This is a record.
Twelve beautiful British inches of plastic with some words and music between the grooves. I found it in a charity shop unloved and unremarked and it looks like it has never been played. A shame as the adverts are amusing little ear worms of fun and frivolity. The great thing is that if you owned a garage, or a motor factors back in the ‘70s then you could have the business name tacked onto the end of these songs and then played on local commercial radio.
Subsequent to making the video I have done a bit of digging and I will stand by my assertion that this is a later ‘70s promotion and pressing. Even though the information on the Interweb has no idea exactly when it was released, which is credited to the fellows best known as, ‘unknown artists’ and it seems to be worth about a tenner. So at least I’m up on the deal.
We still have local radio and oddly enough I have been involved in the 1980s making broadcast productions to get people to buy motor cars. Anyway, nice to hear Emperor Rosko again who is I notice, is still with us at 82, and still working, whereas many Marinas and Dollies from the front cover are in scrapyard heaven.
Anyway, the first video is a BL LP
Whatever Happened to Unipart?
Well it went bankrupt. First of all everything went a bit mad in the middle ‘80s when it was fashionable to start selling off the Crown Jewels. Suggestions that the 4 x 4 business be sold to the dastardly Americans.
That led to a thousand Land Rover owners on-roading their way to Downing Street. Meanwhile, unknown to anyone, the government was holding talks with Ford about taking Austin Rover off their hands. However, the pressure from within the government itself about keeping Land Rover British worked, although like Jaguar, the future for the whole company, according to the owners, was still to be in private hands, but obviously the hands had to be the right nationality.
With this in mind, the government appointed Canadian lawyer Graham Day as the new chairman in May 1986. He came from three years of running the nationalised British Shipbuilders. He wanted to drive the company upmarket, and openly stated that he wanted it to be like a British version of BMW. Within the year, Day had changed the company’s name yet again, to the Rover Group, leaving the company with just two main marques, Rover and MG. Day then went on a disposal spree when it came to corporate assets which could be spun off privately. As a result, the Unipart spares business was sold to its management while the same thing happened to Leyland Buses and then Leyland Trucks. Finally, the vans business, Freight Rover, merged with Dutch Daf Trucks.
That went well didn’t it? A sort of Unipart, with the same logo, but no longer supplying air filters and other sundries celebrated 50 years of operation in 2024. They are a bit woke these days and are all about logistics, moving stuff around. I will give them the sort of last word.
‘While much has changed with the market, our customers and technology – the essence of what makes Unipart unique remains. Our Great British heritage, The Unipart Way at the heart of everything we do, and delivering more to ensure a prosperous, purposeful future for our people, our customers, our communities and our shareholders.’
The bottom line is, Unipart don’t make promotional records anymore which is a shame.
Unipart Music for Pleasure
