An agreement was reached between Morris and
The Austin Motor Company in October 1948 amounting to amalgamation in everything but financial structure. The terms included the constant interchange of information on production methods, research, design, buying and almost every other aspect of their work. It also envisaged the pooling of factory resources. In July 1949 Morris and Austin announced the end of their scheme, no further steps would be taken to pool production resources and no merger of any kind was contemplated. "Nuffield and Austin broke off arrangements for the exchange of confidential information in 1949 following the revival of long-standing hostilities between their chief executives and the Labour Party's decision not to include the industry in its plans for future nationalisation."
Leonard Lord, chief of Austin, had been with Morris from 1923 to 1936, the last four years as Morris's chief executive. They had parted on extremely bad terms. The motoring correspondent of
The Times said the two concerns were fundamentally different in their structure. The Nuffield Organization under the control of Morris Motors made three Morris models with Wolseley (two), Riley (two), MG (two) as well as Morris Commercial trucks,
Nuffield Universal tractors and marine engines. The main factory was at
Cowley, Oxford, there were more at
Birmingham,
Coventry and
Abingdon. The Austin business,
Austin of England, was highly concentrated both in its huge
Longbridge factory at Birmingham and in its products: six Austin car models, Austin trucks and marine engines and battery electric vehicles. ==British Motor Corporation==