ABSTRACT
Despite periodic setbacks which affected the economy as a whole, the British motor industry made enormous gains during the interwar period and by the late 1930s was second only to the United States in the production and export of cars and commercial vehicles. This was achieved by expanding sales to both domestic and foreign markets. Shielded by tariff protection, the industry supplied 97 per cent of the home market by 1937, while falling car prices following the advent of mass production techniques, together with the growth of consumer incomes, combined to bring motor vehicle ownership within reach of a much wider public. Some mergers involved the formation of Armstrong-Siddeley Motors in 1919, the absorption of Lanchester by Daimler in 1931 and the purchase of Riley by William Morris in 1938. The components sector of the motor industry was also increasingly dominated by a select group of large companies, including Pressed Steel, Dunlop, Pilkington, Triplex and Lucas.
