George Turnbull (autoindustry executive)

George Henry Turnbull (BSc (Hons), CEng, FIMechE, FIProdE (17 October, 1926 – 1996) was a UK automobile executive best remembered in the UK for his period as Managing Director of the Austin-Morris Division of British Leyland.

Turnbull obtained a first degree at the University of Birmingham. He married in 1950 and fathered three children.

Between 1950 and 1951 he held a post as personal assistant to the Technical Director of the Standard Motor Company. He achieved a series of promotions, first within Standard and subsequently working for successor companies (much of the Midlands-based UK motor industry consolidated itself into what became the British Leyland Motor Corporation, late in 1968). His time as managing director of the Austin-Morris division ran from 1968 to 1973 and is remembered as a period during which the company reaped the harvest from a decade of insufficient investment in product development and production technology, crowned by increasingly troubled industrial relations.Fact|date=December 2007 Product launches during Turnbull's time included the Morris Marina.

In the early 1970s George Turnbull took two Marinas, one saloon and one coupé, to a small car producing company in Korea which was interested in developing its own car. Hyundai Motor Company examined the Marinas and developed the Hyundai Pony from them, in three and five door variants and a pick-up, kick-starting the company's ascendancy in car manufacturing. [cite web | url = http://pages.eidosnet.co.uk/~morrismarina/Korean%20Connection.htm | title = The Korean Connection | accessdate = 2007-07-14] Turnbull was appointed vice-president and director of Hyundai Motor Company.

References

* ODNB