The RAL management team quickly realised it would be a matter of weeks before some bean-counter in BL HQ would propose selling Rearsby Automotive's heritage; the main factories and airfield. An action plan was devised to win as much business as quickly as possible in order to fully occupy the whole site before the lumbering dinosaur woke up.
By this time Chrysler had acquired Rootes Group and the Avenger medium saloon car was on the stocks to be built at Linwood, Scotland. Rearsby won the rear axle tube welded assemblies - a large order requiring space. Space was what Rearsby had! But, when applying to BL for the capital to purchase a Thompson Friction Welder, the answer was "What? Fund the development of a competitor's car? NO!"
Rearsby went ahead anyway and bought the Thompson on HP, hiding the monthly payments as ‘maintenance costs’. The Axle Tubes turned over many £100,000s accompanied by re-occurring profits, a concept to become increasingly unfamiliar to BL.
This gives an insight into the independent and entrepreneurial streak within Rearsby's management and typifies the culture of the company.
My definition of culture “The way we do things around here.”
Sir Alex Park, brought in by the UK government to chair BL following the Ryder Report into its problems and future, visited Rearsby and declared "Running Rearsby must be the best job in BL."
How right he would prove to be!
Following a spell in BL Special Products Group (Avelling Barford, Goodwin Barsby, Coventry Climax, Self-Change Gears, Alvis) RAL, by then known as Rearsby Components, was transferred to the newly formed SU-Butec Division. This comprised SU Carburetors, Butec Electrics, Alford & Alder, Oxford Exhausts, Llanelli Radiators and Beans Engineering.
By 1977, the RAL turnover grew to £7m with PBIT profits exceeding £1m! This was an outstanding performance by any measure. With customers Austin-Morris, Jaguar Rover Triumph, Alford & Alder in the BL camp plus Ford, Vauxhall and Chrysler.