ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the increasing level of concentration which took place in the British car industry during the inter–war period. Concentration has often been linked with a conscious attempt to increase monopolistic powers. The might have produced cut–throat competition which would have harmed Ford's market penetration and thereby made the capital–intensive Dagenham plant a liability instead of an asset. It must be emphasizes that the degree of concentration and in the histograms tends to underestimate the situation. Leyland Motors, with the formation of British Leyland, became in the de facto controller of the British–owned motor industry. In effect, the substitution of six–firm competition for two–firm market leadership meant that the process of shake–out had to begin again in the post–war period; too many firms had survived for all of them to be able to grow to an efficient size within a limited market.
