs are to go at the Albion works in Glasgow, where lorry front and rear-axle production will be concentrated on'the north works.
While there are no redundan cies planned for the Scamrnell factory at Watford, its specialised operations will be reduced to one site instead of two.
While the company will not admit publicly to a level of savings which the cuts will bring in, management has indicated privately that it could save around E40m. But Mr Andrews said the company will remain a loss-maker next year.
They will result in the labour force, which stood at 28,000 in 1977 falling to half that figure, Speaking in London last week, LV chairman Ron Hancock was especially critical of two unnamed importers which have cut prices to increase their market share this year, and of those British companies which have bought their products. He would. not expand on this matter, but Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders figures show DAF, MAN-VW, and Volvo all to have done comparatively well in the first ten months of this year.
He suggested that British customers ought to spare a thought for British job prospects when taking these decisions, but defended LV's own decision to import ZF gearboxes from West Germany.