Rover R30 - The Car That Killed Rover
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- Good Day! :D
Yet another missed opportunity in the catalogue of the British motor industry, only this one could be single-handedly owed with forsaking its final saviour; BMW. Originally conceived as a trendy little hatchback and saloon that would bridge the gap between the New Mini and the Rover 75, the R30 story is a culmination of cultural distrust, a lackadaisical development, dwindling funds, and a boardroom civil war centred entirely around the place it would occupy on the car market of the late 1990s, this unassuming machine leading to the company's CEO losing his job after he staked his entire future on its success, an international relations crisis between the British and the Germans over the former's ambivalence to see the scheme finished, and a fiscal blackhole that nearly sucked BMW into the same cloying void of financial ruin that had already consumed the Rover Group it was trying to save, only for it to end up ostensibly finding a life after death, when in the wake of the project's failure, a small BMW model of similar size and build would rise out of the ashes, and lend credence to the notion that, even though Rover may have died, the R30 that cursed it for so long was still very much alive.
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Even as an american, i feel your pain in losing your national car brands , myself having lived through the losses of studebaker, american motors, pontiac, oldsmobile, saturn, plymouth, mercury....
We're about to lose Seat in Spain, I never had one but everyone around had or has Seat, it feels like it belongs to Spanish streets, I guess it's time for Cupra... (Which I love, but is just too expensive)
@@RobSinner But isn´t is so that Seat in practice only changes the name of the brand to Cupra? I think everything will be pretty much the same.
Yes, and soon, Ford and GM will follow.
@@fortune300 Yeah cupra is basically just souped up seat.
@@RobSinner you lost it in 1986 when the Spanish government sold it to VW
Rover its a Strong Engines
I have one Rover whith 350.000 Km
Its a Good Car 👍👏👏👏
Its a Rover 620 Sdi
@Wallace Carney Hello Wallace
No.
Its a Serie L. Its Genuin Rover
20T2N
The Rover 200 coupe is one of my all time favourites. Never understood all the hatred for the Honda co-designed cars. They were very trendy, well build and doing great in sales. Yes the fashion has changed but then this were cars on part with the taste of the consumer.
The BMW era Rover 75 on the other hand, if it was an outfit we would call it Dark Academia. Nobody in 1999 wanted that car, it was so out of fashion at that time.
I agree. I LOVED my 1992 214 SLi... Frugal when driving steady, very nippy when you wanted to hustle, handled pretty well. And when I had a brief ownership of a 216 Coupe, I LOVED that too! (alas DVLA/VOSA took my coupe as I'd been ripped off by some twat who changed it's ID and advertised it, it all looked good, paperwork seemed all fine, but, I got screwed, £750 and no car, BASTARD! He got arrested though YAY! I soon learnt my lesson though). But anyway, I didn't suffer any of the known Head troubles with the Rover/Honda K engines...
@@thedarkknight1971 honda made Rover a great brand again and no matter how Bmw in mid 90´s anounced that had bought the brand but honda had not sell nothing that´s when in court of law it was decided that honda and bmw would share the brand ,as an example i owned a 600 with 1.8 turbo-diesel engine from BMW the ones who bought the 2.0L gasoline engine were still honda´s
i had a sport/coupé that i liked a lot but it had the early 90´s finishings of the 400 but called 220i ,targa type ,all built by Honda a low car or sportive one ,not the body of 3 doors called 214 instead of 414 coupé
@@RUfromthe40s That's interesting, I don't remember seeing one here in UK (just Google images it, looks cool). @Rui Cameira Yeah there some GOOD Rovers back in those days. Yeah there was the issue with the heads on K series, but, some basic maintenance could very well help with avoiding that. And, if encountered, a well machined head/barrel would stop that completely. It was a solid motor (hence a new Resurgence' in people looking for good K series for tuning and engine swaps nowadays.
But in either case, I loved both my 214SLi 5 door and 216 Coupe, as they were both great to drive, handled well and we're both zippy and frugal (a bit of a contradiction I suppose lol). 🤔😏. 😎🇬🇧
I had a 1994 218SD Turbo - put around 85K miles on it in the six years I owned it and it never broke down once - was on the original clutch and exhaust when I sold it and I got 52K out of the front tyres (mostly motorway / A road trips). Friend had a 1995 214SEi and often used it as a builder's van (eg boot full of bags of cement & towing a small trailer) and again it never gave any problems. He also had a late 96 220SDi Turbo (one that came after the last of the wedge shape model) - that thing was quick for a diesel for that era and again very reliable
Enjoyed this thanks. Any chance of a class 47 episode?
This model per see did not in my opinion kill Rover. Strategically Rover made a wrong decision long before to expand their range over cars to cover many more buyers. They wanted to be a "mass producer" instead of a niche producer of high quality cars sold at a premium which had historically been their success . Once they made that decision it brought them into competition with even BMV who may have bought them to let them go bust?? The fall out of the loss of the MG Rover group reverberates to this day with now the MG marque (sold at a knockdown price to the Chinese) appearing in Europe with high quality electric cars which cannot be overlooked.
A great video, in a style similar to this one would be the story of SAAB and GMs murdering of that brand!
Rover made a large number of terrible cars. But in my opinion, what really killed rover was the badge... It was shit.
Hey Rory, just want to say it's refreshing that you don't nag all the time for liking and subscribing your videos. They are so good that we dont need the prompt!
Definitely agree with you there! Can't stand the ones that start the video with the standard, "don't forget to hit like and subscribe"
How can you like a video before you've watched it?!?!? Does my nut in!
It’s Ruaridh
you say that, but ive been watching for a long time and just realised, from your comment, that I wasn't subscribed! the power of the algorithm
@@DarkKnightwing75 I love how on this reply Google auto translates it to Rory
@@DarkKnightwing75 ruclips.net/video/I1IM37OY0Kg/видео.html
If it hadn’t been for the Metro, the rover group would have folded much earlier than it did.
The story I’d like to hear is the one about Phoenix, who were the last owners.
This is, as far as I’m concerned, a dark period in the story and one that wasn’t completely all above board… there’s a murky story to be found in that I think.
