IT WOULDN’T BE THE BRITISH CAR INDUSTRY IF IT DIDN’T lurch from triumph to disaster with inescapable regularity. Regardless of the sector that UK companies operate in – and the sunlit uplands that they occasionally enjoy – there always seems to be a cloud on the horizon ready to rain on their celebrations, and in some cases wash them away completely.
For every Range Rover scaling new heights of profitability, there’s a Jaguar limping through losses. For every Caterham, Ariel, Morgan or BAC there’s a TVR, Westfield or Keating (remember them?). And then there’s Aston Martin, Lotus and McLaren, who regularly enjoy drinking to their successes with little thought of the hangover to follow.
McLaren’s hangover might not be as bad as the one that
