It would appear the last lot of 'original' rovers has been scrapped.
www.aronline.co.uk/wordpress/2010/05/09/the-end-of-the-road/
these were prototype cars that Rover used.
I was wondering what peoples thoughts are on this ?
Good thing, bad thing ?
Also, what did other members think of Rover cars and the company ?
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They should have put them on ebay - they'd have got more than their scrap value.
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Rover shouldn't have been allowed to go t*ts up in the first place IMO.
I often see Rovers in Cornwall and think 'they wern't THAT bad'.
I could probably be pursuaded to drive that V8 75 me thinks.
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For a few years at the end of the Thatcher period, Rover looked the business. The straight-edged 214-216 hatchbacks were so much better and more stylish than any of the Escort-Golf-Astra competition at the time that it's hard to see where it all went wrong. The English Heritage stuff was done with taste and restraint, as if to say "We know this is a modern car but we still know where we come from."
Then at the end of 1991, along came the ghastly restyle of the 800, with that awful grille, and suddenly the chintz took over the Rover world. Even the Metro got the grille in the end (when the money might have been better spent on a bit of crashproofing) and what was left looked like a National Trust tartan rug with a little bit of car stuck to it.
Eventually they made the 75, which is supposedly a decent car (I've no first-hand knowledge here) but would appeal only to customers who didn't mind driving a mobile Roberts Revival radio. And by time Rover realized this, the money for updates had run out and it had nowhere left to go.
Jaguar has been very fortunate to avoid the same fate.
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>> Rover shouldn't have been allowed to go t*ts up in the first place IMO.
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Who's money should have been used to keep them going?
Not mine, I hope.
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It wasn't overly wise to sell it to a foreign car company (BMW) who only wanted to grab the Mini and 4x4 technology and then sell off the good bits (Land Rover), leaving the rest to sink without investment
...and finally let asset strippers milk the rest of it, before it inevitably sank without trace.
I had a 400 in the early 90's, followed by a 600. They were both perfectly acceptable cars (Honda underneath) and a better prospect than the equivalent Ford/VX (as stated above). There's no reason why with decent management that couldn't have carried on.
A Frenchman insists on buying French (usually), so does a German, yet the British will ignore that angle completely. You are all to blame for not supporting the home grown option.
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As a patriot who had several BMC/BL cars (all reliable, incidentally). I'd resist being blamed for not supporting the British car industry.
The French, Germans and others bring in new or improved models to make people want to buy: sadly Rover, grossly undercapitalised and finally under the management of people who cared only for themselves, couldn't afford to develop and replace the ageing line-up of models.
The answer has to lie with good management: as Nissan, Honda and Toyota will testify, there's nothing wrong with a British workforce if they're properly looked after and incentivised.
You can't expect people to buy British purely out of patriotism. You have to have products that they want.
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>>
>> You can't expect people to buy British purely out of patriotism. You have to have
>> products that they want.
>>
Very true.
I was sorry to see Rover go nonetheless.
I had a V8 P6 in the late 90's early 00's and it was a great car, easily able to keep up with modern traffic on my daily commute. Comfortable and much better all round visibility than you get now, and I loved the styling.
In the early 90s I worked in a firm that had 827s and 820s and they were all great reliable cars we got a lot of use out of.
Now I drive a Chrysler 300 which reminds me a bit of the P6
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>> these were prototype cars that Rover used.
Some components of prototypes may not be available as spares. Apart from that, "Rover" was right to not sell prototypes to the public, in order to protect their reputation.
;-)
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Rover were doing fine in the late-80s because they were part-owned by Honda and Honda were a great partner. But alas the Powers That Be decided to slap Honda across the face and jump into bed with BMW instead. The rest is history...
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Much as I quite liked Thatcher, the reality is she and my past employer (British Aerospace) caused much of its demise.
When state owned it had started to improve. BAe were trying to negotiate a deal with the Saudi's which Thatcher was happy to rubber stamp and ease through, however she wanted something in return - BAe to buy Rover. They did this, but it was not core to the business of defence and they had little interest so allowed it to tick along.
BAe also aquired a few other non core businesses such as a large stake in hutchinson telecoms (Orange) and Arlington Securities (business parks). They then decided to re-focus on defence and so started selling off non core business, and hence Rover whent to BMW.
I think the main problem was that BAe had no interest in Rover so took the profits and made little investment in new cars, so when they off loaded it most models were some way through their product life, but there was no replacements coming up behind, by which time it was to late.
The rest, as they say, is history.
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That all rings true, mikeyb, but when it became clear that BAe wanted rid of Rover I was under the impression that Honda were keen on upping their stake? Weren't Honda snubbed in favour of a quick deal with the Germans?
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>>Weren't Honda snubbed in favour of a quick deal with the Germans?
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Yes. They were...and they were left a bit miffed about it as they'd invested in Rover, then got left out in the cold. They'd have made afar better job of looking after the outfit than BMW, who wanted to asset strip.
It souldn't have been that difficult for the politicians to work that out either.
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>> looking after the outfit than BMW, who wanted to asset strip.
3 billion pounds investment is hardly asset stripping. The biggest problem was that BMW rushed the deal through, didn't do a proper due dilligence, and therefore only found out afterwards that Rover was a dog of a company following 6 years of non-investment by British Aerospace.
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>> >> looking after the outfit than BMW, who wanted to asset strip.
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>> 3 billion pounds investment is hardly asset stripping.
IIRC most of the investment was in the plants etc that BMW kept.
as far as I know, all MGR got out of it was one newish model, an old factory and no design facilities..
BMW got an up to date plant, a state of the art engine plant, 4X4 technology, and the MINI
I do call that asset stripping.
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If you want to find out the real story about Rover Group, BMW and the Phoenix Four, get a hold of "End of the Road: The Real Story of the Downfall of Rover" by Brady and Lorenz. A cracking read.
www.amazon.co.uk/End-Road-Story-Downfall-Rover/dp/0273706535
The MINI was developed entirely during BMW ownership, and quite a lot of it by BMW engineers in Germany. I'm not sure what this 4x4 technology is.... there's nothing particularly magic about 4WD transmissions these days.
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>> >> these were prototype cars that Rover used.
>>
>> Some components of prototypes may not be available as spares. Apart from that, "Rover" was
>> right to not sell prototypes to the public, in order to protect their reputation.
>> ;-)
>>
I would imagine prototypes haven't been type approved either, so would be difficult to legally sell to the public.
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I dont think that Honda wanted to own Rover outright. BAe's decision would purely have been based on getting shot of the whole lot for he best cash deal
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It would seem an odd way to asset strip why not just buy the name MINI? They sold the company for £1 which they paid good money for, gave interest free loans which didn't get paid back, and took on lots of pension liabilities from the old rover group and continue to pay now and I don't think they made much of a profit over the years.
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IIRC, according to the taxman, the value of prototype cars is the total money spent developing them. So their value for tax purposes could be many millions of pounds, avoided only by crushing them.
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Rover - The last dregs of Rover heritage down the plughole - Chris S