Less murky than you might think. Yes they paid themselves well but they could have taken far more - it was business and they got a fabulous deal. The principle issue is from day one the company was doomed, volumes were far too low and so it always had to be a find a buyer job - with mass market pricing and luxury brand volumes it was a losing battle from day one. There were some good people at the company, but you need volume and free cash to fund their ideas and there just wasn’t much, and yes the directors took a million here and there but the the investment needed was 500 not 5 million. There are some interesting parts to this though - so the possible replacements for the 45 saw cars from the Proton to the Fiat considered, but finding a partner at the volumes they could offer was also tough. Interesting times!!
ruclips.net/video/Vf7KcOcX5gU/видео.html
@@charlesmoss8119 Not sure I'm with you there. I recall that there was a bid from an organisation called Alchemy, which, if I remember correctly, was based around promoting MG as a sporting brand. This may have been nonsense, but at least they had a plan, of sorts. The Phoenix guys never seemed to have any plan for the future at all, apart from to stumble on much as before. I'm not a business genius, but even I could see this was going to fail. And then it transpired that they had organised the firm in the best possible to way to give themselves the maximum amount of money, whilst not investing at all. So...I'm with Mac Jim - I think Murky is one word for Phoenix, bordering on fraudulent.
@@timbounds7190 The Phoenix plan I believe was to find a buyer, they had a 500 million loan from BMW (a deal from a north Carolina Bank but underwritten by BMW and notably written off by them on day 1, so they never expected to see their money again) which was expected (and ended up) being able to keep them alive for 5 years.
Towers had been involved in the BAe days with Honda and most notably the PSA deals on gearbox and diesel engines. I think it was clear even before they bought it from BMW that Honda was not taking any calls, but PSA at that time were having a sales boom with the 206 and could not meet demand from their factories including Ryton, I think he thought he could broker a deal with PSA. When they did not bite then he was off to find a manufacturer in the developing world. He get a deal though in 2002, which is when Fiat approached MG Rover to do what they had done to the Accord to make the Rover 600 with the Fiat Stilo which despite being a decent enough car to go toe to toe with the Golf had failed to get traction in the market, so Fiat and its suppliers had plenty of capacity. I suspect with hindsight he regrets rejecting it.
Indeed. But @Tim Bounds: they had a plan clearer than tap water: stealing a big fat pile out if it and let others clean up the debris left.
The Rover story is an incredibly sad and multifaceted one, thank you for doing it justice. I'm still driving my 75. I love the old barge. I hope that you don't get the BL/ARG foemers coming here "counting your rivets" etc. It is possible to be a Rover fan without being unhinged, although a sense of humour is often required 😉
When I first saw the Rover 75 I thought it looked sensational. I felt sure it would be a massive success. When I discovered they were making a Diesel model I just knew it was the car for me. When i went to look at it and sat inside it was flippin orrible. I wanted a car not a mobile mausoleum. I wonder how many others felt the same.?
Whenever I see I Rover 75, I laugh and ask WHY?! 😂😂😂😂
@@scabbycatcat4202 The German idea of how a British car should look
Scrapped my 75 connie se diesel last week due to spiralling costs running it. Shame as no other car ive owned comes close to the look and feel of driving them. Gone to a low milesage 56 plate vectra sri 1.8 petrol. Deffo a downgrade I know, but parts much cheaper and so much room under the bonnet to work on. Hope your 75 continues for many years to come. ( mine was on over 140k )
@@Simon-ui6db Well i hope you like driving your Vectra as much as I like mine. 15 years old. 193000 miles , not a bit of rust. Wafts along the motorway at 70 doing 2000rpm with just a bit of wind noise, engine almost silent whilst returning 57mpg ( 1.9 cdti diesel ). I've kept the car longer than any other Ive owned because I like it so much. Also when its washed and polished it might have just come out of the showroom . Superb motor
Fascinating Rory - thanks for delving into this one! It would be interesting to hear from BMW 1 engineers to see if the rumours are true.
As a BMW technician the E87/E90 platform was quite an odd departure from the previous cars. It certainly seemed like it was designed by other people
the rover looks way better imo
@BM i mean he himself literally stated that especially with modern cars he just goes off what he can find on the internet since the people who made em are still working in the companies.
There was no car that killed Rover... Not even the City Rover (although it was an error of judgment). Clarkson killed Rover aided and abetted by his sycophantic minion, May, the other one gave the 75 a very fair review but never stood up for Rover when the other two were doing their thing. They perpetrated a concentrated campaign using that TV show they used to be on (A TV show the British public paid to have made) to dissuade people from buying Rovers. Yet both of them carry on like they are super patriotic
Rovers and MG were super popular in Portugal back them. We simply loved this brand
Ruairidh, would be great if you did a video on the history of Dennis
I had a rover 25 ,the worst car i have wvwr owned, only came with a 12 month warranty, which spoke volumes and head gasket went after 30k miles . Could build better myself with a lego set.
I owned a 1998 Rover 200 for 16 years never a days trouble, the head gasket was still its original from the factory best car I've owned if I could buy it back now I would
Well, I admit your 30k miles isn't much, but it is rather exceptional. Other than that, the head gasket failures on Rover K-series engines are well known and it is also well known that it helps to replace these head gaskets every 50-60k miles before it fails. Basically, these engines work very well with the right maintenance. And they are incredible engines -- at that time of the early 1990s nobody else was able to make such a great power of the same sized engines (except for Alfa with their twin sparks but they had to have two sparks per cylinder and the consumption was much higher).
I still have several of these cars, including one 25. It is a 2001 model with 1.8 liter engine and CVT transmission. Every day on the road for short drives through and around the city, serves as the second family car. Obviously, it requires some maintenance from time to time, it is a 22 years old car, but nothing unexpected or too expensive. Love it for its smooth drive, low operating cost, and it is still well equipped even in comparison to nowadays cars if the same segment. Perhaps, it works so well because it has the right color -- British Racing Green! 🙂
The R30 never killed Rover. The Phoenix Four killed Rover. They had the chance to use the Fiat Stilo platform for the R30 but turned it down, with no other option on the table. They wasted millions on re-engineering the 75 to take a Mustang V8 to create a sporty flagship, wasted millions more on creating the XPower SV, then introduced the CityRover, a badge engineered Tata Indica made in India. They previewed many designs for the 25 and 45 replacements but failed to find a technical partner to make these cars a reality, and in all that time its range was dated and sales were dropping. The tie-up with Honda in the 80s was probably Rover’s most successful time. British Aerospace couldn’t make the brand work and neither could BMW, who failed it miserably. It was never going to work under the Phoenix Four, they spent too long dragging their heals on developing replacements for their core models, the brand’s demise was inevitable.
