Throughout the majority of the twentieth century, though steel production remained the core of GKN it branched into tooling and component manufacturing.

It was deeply impacted by government policies during the latter half of the century, during which Britain's steel industry was subject to multiple nationalisation and privatisation efforts.

The company later organised a joint venture of Westland's helicopter interests with Agusta to form AgustaWestland[5][6] and its sale to Italian defense firm Finmeccanica.

During November 1995, Dana Corporation purchased GKN's axle group; the two firms continued to operate joint ventures in the field for many years.

The company's name is the initials of three early figures in its history: John Guest, Arthur Keen, and Joseph Henry Nettlefold.

[17] Due to a resultant global shortage of pig iron, in 1937, the company fired-up the single remaining blast furnace at Dowlais.

The company reflected the vertical integration fashionable at the time embracing activities from coal and ore extraction, and iron and steel making to manufacturing finished goods.

[21] After the First World War, it became apparent that Britain was likely to follow France and the United States in developing a large scale automotive industry.

A pioneering motorist, Sankey became friends with figures such as Herbert Austin, and was also a supplier of sheet steel components to the nascent British car industry.

[22] Meanwhile, by 1914, GKN's customers for sheet-steel vehicle bodies had also come to include Austin, along with Daimler, Humber, Rover, Star and Argyll.

Following a fall in demand for turbine blades in the late 1950s, the BRD factory switched to producing constant-velocity joints and driveshafts for vehicles.

[25] At the end of April 1965, the recently elected Labour government published a White Paper proposing the nationalisation of 90 per cent, by output, of Britain's steel industry.

[27] Beginning a programme of diversification into the automotive field in 1966 GKN bought BRD's much larger competitor, Birfield Ltd,[28][29] which held the great bulk of the British market for CVJs, constant velocity joints, and was a company that since 1938 had incorporated both the Sheffield based Laycock Engineering later best known as a postwar overdrive manufacturer, and Hardy Spicer Limited of Birmingham, England, also a manufacturer of constant-velocity joints.

However, in 1959, Alec Issigonis had developed the revolutionary Mini motor car that relied on the Hardy Spicer joints for its front wheel drive technology.

The massive expansion in the exploitation of front wheel drive in the 1970s and 1980s led to the acquisition of other similar businesses and a 43% share of the world market by 2002.

[22] This was part of a larger trend for GKN that during this period, under its Managing Director Raymond Brookes, was working to reduce its dependence on UK auto-maker customers at a time when the domestic industry was seen to be stumbling, in response to bewildering "Government interference and fiscal short-sightedness", with British new car registrations in the first four months of 1969 a massive 33% down on the corresponding period of the previous year.

[22] As a result of the large number of mergers, Abram Games was commissioned to develop a new corporate identity in 1969 when the distinctive angular GKN symbol was created and the new company colours of blue and white introduced.

In 1972, it acquired Firth Cleveland, a hot and cold rolled strip business with a downline in sintered products, reinforcement steels, wire fasteners and garage equipment.

GKN Steel's withdrawal coincidence with the wider closure of multiple steelworks and heavy industries across Britain, which caused considerable social disruption in some areas at the time, thus becoming a topic of political debate.

[41] Around this same time period, GKN acquired larger shares of its other driveline joint ventures with Dana in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia.

[50] The sale was accompanied by an agreement for QuestGlobal to provide engineering resources to GKN Aerospace; this cooperation was presented as a long-term strategy.

[57][58] During early 2011, it was announced that GKN and EADS would cooperate on developing radical additive layer manufacturing technology for aerospace purposes.

[66][67] Following a formal review of the purchase, including of various objections put forward by GKN workers and trade unions, the UK Government allowed the transaction to proceed in April 2018;[68][69] Melrose agreed to comply with several national security measures.