The Battle of Costs

The discussions which have already been summarised in the previous chapter reveal that the design staff and senior executives of the company were well aware that progress in design and in mass-production manufacturing techniques, both in Britain and the United States, had seriously undermined the economic security of the chassis division. The price which the company was paying, and asking, for its reputation was undoubtedly excessive, not because of any deliberate policy but simply because of the production economics involved in the manufacture of a small number of cars. Yet the management, though fully aware of the fact that the chassis division had not paid its way during the depression, and that it appeared unlikely to do so in the future, made no attempt to measure the relative strength of the two branches of production until 1938. Many important items of expenditure which could without much effort have been allocated with some degree of accuracy between chassis and aero production were combined and deducted from the gross manufacturing profit of the two divisions.