K-series - used to drill four small 5mm holes in the thermostat top, so had water flow through radiator from cold. Stopped engine temperature overshooting until thermostat fully opened. Simple trick used by many.
Wow! Does that have a downside? I am not a practical chap but simple fixes appeal to me.
@@roygardiner2229 yes it does, she over cools in the winter.. my preferred method was 1 3mm hole to allow some coolant flow, then put a hose barb on all the bleed points and route it to the header tank so as to alleviate airlocks. I drag raced a turbocharged k-series, so would regularly run to much boost, and pop a gasket, this setup allowed the car to be driven with a blown gasket and no overheating. I got a lot of power out the k-series but there no arguing the later wet liner engines were flawed. gaskets were a service item. thankfully a very easy job to do..
The drilling holes in the 'stat was a crap solution to a problem that wasn't there.
Fit a decent quality thermostat with a backflow valve for bleeding and make sure the IMG gasket is in good order.
Depressing is an understatement, eye opening episode, thanks for this insight
Depressing if you ever owned the rubbish yes
The Rover story (as well as that of the entire British car industry) is an interesting one that has more than a few similarities with that of Saab cars. Too little, too late.
Both were too small and lacking in resources to survive without major financial and technical support. The market share and level of profitability they could attain did not warrant such investment unfortunately. 'A strong brand but a weak business' has been used to describe Saab and it applies to Rover too.
@@paulc9588 the problem with SAAB cars was only when GM took over they ordered the SAAB engeniers to convert a vectra ,opel or vauxhall in a saab but there were problems and in the third body belonging to GM ,this because Vectras allthough they are good cars they can never achieve SAAB quality, the last time was related with the GM GPS service ,the amount of money given to built SAAB using the vectra as it´s base was spent only making more acurate the GPS system and that was the last SAAB and one can notice the bad quality on SAABs compared when SAAB was it´s own owner, i had a 900 turbo and a late 80´s 9000 turbo both were fast and great cars with wankel engine that was seen by saab mechanics that at the end of several thousands of km´s needs a new piston in the rotor and all owners try to run from that then there very good looking cars with the engine destroyd or working bad ,like those last 9000 turbo´s already in the 90´s that had not the big window in the back ,porshe 929 style or 944, i bought two in mint condition for what today is 1.500€´s and from two i refurbished one engine and kept the other for parts that weren´t sold anymore but like door handles and the seats. It´s a pitty that cars like saab and volvo are not as they used to be, unique in the world , i still own a 1962 volvo that sems to do not want to die it works till the end of days, the thing is that looks very old but when driving it it feels better than most of the new cars ,cheap ones
@@RUfromthe40s No doubt what you are saying is true, but Saab would still have failed had it not become part of a larger group. GM was not a great partner and did not invest in the brand like they should have, instead cheapening it and effectively leaving it to wither on the vine. But at least they kept Saab going for a decade or so longer than would have been possible had the brand remained independent.
Saab (like Volvo) was in the 'near premium' grey zone and gradually squeezed out of the market from above and below. The big 3 German premium brands expanded and began offering smaller and more affordable family cars that encroached on Saab territory. The mid-market brands were at the same time creeping upmarket by offering ever more desirable, technologically advanced and higher quality cars that left Saab (and Volvo to some extent) with an impossibly smal niche that was not economically viable. No point in trying to be different if the buyers are not there and you cannot make a profit unfortunately.
I am a fan of both Volvo and Saab, in fact I drove Volvos for 24 years so understand what Swedish cars can offer. This though is more about the business than the cars. Saab was a small operation and did not have the capital, R&D, marketing, production capability, economies of scale etc. to compete with much larger and better financed competitors offering similar products. If they had found a better partner (like Volvo eventually did with Geely) then things might have been different. At least they left us with some great memories!
@@paulc9588 you say that their technology was inferior to german brands ,i think not they were as luxurious as others and in the 70´s were above any BMW wich i own a lot of them ,not comparable, both volvo and saab were only under the S´s from mercedes , i drove in the 90´s a 75 car from saab that was all luxurious very similar in shape with the 900 turbo but older ,everything inside was red suede ,the soud system was one of the most advanced and in the 70´s my father bought a huge volvo 3.0L V6 that was all luxury at the same time fast not comparable with the 5 series of those years that i own two a 74 and a 1980 this last with 3.5L injection engine but the body was the same of my 74 520 or similar, but luxury brands all failed starting with rolls royce/bentley and volvo had a model with renault engine wich was for a lot of years a partnership ,SAAB only ended because of Gm not wanting them to have a better car than the vectra but any saab released till then was very superior to a Opel, which i also owned the mid 70´s Senator and not as luxurious as SAAb or Volvo, regards
@@RUfromthe40s I did not say that. Please re-read and try to absorb the valid points I make. This is not about the cars, it is about the impossible market position that Saab found itself in due to small size and lack of resources.
Rover should have stayed with honda. Montego was a very popular car. So I don't know where these guys get there information. Bmw only wanted rover because of the mini brand. And used land rover ideas for x5
Missed opportunity that Rover & Honda could’ve teamed up and created a new mini during the early nineties.
BAe were not interested (and probably not able) to invest the money necessary to develop a new mini, even using a Honda platform. They planned to let the Mini die in 96.
@@grahamariss2111 I heard Rover were designing a new Mini. But Bmw took over those designs when they bought Rover so they ended with the massive non mini of today. I might be wrong though.
