Britain: An official handbook > 1959

INDUSTRY
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of exports of passenger cars exceeded £158 million. The largest market for cars
was the United States, to which country 95,000 cars were shipped.
Research is carried out at Lindley, Warwickshire, by the Motor Industry
Research Association, an autonomous body founded in 1946 and partly financed
by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), but mainly by
the industry itself. Individual firms also have their own research facilities, and some
work in this field is done by the Mechanical Engineering Research Laboratory of
the DSIR at East Kilbride, Scotland.
Some of the new assembly plants in Britain, electronically controlled and using
the minimum of labour, stand comparison with similar plants anywhere in the
world for efficiency and reliability. Leading motor manufacturers are undertaking
expansion plans, part of which were completed by 1957, costing about £15° million;
in addition, makers of components and accessories have large projects in hand.
The principal trade association in the industry is the Society of Motor Manu¬
facturers and Traders Limited (SMMT), founded in 1902, which holds a Motor
Show annually in London, and a Commercial Motor Exhibition every two years.
Motor Cycles and Pedal Cycles
In 1957, the United Kingdom’s output of motor cycles, including motorised
bicycles (mopeds) and scooters, totalled 175,000, of which 50,000 were for shipment
overseas, about one-quarter to the United States. The total value of United King¬
dom production, including parts and accessories, was about £25 million, and that
of exports about £6 million. Production of scooters and mopeds totalled about
50,000 in 1957 and is expected to increase rapidly over the next few years.
Production of pedal cycles is concentrated mainly in two groups of manufacturers.
In addition, there are several smaller companies, some of which specialise in
particular types such as racing cycles. Output in 1957 totalled 2,54^>000> which
some three-fifths were exported. The value of exports of pedal cycles, parts and
accessories in 1957 exceeded £23 million; the United States, Nigeria, and the
Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland were the largest overseas markets.
The British Cycle and Motor Cycle Industries Association Limited holds an
annual exhibition in London, usually in the autumn.
Aircraft
The development of the aircraft industry in the United Kingdom, as in other
countries, has been strongly influenced by defence requirements, and at the peak
of war-time activity it employed nearly 2 million people as compared with some
35,000 in 1935. Following the adjustments to peace-time conditions, the industry
has undergone a further period of marked expansion, with the numbers employed
increasing from 162,000 in 1951 t° 27O)000 in I957> but the numbers are likely to
fall to some extent in the next few years as a result of changes in defence policy.
The industry manufactures a wide range of civil and military aircraft, extending
from gas-turbine airliners to freighters and crop-spraying aircraft.
Britain’s achievements in developing aviation and the aircraft industry have
been numerous. The science of aerodynamics was founded by Sir George Cayley
in the early nineteenth century; more recently, Sir Frank Whittle developed the
gas-turbine engine aircraft, and its first applications to scheduled airline service
were the turbo-jet Comet and the turbo-prop Viscount, the latter the most successful
post-war civil aircraft now in service all over the world, nearly 400 having been
sold by the summer of 1958. The larger Britannia, which entered into scheduled
service in 1957, is the first gas-turbine airliner to be used on North Atlantic services
and has also been ordered by United States and Canadian airlines, it is the fastest