Overview

There are 800,000 people in the UK of all ages and gender directly and indirectly employed in the wider car industry. If you are one of these and want to have a Director and Senior Executive's truly unique insider story on how the car industry worked and evolved from the 1970s until now, then this is a must-read book. John documents his many memories, experiences and events of his career from September 1969 when he joined British Leyland direct from university to 2019 when he was a self-employed automotive consultant. In 1969 British Leyland was the fifth-largest vehicle manufacturer in the world. It doesn't exist today. John describes many events during a period of British Leyland's decline in sales and financial difficulties. Many of his anecdotes are amusing and some are unbelievable. These include some British Leyland new car launches that went spectacularly wrong. John was there to see it, and now writes about it. He describes his time at Land Rover Ltd during a period of successful sales growth and the development and launch of new Land Rover and Range Rover vehicles, including the Land Rover Discovery in 1989. The book uniquely details the development of exclusive Land Rover dealer networks in the UK, Europe, Australia and USA. There is interesting business insight into John's time in BMW Group and Honda Motor Europe. The book includes the names of the many colleagues and car dealers with whom John worked in his long car-industry career.

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9781915635839

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John is a unique car industry executive. He is the only person alive today who has worked as a Director and Senior Executive for Land Rover, a wholly owned British car manufacturer, as it was at the time; BMW, a wholly owned German car manufacturer; and Honda, a wholly owned Japanese car manufacturer. And John is the only one who has written a book about his long fifty-year career including these three international car manufacturers.John Sparrow was born in St Albans, England. He was very interested in motor cars from a very early age. At school he carried out a study of Vauxhall Motors in Luton, which fuelled his interest in working in the car-industry business after university.In 1969 he joined Austin Morris at Longbridge, Birmingham, and his career developed through a number of management positions and promotions. In 1982 he joined Land Rover Ltd in Solihull, rising to become Director UK Sales and Director UK Operations. In the 1990s he became Director Business Development in BMW Group, including Land Rover, Rover Cars and MG. From 2000 to 2009 he was a Senior Executive in Honda Motor Europe.John considers himself fortunate to be inwardly and automatically driven to have a long and successful career in the industry; something he achieved and enjoyed doing. Hence the title of the book, which has a double meaning given the cars of today and the future, which will drive themselves automatically. John lives in Oxfordshire, England.

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