Following the 1978/9 large wage increases Rearsby was transferred to BL Cars, then Unipart, following yet another BL restructuring. Or rather was it being steered into a ‘pre-closure’ parking bay?
I was later informed the decision to close Rearsby had been taken! All were to be made redundant excepting myself. Meanwhile I was to announce nothing.
We were not a good fit for Unipart – ‘millions of parts for thousands of cars’. Unipart was primarily an aftermarket parts distributor principally for BL, products plus a limited (by comparison) range of ‘all makes’ high volume parts.
Few of our products were good aftermarket products. Wearing and service parts e.g. brake shoes/disc pads, clutch plate, filters, suspension bushes/ball joints, exhaust systems, shock absorbers, bulbs, radiators, hoes, cable assemblies, crash damage parts, panels, bumpers, lamp lens/assemblies, screens, tyres, oils and lubricants etc. If you were to visit a scrap yard one could observe 100% of Rearsby handbrake levers remaining on the vehicle floor pan. The Valeo and the old Mini driven plates were the only good after-market parts, but volumes were declining. Both could be moved to other suppliers.