Considering how much we talk about cars, we don't spend a lot of time talking about how cars are made. Maybe we should. A car is really only as good as the factory it came from and the workers who built it.
That's our question of the day: What's the worst car factory in history?
I'm sure a few American plants in the 1970s and 1980s deserve nominations, but The Economist gave the award to Ford's Halewood plant back in 2001:
Ford's factory at Halewood on Merseyside epitomised the ills of British manufacturing. The Ford Escorts it churned out were dodgy, its workers were bolshie and the place was a battleground of class warfare. Some said it was the worst car factory in the world.
Old Halewood's aisles were narrow and crowded and visitors tripped over piles of carelessly stacked widgets and bits of rusty metal... In the old days managers used to hide in their offices poring over printouts and emerge on the shopfloor only to shout at workers to get them to do their job better and faster, or even to do it at all, since work tended to interfere with smoking, sleeping, betting or discussing football.
These days the plant cranks out Land Rovers. It's safe to say it's doing a lot better.
Your turn: What car factory shouldn't have been building cars at all? The answer can be something from the past or something that's still around today. (Unfortunately.)