@@martinwoodworth3715 There was a design study at BAe that envisaged taking the existing mini, replacing the A series with a 3 cylinder K Series, putting the fuel tank under floor of the rear seat to meet post 2000 crash regs and making the rear glass lift up like a Hillman Imp instead of a boot. It got as far as a non running mock up but BAe were not interested in taking it further, concluding that such an update was 10 years too late. When BMW came in and their design team was given a brief to look at 911 like evolution of the Mini they asked Gaydon what had been done over the years in the UK and they showed them this. BMW team then comissiined a team at Gaydon to do a wide mini using Rover 100 subframes and dashboard with a 1.4 K series engine and widening floor, roof etc. The German team were skeptical of its appeal when they first saw it, it was by modern standards crude and unrefined, until the Brits who had built it took them to Wales to play with it on the Welsh roads and then they got the point, it was that car that was said to be inspiration for the German studios proposal for the new MINI Cooper.
@@grahamariss2111 Thanks for that, sounds interesting.
bmw had no intentions of keeping Rover going, they wanted the mini, range rover and land rover.
Amazing Rover limped on as long as it did, They had some superbly talented staff and worked miracles on tiny budgets, The Labour Government have ALOT to answer for over this debacle.
A lot of people forget their prototypes with gas turbine or jet engines. I really like the symbol of the ship on the badge!
Why would Labour care about Rover, when they were too busy trying to private 80% of the NHS.
thatcher's government have as much of a case to answer, considering they started the whole sorry chain of events by selling arg to bae
All that money spent on Iraq and Ukraine but no money to save a car company just as they were making improvements, I can only image what cars they’d be making now , I still have a diesel and v8 75s
When Rover worked with Honda they made great reliable cars.Getting tied to BMW was a huge error.....
BMW kept Rover afloat to prevent bankruptcy. It's not their fault the brand failed, blame your own government for the fall of the car industry in the UK
BMWs are overrated, overpriced, and unreliable.
Rover had no say in what British Aerospace did with them, neither did Honda.
BMW were only interested in two things, the Mini name and the Landrover 4x4 technology.
As part of a BMW liaison team working in the UK in the late '90s, this video brought back many memories. Sorry the R30 never saw the light of day but glad the Mini became a big success despite the odds.
@Wallace Carney With BMW it was...and still is!
@@markdc1145 It might have 'Mini' badges & be a good car in itself but it really is not a mini. I don't know what Rover would have come up with had Bmw not took it, but I would like to think it would have been a much smaller car, not with a bonnet bigger than a Vauxhall vectra. Never understood how that could come about. Also the original Mini had small engines so cheap to insure. But the Bmw had a 1.6 litre engine, way way bigger than any engine in the original mini. Can't argue they're a success but I don't like them.
@Wallace Carney Mark DC didn't quite get the irony... the Mini was, of course, a success with BMC/BL/ARG and remained in production longer than any of its contemporaries.
@@martinwoodworth3715 The 'BMW' Mini was already a Rover Group Mini before BMW bought into it. Certainly it benefitted from more engineering & development money since the takeover, but it was already largely designed by 1994. I know, because I was there in the 90's...
@@anthonytelford7876 I did put that but the end result is nothing like a retro of the original mini. As an example of a retro car that is a good retro, the Fiat 500. .Ok if you were there but did the pre bmw rover (new) mini in 1994 have that massive bonnet bigger than a vectra bonnet? When the original mini was known for its small bonnet. Whats that about? Also the much wider bigger back end must have been down to bmw as they put there rear axle in it.
It was the Phoenix Group who caused the demise of Rover. They embezzled money from the company fopr years, leaving it in financial ruin and caused it to perform cost cutting measures in the quality of their vehicles. BMW provided it a stay of execution when the obtained it.
The whole Rover story is a sad one, but also very interesting with some initive concepts and ideas, but lacked financial backing or interest from both Tory and Labour UK goverments. Rover in the end was picked to the bone when BMW walked away and at that point, I was suprised it continued for a further 5 years and even then if the new owners The Phoenix 4 hadn't drained money from the company is massive salaries and expensive racing and hospitality, maybe Rover maybe here today.
I would have loved to see what Rover cars would have looked like today if it had survived.
RIP Rover
That R55 mock-up at 8:55 is one of the most handsome cars I've ever seen.
That is indeed gorgeous and would have been a smash hit!
It looked like a mini-Bentley and even better than 75. I would fuck it like crazy.
Looks like an Americanised BMW... and no bad thing! Handsome beast indeed.
A Chrysler 300 with 1st gen Skoda superb headlights and a Rover grille, hideous.
@@ididntfindafunnyname until top gear pi55ed on it's chips as they did with anything built in britain
Thanks for this. Been looking out for a video on this car ever since I first saw the images in an old Big Car video.
I have a Rover 75, bought 3 years ago as Sunday car. Lovely to drive, smooth ride. But the rest of Rover lineup except for slow selling MG TF was aging on the early 2000s. By 2005 even their newer car, the 75, was old hat. Dated cars to compete against modern cars as Clios, Peugeot 307, Renault Meganes, etc
Whats annoying about Rovers story is that the car that could of saved them was the 75, even the top gear crew at the time said it was good but it had a car for old people reputation which ruined its chances
“Could have”
The really sad thing is when BMW sold Rover to those rats of the Phoenix Consortium with careful management it still could have worked.
Unfortunately they had a fun old developing uneeded super cars, Le Mans attempts and even an entry into the btcc when that money should have been plowed back into developing new models. A crossover mpv/suv type model would have been a great move for a start.
@@skylined5534 Yeah i always thought MG entering motorsport back then was a strange move, the MG/Lola lemans prototype cant have been cheap.
The car did not kill Rover, the people responsible for the car killed Rover.
Loved the Rover cars.
I was really sorry when Rover was closed. The kidnapping of the brand is also very unpleasant.
As a student my father wanted to give me a Rover SD1 because he liked it and thought it was a sturdy car, but I was Alfista and proud, so I bought an old Alfa GTj (which I still have) with my little money.
The trader was baffled 😄
Fantastic video as always! I think the upmarket Rover was doomed to fail in the USA due to the arrival of the Japanese luxury names Lexus, Infiniti and Acura just unfortunate timing.
Yet the Acura Legend is basically the same car as the Rover 800. The Legend was a bestseller in the US and always praised for its reliability. So how was the Sterling so much worse when it is basically the same car? British build quality?
