HYUNDAI owes its start as a car manufacturer, rather than just an assembler, to George Turnbull. Later given a knighthood, when he was running the Inchcape group, Turnbull played an important part in many major motor industry operations.
In the early Seventies he was effectively second in command to Donald Stokes at British Leyland, having charge of Austin Morris, as well as of the truck and bus divisions. At that time, as is now well known, BL was a very unhappy ship. When Turnbull resigned, he was immediately head-hunted by Hyundai.
The South Korean conglomerate was already assembling Ford Cortinas under licence, but had ambitions to develop as a full-scale manufacturer of its own vehicle products. Turnbull was exactly the man for the job. Taking charge in 1972, he masterminded a mammoth project in which - by literally moving a mountain - one of the biggest car factories in the world was created on the Korean coast at Ulsan.
The timescale of this project was staggering. A mock-up of the Hyundai Pony, Korea's first home-designed car, was exhibited at the Turin Show in 1974, and production began the following year. By 1977 Turnbull wanted to move back to Britain. Following the Ryder report on the UK motor industry, the Government asked him to return to take the reins at British Leyland. But the two sides could not agree terms, and the job went to Michael Edwardes instead.
Turnbull then moved to Iran to run the Paykan operation which assembled Hillman Hunters under licence. With the fall of the Shah, there was no point in staying.
This time he did come home, to head Peugeot Talbot Ltd, which took over the former Chrysler business in the UK. He ran that from 1979 to 1984, having more than his fair share of problems with the Linwood factory, which he finally closed. His last move was from Peugeot Talbot to Inchcape, where he was working at the time of his death.
As his surname suggests, George Turnbull was Scots-bred and played rugby as a young man for London Scottish. In later years he had regular holidays near Aberfoyle, often in company with Brian Llewelyn, currently Peugeot Talbot's public relations director.
Llewelyn remembers him not only as a keen sportsman, but also as ``the best man-manager I've ever worked with - a great motivator''.
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