The Devon factory for anyone who's interested.

One for geeks like me here, I managed to find the Devon factory today, or what's left of it. It's called the Alexandria industrial estate now. I also found an article from the local newspaper on line which explains the origins of the company and shows the works as they were.
http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/features/sidmouth_story_of_success_the_caravette_1_1334659
I spoke to a man in the unit pictured who has been there for years and remembered when it was Devon before he moved in there, early to mid 80's I guess.
From the black and white picture in the article, it seems that several of the buildings have been knocked down, but the one in my pics can be seen in the centre left. You can see the two sliding shutter doors, the small door and the window I think. I got a shot of my van next to it
Front.

Side.


Rear.

 

nice one , i love stuff like this , still got my original devon stickers on mine

 

that factory looks just like one i did my engineering apprenticeship in too

 

Awesome

 

Thanks, I'm a geek. Great photos. You might have seen these period photos of the factory before, but here's the link to the brochure they're in;
http://www.devonmoonraker.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bay/1980_ish_Works.pdf

 

I think this is very sad, did anyone see the Top Gear where they got 3 British sports cars and visited the closed factories? WTF happened to it all?

 

where do we start? lazy british workers, over controlling unions, cheap foreign imports and cheaper outsourcing, oh and did i mention lazy british workers?

 

OK British Leyland but the smaller companies were a different story, often a conscientious workforce who often went the last mile to get the job done.
They're just the symptoms though, what happened to British attitudes to make that happen?

 

Is there a book ? I have some many dub books but none of them cover really interesting stuff like this ....

 

The products weren't great unfortunately, TVR developed a reputation for unreliabilty and the Japs and Germans took over as with the Motorcycle industry, they just did it better and cheaper, less stylishly but better.

 

why not ?

 

Don't get me started on British industry the saddest thing about our decline is that it wasn't inevitable due to market pressure from the East. Germany managed to built an industry while we whittled ours away because they realised that cost isn't always everything, people will pay more for quality, brands and prestige. Rolls Royce, Bentley, Range Rover and Jaguar have bucked the trend and increased sales over the last 5 years selling to the industrialising nations who want to buy prestige brands. so along with quality control issues, unions etc, I think lack of vision from management played a big part. We've always had innovative people and good ideas and products, but maybe not the management to develop them.
Having said all that, the site was full of smaller buisness units yesterday, so we must still be doing something

 

as someone who worked for a large british company in the early 80's through to 2000 (lucas's) i saw 1st hand the crap this country did to it's own "brand" the management paniced the unions ruled the workforce was complacent money was spunked up the wall left right and centre, we would do no work during the day (or as little as possible) and then do it as overtime of a night or weekend just to screw the comapny, it was just what happened, in the end we shot ourselves in the arse 'cos the yanks bought us out downsized and outsourced until finally the only lucas thing left was the name, by 2001ish we were done and gone - anything lucas now is just a brand with a sticker on i'd guess as they just wanted the names and old reputation i'd imagine.

 

^this. Most of our problems were due to lousy management and lack of vision. We had real talent (I'm thinking Rover 2000 and the Range Rover, amongst others), but p*ssed it all away.

 

Did you manage to find the blunt spoon that Devon used to cut holes with ?