Joseph Lucas founded a metalworking company about 1872, with ships lamps among the products. From there it moved into bicycle lights, and by the beginning of the 20th century was making electrical equipment as well. In 1914 it gained a long term contract with Morris, and in 1926 Austin, the same year that they took over their main competitor CAV, although they kept the CAV name until about 1980.
In 1938 they took over Girling, but retained the name. Rotax, also an electrical equipment competitor, was taken over in 1926, the remaining competitor Simms being taken over in 1968. Cross licencing agreements with Delco, Bosch etc. entered into in the 1920s ensured that no other overseas competitor could tread on their turf in Britain. By the 1930s, if you built a car in the UK you had little choice but to use Lucas or build electrical equipment yourself.
Lucas quality and design seems to have gone downhill from the postwar period, with major problems seeming to emerge along with the centralising of the British motor industry as it was conglomerated by Leyland from the 1960s onward - at least partly this is Leyland's fault not Lucas, as they tried to push manufacturing costs down, with no effective competition. As with Leyland, militant union action and incompetent management combined to ensure the demise of the company.
Lucas as a company appears to have folded in 1996.
John
John
JDNSW
1986 110 County 3.9 diesel
1970 2a 109 2.25 petrol
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Originally Posted by mike 90 RR
...... Thats what the cartons for ...... 
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