ABSTRACT
This chapter examines in some detail the damaging effects of two aspects of restructuring in the car assembly and components industry, which, in assessment, are the most important challenges facing the sector. The first relates to the effects of the internationalization and 'quasi' vertical integration of the activities of the major corporations of the UK car assembly industry. The second major development, which has serious implications in terms of local ownership and control, is the delivery, in recent years, of the industry into the hands of the international oligopoly within components manufacture. Some of the companies are subsidiaries of Nissan, which represents a move towards forward vertical integration rather than the offer of new business to independent companies. The company, which held over 30 per cent of the UK car market in the mid-1970s, has progressively lost its market share, reaching a trough of 15 per cent in 1987 and 1988.
