Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.
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Rick Site Admin
Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 22446 Location: UK
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P3steve
Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Posts: 542 Location: Great Yarmouth, Norfolk
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:54 pm Post subject: |
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Historians hundreds of years from now will look back and shake there heads with disbelief as how the British motor trade could go from one of the worlds leaders to less than some third world countries in the space of just 40 years while many other european countries like France, Germany Italy and others can still maintain two to three manufacturers each. _________________ If the world didn't suck we'd all fall off |
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Rick Site Admin
Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 22446 Location: UK
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Jim.Walker
Joined: 27 Dec 2008 Posts: 1229 Location: Chesterfield
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Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 6:32 pm Post subject: |
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Around 1980 I was doing a stint on the station taxi rank (fed up with sitting at the office desk) listening to another driver boasting about his new Japanese telly.
I told him " You cannot afford it". He said "Yes I can I have paid for it". My response was "Not yet you haven't! Come back in twenty years and tell me that!".
I was not just talking about tellys but imports in general.
Perhaps the French and Germans had more National Pride in their products than we did. Of course industrial strife did not help either.
Jim. _________________ Quote from my late Dad:- You only need a woman and a car and you have all the problems you
are ever likely to want". Computers had not been invented then! |
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baconsdozen
Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 1119 Location: Under the car.
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2011 8:53 am Post subject: |
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Stuff sells on price now,quality doesn't count for much.
Before I bought my store in Lowestoft I did the sunday markets.I bought blind a few thousand hacksaw blades,I knew they'd be rubbish but I didn't realise how bad they were.They would nearly cut wood but use them on iron and all the teeth ended up on the floor,they cut nearly as well (or rather badly) if you put them in the hacksaw frame with the teeth facing upwards.
I made up a big sign."Chinese hacksaw blades,no guarantee,cheap as chips,10p each or ten for a £1".In the tray next to them were Eclipse Bimetal at 95p each.
I sold all the Chinese stuff (in lots of ten) and not one of the eclipse. _________________ Thirty years selling imperial hand tools for old machinery(Now happily retired). |
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Roger-hatchy
Joined: 07 Dec 2007 Posts: 2135 Location: Tiptree, Essex
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:36 am Post subject: |
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Baconsdozen
The market can be very quirky
My Brother-in-law had a shop in East London in the 1970's selling builders equipment.
He kept the prices as low as possible and nothing seemed to move, they put the prices up and sold out on a couple of days.
Nowadays it has become a throwaway culture as well.
We all see that with most garages only having fitters instead of mechanics.
As my Dad, and most others of that era would say, "You get what you pay for"
Still got tools that my Granddad used, and still better than anything modern, even at top prices.
Roger
Sorry for taking the thread off topic (again) |
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BigJohn
Joined: 01 Jan 2011 Posts: 954 Location: Wem, Shropshire
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2011 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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My pet hate is the phrase 'fitters rather than mechanics', In my early years as an apprentice fitter technician, I had to hand scrape bearings 2' across, set bevel gears, set rollers to a thou over 12' etc, we MADE things fit (not using the 4lb hammer method ) What you have now are assemblers.
The word fitter has now been devalued. Our punishment for a cock up was to get a piece of 2" square steel, file it to a perfect 1" cube, then when the fitting instructor was happy, and he never was on the first attempt, file it to nothing and produce the filings. Happy Days! I could have murderd the old **%^$*, But I learnt to be a fitter and respected the skills being passed on. His hobby was hand scraping alloy cylinder heads flat on float glass using engineers blue, 'cos he could. |
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