British Leyland Cape Town

[IndianaJones]

Hi

Does anyone have any info or photos on the assembly of BMC or British Leyland vehicles in Cape Town from the 1950's till 1981, at the Blackheath and/or Elsie's River plants?
Where exactly these plants where?
Which models were assembled, and how many? Jaguar XJ, etc, etc
How much local content was used for assembly of these models? etc, etc

Regards

[hitlers revenge]

British Leyland Blackeath was in Range road, next to Continental China.

British Leyland Elsies River was near Consani's and the bus terminus. 1st left after the bridge in Halt Road. Somewhere near where Propshaft Engineering is today.

[IndianaJones]

Great info oom Dave, do you know if anything is left of the original buildings?

Continental China seem to be the oldest buildings in that area, the buildings next to it newer.
Interesting both sites, are very close to a train terminal.

[werner]

I think the Leyland plant was across the road from the current Continental China factory, next to the railway line. I was there earlier this year and the whole complex is now a small and medium business park. I found the web page and photo. The web page include some very interesting information about minis that was only available in S A and also a Wolsely 1000, a mini base with wolsely front. All the cars that was assembled there is also listed. I did have information about the Elsies river plant some years ago, but as I am not a regular updater, it got lost with computer changes. Sure I will find it again.

http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/around- ... th-africa/

About the railway line, The only transport that time for cars was by railway.
The current site for transport is now used again for car storage and parts of the lines at the loading area still exist. The rest, brick buildings included, was carried away for afimative (spelling) housing.

[werner]

The Elsies River plant was at Central park .Copy and paste from the folowing link.

Central Park was originally the Leyland factory in Cape Town which was converted to an industrial park in the late eighties.

http://gdpindustrialproperty.co.za/faur ... -property/

Here is the location and a street view of the current site.

OK, it does not want to upload screen shots. I'll do something else later.

[IndianaJones]

Very nice research Werner, appreciate it.

I marked the locations in the following images.
Seems then the Elsie's River factory was a little further from the train station, than I initially thought.
Wonder if the buildings had been rejuvenated at some point, the buildings directly West of the Central "Business" Park looks more period correct.

From the photo you provided of the Blackheath factory, it seems quite obvious that it is now the Blackheath "Business" Park.

[werner]

Hi Ben, The areas marked is correct. The Blackheath site had a side line that was very rusted and unused the last time I saw it. The Epping site did not have a side line, its on the other side of the river and I was there many many times. I actually had to go through there to get in Coleman street once when a water pipe burst and flooded Consani rd. The Central Park most likely was revamped, it used to be the Crysler factory till 1973. The buildings to the west was Consani engineering till 2005 when they closed that part of the business. It is now Consani Business Park.

The Epping site was used to build the commercial vehicles.

I do not know wheather there was another site used by Leyland in the earlier years as the first Morris and other "Leyland" vehicles was built by the now Toyota factory.

[hitlers revenge]

The Austin Apache, even though it used 1100/morris parts, it was built exclusively in Cape Town.

After which came the Austin Marina and then the Mini with the extended boot.

After changing to "Leykor" they started building those Diahatsu Bakkies.

Here is a list of all leyland cars produced at Blackheath:

Wolseley 1100
11/55 - named so due to twin carbs.
Austin Apache
Austin Marina
Triumph Chicane
Rover V8 sport
Rover SDX
Jaguar XJ6 exclusive

[werner]

This is the entrance to Central Park.

By the way Indi, it was not research, I just had to get info correct.

Picked up a lot of interesting reading as well.

[werner]

While we are in Range rd in Blackheath, this is the site used by the importers of Dacia. Do not know if the used the complete site or just a section.

I passed there one Wednesday morning wile SA metal was crushing brand new Dacias that was not "up to standard".