PARIS -- A faltering auto giant whose brands are synonymous with the open road. Hundreds of thousands of unionized workers with powerful political backers. An urgent plea for the government to write a virtual blank check.

This is not the story of Ford and General Motors, but British Leyland, a car company that went through £11 billion of inflation-adjusted British taxpayer money, or $16.5 billion, in the '70s and '80s before going out of business, according to The New York Times.

All that is left of the company now are memories of cars like the Triumph, and a painful lesson in the limited effectiveness of bailouts.