Morris-Austin Merger
An agreement was reached between Morris and Austin Motor Company in October 1948 amounting to amalgamation in everything but financial structure. The terms included the constant interchange of information on production methods, research, design, buying and almost every other aspect of their work. It also envisaged the pooling of factory resources. In July 1949 Morris and Austin announced the end of their scheme, no further steps would be taken to pool production resources and no merger of any kind was contemplated.
"Nuffield and Austin broke off arrangments for the exchange of confidential information in 1949 following the revival of long-standing hostilities between their chief executives and the Labour Party's decision not to include the industry in its plans for future nationalisation." Leonard Lord, chief of Austin, had been with Morris from 1923 to 1936, the last four years as Morris's chief executive. They had parted on extremely bad terms.
The Motoring Correspondent of The Times said the two concerns were fundamentally different in their structure. The Nuffield Organization under the control of Morris Motors made: three Morris models with Wolseley (two), Riley (two), MG (two) as well as Morris Commercial trucks, Nuffield Universal tractors and marine engines. The main factory was at Cowley, Oxford, there were more at Birmingham, Coventry and Abingdon. The Austin business, Austin of England, was highly concentrated both in its huge Longbridge factory at Birmingham and in its products: six Austin car models, Austin trucks and marine engines and battery electric vehicles.
The nine different cars made by Nuffield using six engines and five (and a half) car bodies of which the "specialist" three were obsolescent, the rest very closely related if not identical.
The specialist MGs and Rileys were to be the last of their separate-chassis line — except for the MG Midget TF and MGA, which latter lasted until the monocoque MG MGB of 1962. The bigger Morris and Wolseley cars shared an identical monocoque structure aft of their engine compartments and almost all mechanicals, the Minor's structure was a smaller version of the same monocoque design.
However, on Friday 23 November 1951 a joint statement announced plans for a merger. The two companies would retain their separate identities and would not produce the same models. Forty years later the merger was recognised to have been a political decision in the face of American competition and the absence of heirs for either Morris or Austin.