Family cars of the 1970s in Britain | British cars take on the swathes of foreign-built alternatives

The 1970s saw a huge change in the new-car market here in Britain and the UK as a whole, as home-grown offerings from British Leyland, Vauxhall, Rootes and Ford geared up to fend off the tidal wave of foreign-built cars that appeared in dealer showrooms with increasingly regularity as the decade struggled on. Whereas there had been little foreign mass-produced competition - with a few exceptions - during the 1960s, the 1970s would see huge numbers of well-developed, modern, largely reliable, and well-spec'd cars arriving at the UK's ports, all with the one ambition in mind - to lure away car buyers from traditional home-assembled vehicle choices. And in this quest they were largely very successful. The one thing they all had in common though was a willingness to rust away after just a few years, which means that many of the cars built in the seventies are a rare sight now at classic car events. The photos in this collection mix up British cars of the 1970s with a selection of these foreign-built rivals, there are many other cars that could have made it into this video (perhaps I'll do a Part 2 sometime in the future), but if nothing else this collection serves up a reminder of just what the British car manufacturers were up against, coupled with a highly militant unionised workforce allied to management that seemed almost incapable of building cars at a profit, and investing sufficiently in future models despite selling cars in healthy numbers for years previously. As a child of the 1970s myself I remember growing up surrounded by these cars, so I definitely have a soft spot for many of them despite their foibles. Thanks for checking out this video on the Old Classic Car channel, please have a look around at the other photos collections, show visits, museum walkarounds and more elsewhere on this channel: Channel homepage:    / @oldclassiccaruk   Channel videos list:    / oldclassiccarrj   If you know of anyone else who might find these vids of interest, please forward one of the above links to them. #classiccars #1970scars #britishleyland