Lucas was (or maybe still is) an electronics company in England. My understanding is at one time, if you needed a part in England, and someone in England produced it, thats who you had to buy it from. Because of this "capive audience" situation, Lucas electronics were notoriously unreliable. This is basically what killed the British motorcycle industry. The Japanese had far superior electronics. Jaguar also got stuck with Lucas, thats where the old joke about them spending more time in the shop than on the road came from. Thats what I have read. Any of you English "blokes" want to chime in and give us the real story ?