@@pilskadden I think it all comes down to the UK pound sterling being much stronger than the Dollar and still is stronger today while Japanese Yen was much weaker than the Dollar and today it is almost at record low against the Dollar today so the same conditions still are around in 2022 funny enough... I think if you buy a cheap car and have issues it's a different mentality then an expensive car that has issues perhaps. Also the Japanese brands were very aggressive at opening their own dealerships all over the US so a customer can easily get the car repaired while UK brands I think only made partnerships with existing dealers like with Chrysler dealers but then are playing 2nd place to another car and maybe the Technicians at the dealers do a bad job of repairing a totally different car but I am just guessing.
@@pilskadden
Build quality was, despite what chunks of the Internet will tell you good on the 800.
@@skylined5534 That's not quite true : when the Rover 800 was initially launched in the UK in 1986, models built for the first couple of years did suffer from a variety of reliability and build quality niggles. For example I seem to recall Top Gear was loaned a fresh-out-of-the-factory model for review only to discover that one of the door interior trim panels was falling off. Nothing major, in fairness, but annoying and entirely avoidable problems down to lax factory quality checking in those early days of the 800. However premature rusting was also an issue - particularly around the windscreen - that was due to poor preparation of body panels prior to painting. The Rover board held a meeting with their Japanese counterparts during 1987 to try to understand why the Honda cars had no such issues. The 800's did improve but their reputation was already tarnished and second-hand values plummeted. As a trainee on a pretty poor salary in 1991, I was astonished to discover I could afford a low-mileage, two-year old one from a Rover dealer! (Though I ultimately plumped for a Saab anyway).
I think the Mark II version of the 800 came with substantial improvements around build quality and helped to restore some public confidence in Rover - but not enough to bump sales figures up to levels to sustain the company in the long-term.
The thought that my 128i potentially has some Rover DNA in it is mind-blowing :P
Look at the where the a pillar meets the roof, it's curved. No BMW has ever had this design feature, only the Rover 75 shares this..... you may come to your own conclusion.
@@woodrow_mayes Spot on.
Excellent as always! There were so many “what ifs” that I could only dream of the collaborations.. BMW and Chrysler is something I would have loved to see..
To me the mistake made was not from the outset to position MG and Rover to complement the BMW brand. Whilst MINI was a great success it struggles now to adapt to the market because it is locked into making cars that look like a Mini. For this reason I would have made MG the focus for a sub BMW brand, using a Golf size fwd / awd platform to spin off MGs to sell against the Audi TT, R3 and premium Golfs through the BMW dealer network. Off the same platform would also spin off the Land Rover Freelander replacement and a "City" Rover family friendly compact MPV aimed at the Mercedes A series. Rover I would have put back into Land Rover dealer network, selling a "Road" Rover station wagon based on 5 series aimed in cooking derivatives at the Volvo V70 and a premium Mercedes E Series. A new Range Rover and Discovery would be spun in a similar way as more off road capable derivatives of the X5 platform. So only one new platform needed and no threat of cannibalising BMW's market share.
It doesn't seem to be struggling from where I'm seated. The absolute opposite.
@@skylined5534 Really, because their deliveries volumes peeked 5 years ago (2017) despite expanding their presence in the SUV sector.
Wouldn't that "Road" Rover station wagon put the back then new X5 or the 5 series touring in danger? Cannibalism is only good, if you can share a lot of things to compensate that issue. I think, Rover was never ment to be that close to BMW, so BMW can still be BMW and nothing else. The Rover 75 e.g. fits right in between 3 series and 5 series, like the Volvo S60 did later on.
@@exoroxx I don't think so, in styling terms it would take a lot of cues from the Discovery / Range Rover, so you are looking at something boxy, glassy like the first generation Volvo 70s with a much bigger focus on load carrying than BMW driver focused 5 series. The lower spec straight 4 / 6 would get a practical Discovery like "Fisher Price Ball Pit" family friendly interior whilst the V8 would get a Range Rover like wood and leather interior. Such a car will not take much way from the 5 series in sales whilst using its drive train and floor, but will take much away from Volvo and Mercedes who are selling cars aimed at customers that after something less driver focused that a 5 series.
The Rover 75 may have sat half a size up from the BMW originally although that moved to a 1/4 a size as the 3 series sized up with E90 is 2005, but it was in the market at the same price point as the 3 series. The Rover 75 problem was it did not sell in anything like enough quantities to justify its development and tooling in part because in an attempt to distance itself from the 3 Series, in went too retro and succeeded in distancing itself from the nearly the whole compact executive car market.
@@grahamariss2111 That boxy station wagon would nowhere near to be special in any way. You would take the Merc or Volvo for luxury or safety reasons over a fairly unknown brand. In the 90s there was also the Opel/Vauxhall Omega Caravan which was filling the gap - and it had some luxury options, even a V8 was planned. What could have Rover won here? The risk in making BMW less special, would be higher than the profit in creating Rover as an equal, but more 'robust' brand. Volvo had its own positive image, but it wasn't a big seller. The Mercedes E T was also focussing the 5 Series touring in many aspects. Cargo space alone isn't the point.
The E90 from 2005 was bigger inside than the E46, but not much more than 4 cm longer than its predecessor. The Rover 75 was still (around 23 cm) longer than the BMW 3 Series - and even in 2022 that is the case. The Rover 75 was focussed on customers who are looking for luxury for a cheap price - and it had style. Retro was the game to match at that time. That was a profound idea in my opinion. There was enough space for the 3 and 5 Series. Even more, because the 75 was set on a FWB platform (except for the 4.6 V8). It didn't sell well, because it is... a Rover. It could never have worked out: Either Rover was too close to BMW or it is failing on its history.
...and why shouldn't BMW have used the car for the basis of their One series? They paid for it. Typical British fuddyduttery, procrastination, and indecisiveness kept it from coming to fruition as a Rover. They've been throwing away their major industry since WWII.
