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MG-Rover RIP?

Poor old MG Rover. Auto manufacturers are having a tough time at the moment.

Even Ford came surprisingly close to toppling a couple of years ago. The knock on effect on UK consultancies was massive. That's when I went into semi-retirement.

I should imagine we'll see MG Rover broken up with massive job losses, but it's unlikely to die completely. I'm sure MG will be resurrected as a profitable medium volume sports car manufacturer, and rise like a Phoenix from the ashes.

Talking of Phoenix, I'm sure Phoenix Venture Holdings will come out of all this OK - they were established as a separate holding company and own most of the valuable stuff that used to belong to Rover.

It's going to be devistating for the supply industry - many of the companies in the West Midlands rely on Rover. That will have a knock on effect to the other UK (sports car) manufacturers that rely on the same suppliers.

Many of these sports car makers also use Rover parts - for example the K series engine. Let's hope these manufacturers can weather the storm.

:clementi:
 
LTI would be the biggest after Rover. They make the London black cab, and are making efforts to broaden their market - I think they recently made a big sale in New York. LTI is owned by Manganese Bronze Holdings Plc.

After them Morgan could well be the next highest volume UK owned motor manufacturer unless anyone can think of any others.
 
Since the Russians bought TVR the only possibility I can think of apart from Morgan is Caterham, and even Bristol must make it into the top ten! Pathetic really isn't it. I blame all those unpatriotic Britons who bought cheap foreign imports like... er... Renaults...
 
It's odd isn't it. UK people are just as good at making stuff as anywhere else. We have some wonderful engineers - you'll note the address of the Renault F1 team is Chipping Norton (although they do add "near France" to the address).

UK company culture is an odd thing - we are very short term. I worked over at Audi for a short time. They look 10 years ahead! The accountants that run UK companies look no more than 2 years ahead. Others describe this phenonenum as "lack of investment".

Grouping all the UK car companies together was a bad thing. You need more than one company in a country to promote competition and keep people sharp and motivated. Wasn't it the government that put an end to that?

At least Tony "weapons of mass destruction" Blair has become publicly involved. We have an election soon so it's in his interests to sort things out. Maybe something positive will happen.

Turns out the potential job losses are approx 6000 at Longbridge and 18000 at suppliers. Ooch.

Back to your point: We will immediately change the name of this site to "Clementine's Austin Metro Garage" and expect you all to do your duty and get rid of the foreignmobile and buy one of England's finest. :roll:
 
Maybe MG-Rover's factory (or lease of it, since the phoenix directors sold Longbridge a year ago to a developer) and the marque rights (or just MG since BMW still owns Rover) will be bought by that Chinese company on the cheap, and they won't have the burden of the pensions, or have to deal as part of a partnership. That's what 4car suggested.

the story of BL/austin-rover etc is bery interesting its at http://www.austin-rover.co.uk

Austin Metros are awful, awful cars. really nasty bad memories, thankfully I'm too young to remember the worst of it
 
when the all merged in the 70's is when it went downhill and its been going downhill since then.

Money money was the name of th ecame, workers and car quality were after that!
 
I've found a direct link to the page Richard mentioned: http://www.austin-rover.co.uk/news0405f.htm

Read and be baffled..... :o

I'd not realised how much stuff Rover had sold off over the last few years. Mind you, I was amazed how long they kept going, so I guess the sales were the reason for that.
 
If they had a better product (and management not interested in feathering their own nests quite so much) then maybe they could have survived. It seems that SAIC have already bought rights to the Rover 75, several technical 'things' and the Rover brand (although I thought BMW still owned that) so it seems the only real asset is the MG brand. You would imagine that the company will be broken up and liquidated.

I understand though that should you fancy a new Rover then now is a good time, as dealers are owed money they are unlikely to receive - from the spring sales promotions and warranty claims - then they are very keen to shift stock and discounts of 35% are not out of the question.

Also, one of the things my employer does is operate all the distribution network for MG Rover, ie parts from suppliers to Longbridge and parts from Longbridge to dealers. As of last week this contract was suspended so nothing will be getting to dealers from Rover for the foreseeable future....
 
I can't believe they're thinking about ditching Rover in favour of Austin. It's a complete reversal of what happened in the late eighties.
 
well thats it totally dead now.

if you fancy a new car then its tiime to go looking as the prices of brand new cars are dropping fast!

R.I.P.
 
