Inside Hillman: The Bankruptcy That Destroyed Britain's Family Car Empire
In 1968, a Hillman Hunter won the longest motor race ever staged. Today the company that built it doesn't exist, the factories are demolished, and the name sits in a filing cabinet owned by a conglomerate that has never made a single Hillman. This is the story of how Britain's middle-class carmaker was bought by the Rootes brothers, broken by the Imp disaster at Linwood, sold to Chrysler, bailed out with 162.5 million pounds of public money, and then flogged to Peugeot for one dollar. From a bicycle workshop in Coventry to a logistics park where the assembly line used to be.
About Hillman
Hillman was a British automobile marque created by the Hillman-Coatalen Company, founded in 1907, and renamed the Hillman Motor Car Company in 1910. The company was based in Ryton-on-Dunsmore, near Coventry, England. Before 1907, the company had built bicycles. Newly under the control of the Rootes brothers, the Hillman company was acquired by Humber in 1928. Hillman was used as the small-car marque of Humber Limited from 1931, but Hillman continued to sell large cars until 1937. The Rootes brot...
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