British Leyland has announced plans to phase out some of its cars next year.
Once-famous firms such as British Leyland, GEC and ICI have fallen apart or been taken over and dismembered.
Ever since Basil Fawlty moaned about "the British Leyland Concerto in four movements, all of them slow with a four-hour tea break in between", the car industry has been an emblem of national decline.
