The British Motor Corporation (BMC) was suffering a dramatic drop in its share of the home market.
Second, Lyons, by now 65 and without his son John, who had been killed driving to Le Mans in 1955, did not have a long term succession plan.
At the annual statement to shareholders for 1967, BMH chairman Sir George Harriman reported on Group Overseas Operations that the company had delivered to world markets (i.e. exported) 313,790 cars, commercial vehicles and tractors, including 72,049 manufactured overseas.
[6] British Motor Holdings inherited a plethora of British automotive marques but by now they were the (famously) badge-engineered unified range of one manufacturer incorporating three sports cars, MGB, MG Midget / Austin-Healey Sprite, Austin Healey 3000 plus Jaguar saloons and sports car and its badge-engineered Daimlers, Coventry Climax industrial engines and Guy trucks.
In 1965, the year prior to the merger, BMC and Leyland's annual production had reached one million vehicles per annum.