I remember that artist's impression of the Rover 35 and the usual 'imminent launch' guff appearing in Auto Express a few times ~2002. 'Shock new Rover', 'Ditch the Golf, forget the Focus' etc. I think the Rover PR team must have shared the AE office there was so much premature hype. As we all know, nothing ever appeared and they just kept on tweaking the existing tired 25 and 45 until the inevitable finally happened. A sad story.
those models were released to sell all the bodies already in production ,later they branded all MG but they ended anyway ,bmw could manage all English brands as they do today
Always thought they might have stood a chance if they’d stayed with Honda, could have maybe used them as an upmarket car like Lexus with Toyota
Instead of becoming BMW's Skoda.
@@krisyeo Skoda have survived and got better, so don’t quite get your point there
Such a shame to turn to a brand known as the "poor man's Rolls Royce", into a joke.
I had a Rover 216 that had to be send back to Rover Group 3 times to identify a leak (normally about 3 inches of water on the driver's side each time it rained). Each time they found some leaks, including a windscreen that hadn't been glued. Eventually, on the 3rd visit to the atmospheric tank, they found a large rubber grommet in the rear wheel arch that had been 'forgotten'. So much for Quality Control.
In the USA Sterling launch there was a permanent team of Rover mechanics on the quay-side to correct the faults on cars that had passed Rover's Pre-Delivery-Inspected (PDI). Approximately 50% of all vehicles were rejected by the US distributor PDI, and had to be corrected by the quay-side team before the customer would accept delivery.
In 1985 my boss had a new Rover 3.5 litre which he managed to drive 10 miles before it broke down. An electrical fault which my boss described as making the car look like "a f##king Christmas tree".
I grew up in a family that loved Rovers, my father had a 1936 Rover 14, and a 1953 Rover 75. These were wonderful cars. It's such a shame to see how poor management can destroy a brand.
A very interesting video. I was working with BMW GB back then and was involved with some dealings with the guys from Rover. The culture at Rover was very different from BMW and I was never a believer in the 'hands off' approach. There were some good guys working there - and many not so good. One of the good ones and one that I recruited into my team is now the MD of BMW UK... Interesting times eh?
BMW don't get enough credit for saving MINI. MINI only exists today because of BMW vision and perseverance despite Rover. Thank you BMW!
@@kriskalpa BMW is the reason Rover is no longer here they shafted us they only wanted the 4x4 tech we should have been sold to Honda
@@charliebrown4573 I agree that Honda would have been a better fit but they would also have made big changes. The Japanese work ethic and that of Rover are very different. I'm sad Rover perished as it had so much opportunity but I also don't think it would ever have been realised. The only reason I see MINI cars everywhere is because of BMW's investment and creative vision and I'm thankful to them for doing that. Rover's Mini vision would have followed Smart into the sales black hole. Don't overlook that BMW provide many jobs in the UK thanks to that ongoing investment.
@charliebrown4573 Unfortunately Honda didn't want to buy Rover outright they hadn't the money at the time they were approached by the Rover side (BAe) and refused to increase their 20% stake in Rover where as BMW did sad indeed 😢
@@garyhitchcock3828 You are wrong. As someone who was involved in all of this I can tell you exactly what happened. The approach was made at a motor trades dinner, Honda was never involved ,they were upset when it all came out as they wanted to develop the engine plant. BMW were the only ones who were approached as they wanted Land Rover so they could have a vehicle to beat the g wagon
BMW has a reputation of buying out brands. They did to Glas Cars (in the 60s) exactly the same thing they did to Rover (90s-00). They even sold Glas Cars with BMW badges in their last years of production.
I find the whole BMW-Rover saga so fascinating yet so tragic at the same time, it remains one of those great "What Ifs" had BMW had more patience on Rover.
They'd have both went down.
@@woodrow_mayes
Nope. There was a conflict of interests in BMW management. They mainly wanted the mini Brand along with fresh eyes on offroad tech.
I don't believe BMW set out to asset strip Rover but I think they saw a more lucrative angle towards the latter part of them owning Rover. Regrettable but money talks.
@@skylined5534 They must have been mightily disappointed then, because they had already signed off the X5 for production when they bought Rover. What would Rover had proposed, ditch that independent suspension for live axles? where is the ladder chassis? you need to widen up those panel gaps?
As for the Mini brand, if that was all they wanted, BAe would have happily sold it to them as they were planning to end Mini production in 96 and with it drop the brand. The evidence points to the first time that anybody in BMW thought seriously what to do with Mini, it was after the takeover and they found that Rover's strategy was to just let it die. It was in response to this BMW asked its design team in Munich to do some proposals as to what the Mini would be like today had it been consistently developed like the 911 had been. The result of this work is what led to the MINI.
more like if they won in court of law the process that made them onwers of Rover when the brand had been sold 20 years ago from that time maybe 96 to Honda who made rover again a luxury car with honda engines and sold a lot of cars, maybe like it never had happen even my father had a 86 rover vitesse ,a big sedan
@@RUfromthe40s BAe and the UK Government had been trying to get Honda to buy Austin Rover since the start of the XX/HX project in 1981, they were never going to buy it as by 1994, they were heading away from it seeing little to gain from developing common platforms with them, instead just licensing existing Honda technology and cars (with Rover restricted to cosmetic changes and tweaking the damping and spring rates). Honda quite simply had no interest in Cowley (in fact it was in the end not Cowley but the former PSF site opposite) let alone Longbridge, choosing instead to develop a green field site at Swindon.
It’s easy for this whole debacle to paint BMW in a bad light, but really I think it’s a lot more than that. The magnitude of industrial strife that has beset British carmakers is off the scale, it’s almost unbelievable how even after the 1970s, the nationalisation and then re-privitisation, Rover *still* couldn’t deliver cars on time or make them reliably. Maybe it was some sort of organisational inertia leading them to never accept a model due to advances being made around it. I know several Mini replacements were scrapped in the 1970s because as soon as a design would be just about finished, someone would decide it needed [insert new fad here] and the whole thing would need years more in the oven. They had to accept that nothing they’d make would ever be perfect and just finish the design. Some of the effort put into design and engineering could well have been spent instead on delivering a more reliable if less advanced car, and I think had that been the modus operandi at Rover they might still be around. It’s really interesting that they seemed to have the exact same problems in the 1990s that they had in the 1970s
Was it genuinely impossible to manage Rover? They could never do it themselves, and even when owned by a company that could successfully manage itself, still couldn't be managed.
