With products from Asian countries, metallurgy is rarely a strong point. Japanese is usually better than Chinese or Indian. This is the problem - you usually cannot see quality. Both a sixties Rolls-Royce and a Mini-Minor are 'fit for purpose' - the difference lies in attention to detail. That factor is not included in the ISO9000 definition which is the basis of most free trade agreements. You just do not throw away as many Rolls-Royces as you do Mini-Minors. In the 70s, there was a GATT meeting in Brazil about preventing quality issue becoming barriers to trade. However quality is the only basis upon which most western democracies can compete. Most have a highly qualified, well paid workforce - which to be efficiently applied must concentrate on the top of the market. However most people in western democracies are happy to buy cheap shit. So the Asian countries win. Almost all of my machine tools are Chinese - if they break, they are cheap to replace. I would love to own an old British lathe and drill press. But the Chinese ones still do the job until they give up.
I bought a left Sparks switchgear when the clutch handle perch broke on my original and couldn't round up a used or NOS. I saved the broken one luckily, as after about a year I had to put the guts of the original Lucas into the Sparks housing. The Thickness of the turn signal switch was about half the thickness of the Lucas and was beginning to twist and stick.
It wasn't that Lucas couldn't make better stuff. They could and did. They made stuff for the aircraft industry. The British were amazingly cheap. They could have spent more money and got better quality stuff from Lucas. Remember when Amal monoblocks came with chrome plated brass slides? Amal told the British motorcycle makers they could save one dollar if they didn't take the chrome plated brass slide. So in 6 months your Amal Concentric was worn out.
