quality

[David Kemp]

My neighbour is an old Jowett man who owned Javelins during the early 1960;s. He loved Jowetts & considered them quality cars of the day.
When I showed him the poor welding of my Jupiter , his opinion is that I am putting current standards on 70 year old cars.
He was working in Britain in the 1950;s , & clearly remembers the worn out equipment many British manufactures had to use after world war two, money just wasn't there to renew.
Also in his opinion welding was far more primitive than today, a home welder can afford MIG or TIG ,something a Jowett welder would consider science fiction.
I would love to any one who has reality memories of 1950;s technology,

[Forumadmin]

I was an engineering student in the 1960s and remember those days reasonably well (even though it was the hippy 60's). I was also at the forefront of engineering being at University. Even there, what we were using could best be described as 'primitive' by the standards of the 1970's, let alone this century. The effect of electronics on controlling processes such as welding was just beginning. I worked on a nuclear reactor which was still using mechanical systems to control it.

Also remember that Jowett spent more man hours fixing the Javelin after it came off the production line than they did on the production line. The point about worn out equipment pushed to breaking point for war production was well known. The fault with the Jowett gear cutting equipment was passed on to International Harvester whose boxes also failed. The war did bring new production methods to the British car industry who previously used almost blacksmith engineering but it still relied heavily on the fitter and fettler to rectify manufacturing faults.

But then you look at a Rolls Royce of the 20's and you realise that good engineering was possible but it was by craftsmen, not machines. You should also ask how many cars produced in 2016 will be around in 2086!

The cars produced in Britain in the 1960's were not much better and it took the Japanese production methods to gradually improve quality standards which were more based on improving worker relations than providing better machines. Of course you can compare to the post war German car industry as well where capital injection helped and to French car production where state control helped.