It wasn't as straightforward as that.
And as for the Phoenix shower of 'soot' they were the final insult, sadly.
they only stop making Rovers for the street because they still are sold everyday new, like the Land-Rover and the Range-Rover, there are more, this because when Honda left the brand in agreement with BMW they were not capable of exploring ,mini´s, rolls-royce, bentley, Jaguar and aston-martin and also Rover city cars but dirt road cars from Rover are still being released
@@RUfromthe40s Indeed, Rover survives as a 4x4 brand with Jaguar -a sister company from the 70's anyway.
BMW let Rover manage itself rather than have it managed by BMW, think that was one of the many mistakes that happened with this partnership.
@@gaffer1993 That is simply not the case, Tony. I was surrounded by BMW people when I was a junior manager at BMW Group UK from 1998 and had others on the phone every day. The problems of the Rover group were BMW's fault, pure and simple -they had the control and decided on the strategy (not always well). Stopping production of some BAe-era models prematurely without immediate replacement models was one bad idea and having a poor relationship with Honda was also a bad idea. It was said that the BMW boss was pretty much 'escorted out' of the Honda HQ in the latter 90's, which shows how poorly they handled foreign relations... The success of the Mini and the success of LR showed that the Rover Group still had plenty of promise, but poor decision-making and vacillating by BMW HQ surrounding the 'volume brand' Rover cars was what led to the cost overruns. The 75 should have been more modular, with a C-segment off-shoot launched first to replace the Honda-shared cars. Both should have been less 'retro' and more akin to the contemporary style espoused buy the previous-gen cars. The Rover Group was doing the same in the early 80's with the Maestro, Montego and what would have been the non-Honda 600/800, so BMW was simply a bit old-fashioned in its processes. VW has since taken the modular strategy to the ultimate expression... why couldn't BMW?
It beggars belief why a British car manufacture like Rover couldn't be saved after the disasterous effect British Leyland had on the British car industry. You'd have thought
They had learned their lesson , but lack of government backing never helped. Back in the sixties the British car industry was doing so well until the 1970s when they put Austin, Morris, Rover, Triumph under the British Leyland banner , then it all started going wrong. Such a shame. If only things were different and British car makers like Rover put more pride in their product
I don't think the R30 killed Rover. It was a combination of things ultimately. Including but not limited to. The lack of investment in the BAe days meaning when BMW took over there was a reliance on Honda platforms (and so expensive licensing costs), the strength of the Pound and the Chinese joint venture never going ahead.
I thought the shit build quality , horrible design, prices more then £10/car , despicable parts quality, all together killed rover witch to be fair had outlived more then it should by 30 years
BMW were tearing their hair out with Rover-MG. And that deal in the 1980's with British Aerospace was daft. They were simply not interested in running it properly, just used it as a financial asset for building aircraft and aircraft equipment.
They were never 'tearing their hair out' at Rover. Certain members of both companies had ideas which conflicted other's ideas.
The R30 could have been a world beater. Without doubt the most informative history of the final moments of the Rover group which I've seen. Thank you.
@BM Indeed still a good video
@BM then explain. You mentioned this everywhere.
I came to watch a video about the R30, not the history of British Leyland. A brief introduction of BL's history should have been one or two minutes only.
The K-series engine was a warranty nightmare. Too low water cooling capacity, before thermostat opened to radiator, temperature in block and head went too high, and cylinder head to block joint unreliable - head gaskets blowing left right and centre after very short mileages.
Re-site the thermostat, MLS head gaskets and reinstate the original design's steel dowels and it's a perfectly fine engine. Ricardo went further for SAIC and went through the K Series & its production process with a very fine toothcomb to create the Kavachi engine, which has not had a single breakdown.
Moreover, VGK Racing make a reliable 2.0-litre (1,996cc) K Series for motorsport / road applications with up to 205 kW (279 PS).
It's not as terrible as armchair experts make it out to be.
@@applejuice5272 You are totally right. I Did those things to my Trophy 160 and BRM. I went further and fitted improved flow exhaust manifolds and sport catalysts to get heat out faster and on the MG a proper 13 row oil cooler mounted in front of radiator with exhaust holes at top of radiator box to reduce pressure behind radiator and therefore flow through it. This last free mod also, as a bonus, much improved front downforce and therefore stability at higher speeds. The reasoning with the oil cooler was to provide an additional cooling system totally separate from water cooling system and so take some workload from it. I also fitted a second radiator cooling fan ala auto MGF but this proved to be unnecessary. One thing I did notice was that when I took front bumper off to fit oil cooler was that the top half of the radiator was clean outside while the bottom half was dirty, I concluded that the top half of the radiator had very little airflow, hence the pressure relieving holes mentioned above. We must remember that the MGF/TF was only fitted with a Metro radiator, ie from a car of only slightly more than half the cubic capacity and about a third the power and then only effectively used half of the radiator. Any cooling system must have air flowing through it, something MG seemed to have forgotten when designing MGF and so exacerbated the K-series early difficulties with heat. By the way, I left water cooling system totally standard, just fitting a new thermostat and water pump as a precaution. Never had any problems at all with engines on either car even on >40C days in summer in E Europe while all French and Korean etc cheap cars had fans screaming in town my MGF fans stayed silent. Oh and both cars had VVC removed and Piper 270 solid cams fitted with appropriate remaps.
I worked as a mechanic for the police, I have never seen one have a head gasket or fail. I have never seen the inside of a K series. They did weep a bit of oil, but nothing like A or B series
When someone like myself who worked on cars for a living ends up reading this regurgitated nonsense it does annoy me a little.
The water capacity was just fine if none was lost though I will say the elastomer coated gaskets were only a problem when fitted with plastic dowels, a doubtful cost saving exercise and much to the chagrin of engineers at Rover I'm sure.
The MLS is still a better option fitted along with steel dowels. The biggest source of water loss on these engines is the rubbery green gasket fitted in the inlet for models which featured plastic inlets, which was most of them. This item should ideally be changed around every 3 to 4 years due to degradation. Not ideal but cheap and easy to do. The metal inlet manifold cars didn't have this issue.
