The British motor industry got off to a slow start, inhibited by legislation which restricted speed to 4mph until 1896. Daimler opened their Coventry factory in that year, and by the early years of the 20th century Wolseley, Lanchester, Napier and other famous makes were in production. Mass production reached Britain when Ford opened their Manchester factory in 1911 and William Morris started making cars in 1913, but did not become a major mass producer until the 1920s. His great rival was Herbert Austin, whose Seven of 1922 provided a four cylinder engine, four seats and four wheel brakes in a very small package. Morris followed with the Minor of 1928, and managed to get the price of this down to ú100 ($155) by 1931. Ford built a ú100 saloon in 1935. Many new designs appeared after the war, including the flat-four engined Jowett Javelin in 1946, the new Minor designed by Alec Issigonis in 1948, the rear-engined Hillman Imp in 1963, and most important, another Issigonis design, the Mini of 1959, with its transverse engine and front wheel drive. Family motoring in the 1960s was catered for by the roomy five-passenger Ford Cortina, while style was epitomised by the Jaguar E-Type. The smaller British cars followed world trends by changing from rear to front wheel drive, Ford with the Fiesta in 1976 and Escort in 1980, and Vauxhall with the Astra in 1980. In the luxury field, Jaguar and Rolls-Royce continued to make quality cars, Jaguar offering a V12 engine, and Rolls a V8. There have been many mergers over the past forty years; among the most important were Austin and Morris merging to form BMC in 1952, then with Leyland which owned Triumph and Rover in 1968 to form British Leyland. This company was nationalised in 1975, then privatised, and finally bought by BMW in 1994.