Had an email from a Rover employee today along the lines of "here is my home email address, the Rover one might not be too effective after today". Things don't look too bright.
 
I did a mini survey today. Parked in the market square of my nearest town were 22 cars, of which 17 were the product of a French company (Renault, Peugeot, and Citroen - all boring modern rubbish, with not an R4 or 2CV to be seen anywhere). The others, just for the record, were mostly VWs. If you did a similar survey in a British town you'd probably find an even split between French, German and Japanese manufacturers, with a few far-eastern oddballs thrown in for good measure, which was basically Rover's problem. If British motorists were as chauvinistic as the French then Rover would probably still be with us. When BMW sold Rover I tried convincing my parents, who were at the time looking for a new car, that it was really their patriotic duty (well, almost...) to buy a Rover. They bought a particularly nasty Citroen instead. The French motor industry has made some absolutely dreadful cars over the years, but survived because the French still bought them regardless (they are quite good today, apparently, although I personally loathe modern cars with a passion). Needless to say, of course, I have never owned a British car in my entire life (I did nearly buy a 1929 MG once, but that probably wouldn't have done much to support British industry anyway, so doesn't really count) and so am just as much to blame as everyone else. And yes, the Metro was dreadful, but what about the Maxi? Now that was a truly ghastly machine.
 
Last year in a small town just south of Rennes I was sitting in a pavement cafe and noticed a beautiful young lady driving a really old and scruffy Renault 5. Of course I fell immediately in love while she drove away.

I'm not sure if I'd have fallen in love had she been driving a tatty old Metro. I think the French drive French cars to look cool. I'll hopefully be back in Rennes within the next few weeks (still rolling at the moment). Maybe she'll still be there.

Back to the point. British engineers are wonderful - they are still the best in the world. That's why they all work in consultancies (overseas projects) and F1. British management is crap. Under-investment and this short term accountancy rubbish has caused the decline in the UK car industry. Dooh - of course a new car programme won't pay for itself within 2 years. It takes at least 6 years if you are lucky. But if you continue to sell badly made 80's Hondas in this century you're going to go bust.

It's not the fault of the 4 Phoenix directors - they simply didn't have the money to invest in good products. But why they had the money to cream off £40 million in salaries and for their own pension fund remains a mystery. Seems £200 million has been mislaid from the worker's pension fund.

I'm looking forward to the witch hunt. Go Patricia Hewitt!

:clementi:
 
Looks like it's going to be interesting what happens over the coming weeks, but the problem was essentially a lack of investment and mismanagement. Same old story, just seems strange that there will be no more Rovers.

rover_710.jpg
 
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their image was all wrong. Rover was an old pensioner's car, and MG was a tacky boy racer job. And they let that happen


Their marketing was pathetic. I remember a Rover Metro ad that said: "One feels at home in knightbrgidge"
 
The Rover brand had become hopeless, agreed it was a pensioner image, buying a Rover basically showed you were ready to retire. The smaller MG (ZT?) was basically a car for the boy racer too stupid to buy something (anything?) better. The only decent thing was the MG TF although that itself was becoming seroiusly dated...
 
Biggest shame is the loss of people jobs . They have my sympathy.In regards to the cars they have been substandard for years and if Rover would follow suit from the Japanese and rectify the mechanic problems immediately rather than ignore them they would not be in the state they are now . .Name a good Rover/Austin ? .The original Mini when built suffered from oil leaks and when it ceased production 40 odd years later the same leaks had not addressed whatsoever . The best Rover ever built was the Honda engineed 216 [circa 1994] .
I have been a mechanic now for 18 years working at a garage that repairs any make and model and i will grant you that the Rover is not the most difficult to work on but it does have the most fundemantal problems with its engines and in regards to lasting a lifetime ! most Rovers have a life expectancy of about 8 years Max .
Shame to lose all that history but would be more upset if it was say BMW ,Renault ,Saab , ETC ETC ETC ETC
 
I agree that it would be a greater loss to humanity if BMW or Renault ceased to exist, not sure about Saab though - aren't they just tarted-up Vauxhalls these days? Real Saabs (by which I mean anything from a two-stroke up to an early 900 turbo) are almost too cool for words, but I just can't get excited about the modern stuff. The same is true for Rovers - if Phoenix had ditched the range of rebadged Hondas and started making lime green MGB GT V8s and orange Austin 1300 GTs I would have been first in the queue to buy one. Alas the company hasn't made a decent car since flares went out of fashion. :cry:
 
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