The Strange Death of the British Motorcycle Industry

"Koerner is as much a British motorcycle enthusiast as he is an academic, but he doesn’t wax nostalgic about the industry. He is critical in hindsight, and although players in the trade aren’t identified as heroes or villains, it’s fairly obvious who they are.... Crippled by the early 1970s there is no easy answer regarding the downfall of the British industry, but Koerner’s book is one of the better attempts at an in-depth exploration. “Life is complicated,” Koerner says. “And there aren’t simple explanations. It wasn’t all Bernard Docker’s fault, nor was it German or Japanese manufacturers, or the attitude of management. It’s simply not that simple to explain.”" ~Greg Williams, Motor Writer, Automobiles, Trucks, Motorcycles old and new

"...packed with information and insights into the demise of the British motorcycle industry. Some of the material we've seen before. ...But mere facts are never enough. It's the analysis that counts, and Koerner has delved deeply into the root causes of the collapse of AMC, Ariel, BSA, Norton, Triumph et al, and has presented his arguments in an intelligent, readable and coherent way. There's plenty of boardroom intrigue and political machinations. And we're taken repeatedly into the filing cabinets and tool rooms and exposed to the atmosphere of an industry that, in hindsight, ultimately had nowhere to go but down.... we especially like is (a) the hard numbers backing up the aforementioned facts, and (b) the contextual information. In other words, this book gives you an all-important sense of time and place, and it highlights many other key issues around the country (and the world) that impacted on British motorcycle manufacture. Actually, there's one other point here worth mentioning. The book has hundreds of notes and references intended to underpin the facts and highlight the sources, and that naturally adds authority to this work." ~Sump Magazine