The 'thermal shock' thing was only applicable to cars with longer exchange pipes like the MGF but even then if the cooling system was kept in tip top condition it wasn't an issue.
@@skylined5534 If you are taking issue with H Z Thomas then I agree with you.
My road engines all used the MLS gasket but it did reduce the compression slightly as was thicker. Even with a turbo the MLS with steel dowels was fine.
For race purposes the standard gasket is better as it does not reduce compression, for racing this matters as anything sub optimal is bad. Racers change the head gasket a few times through the season as a precaution.
Rover was let down from all. The workers, the management and the Government, BMW did not help.
What a shame.
Could you imagine if Rover brought out a new Morris Minor to compete with the Beetle?
I wonder if things would have changed for the better if BMW had simply contributed older platforms it no longer produced of 3, 5, and 7 series, changed up the grill and headlights, cheapened the interiors, softened the suspensions, and pushed those out as stop gap models to give their engineers more time to develop new cars one at a time. Then make some sort of deal with a South Korean manufacturer who had competitive models of cars that otherwise needed replaced. They could have used the time to ease in new models while sending over some Germans to England to make sure things were getting done. It's not like any of their older cars from that period were bad (other than 1980's 5-series, but that was an engine thing, they could use Rover engines). They burned through an incredible amount of money to get Mini.
I don’t think BMW really wanted Rover to be successful, especially in the United States with the MGF because it would become a direct threat to BMW sales. BMW took from Rover what it needed, including the MINI and the Rover teams design department ideas. Rover, despite its lack of success was a innovative company, capable of designing cars as good, if not better than BMW, but it’s miss-management, and lack of investment in new cars was always appalling.
Rover was bancrupt before BMW bought it. The motivation on shopfloor was low. So quality was worse. BMW invested Billions for nothing. No one at Rover had understood the efforts of BMW. It was boycotted by Rover employees with dead rats & mice in the cars hided under the cushions. Here again a lesson was to learn: don't buy a company which does not perform or is bancrupt. other examples: Mercedes Benz with AEG, Fokker, Dornier etc. etc.
Well said; I get bored of the "BMW only bought Rover for this or that" mantra.
BMW was very successful with MINI if they did not buy Rover they would have lost a major part of the car market and very large profits for the last 22 years. Companies buy the competitors for other reasons as well, market share, access to designs such as the Rover 30 possibly leading to the BMW 1 series and so on.
The big difference between the R30 & the BMW 1 series is, the Rover would have been front wheel drive and the BMW, rear wheel drive which would suggest they weren’t the same car… as a front wheel drive car would have good leg room in the back, something the 1 series lacked.
Too fit rear wheel drive in a car chassis that was designed for front wheel drive would have taken a huge amount of money and engineering work to work… would BMW have been that willing back then after throwing vast amounts of money at the failed Rover group?
@@drscopeify Yes, but they were after a whole market segment not just one car. And it was BMWs investment and effort that garnered the results. Left to Rover it would have been yet another facelift of the original. Or the Metro.
It's the same faulty logic that people use when they say "BMW bought Rover for its 4x4 technology" when anyone who knows about such things knew it wasn't worth buying a single Discovery let alone an entire company to find out the sum total of their knowledge.
Incorrect. You're confusing 70s and early 80s BL with mid 90s Rover. As mentioned, LR/RR was selling well despite their quality issues they still have, the mid range Rovers the 200 and 400 were also. And the 600 - that got Rover engines not just a grille - did well. More Honda, no BMW beyond engine supplier would've been much better.
Thanks for an informative and well-researched history lesson. Every time I go around the Gaydon Mausoleum, I see prototypes from the British stable (like the TR7 Lynx) and think "if only". My wife and I had a very enjoyable BMW 1-series, brand new on an 06 plate about 18 months into production, which served us well for a number of years and 91k miles. If only...
my friend davis he has these old rover 30 , he use to worjk in there delerships and they have send there full size models of these car, always they have no engine so they are no real goo on there road :-(
The Maestro and Montego were concentrated shi_te. Even Land Rover and Range Rover were shi_te, at the time. At least they had MG.
I actually liked my Maestro diesel. honest.
@@scabbycatcat4202 Well, I sometimes tend to exaggerate. As in any other car model - those that came with the Diesel engine were more reliable but still, they were quite problematic from what I can remember. I used to work for a Suzuki dealer next door to Rover and Honda. There's no way you haven't replaced the water pump or the clutch, at least once. These cars had a rare type of plastic (the one that makes noises as if it has moving parts) - the cheapest plastic ever made and other "disposable" parts. But when you love your car, nothing will stop you. Not even a broken water pump.
Nope, BMW wanted the Mini nameplate. The rest was excess baggage.
Yup fear of competition was the whole raison of BMW's takeover. Oh and the leverage to join the Euro. Otherwise as ever excellent.
The nightmare is over.
My favorite is the 1986 Rover 216. If it is good enough for Hyacinth Bucket it is good enough for me!
The old cars certainly had, erm, personality.
Now we're entering the electric age, all we're gonna get are sewing machines on wheels.
The whole car aspiration culture is about to end.
There are alot if mistakes in this video but it's still good as a Rover guy I approve LOL!
I blame Brummies.
I'll probably get accused of brummism, but it needs saying.
While this is just a minor detail, you‘re factually wrong in saying Volkswagen Group had a premium offering with the Porsche brand. Porsche didn’t belong to Volkswagen until 2009. So arguably they didn’t have a premium offering at the time since Audi was just slowly gaining traction as akin to BMW and Mercedes in the 90s.
It's so sad that Rover was broken up and destroyed. Because they were actually one of the truly great car makers and long before the upstart BMW. BMW only survived themselves after being saved by the Quandt family who made their money in WW2 with Nazi slave labour camps. While Rover themselves not only helped to defeat Nazism they also made great quality cars at an affordable price and also technically advanced ones too. Even the Queen and Prime Ministers used Rovers, and that's why they were know as the poor mans RR. However, they also made cutting edge cars like the worlds first jet powered road car, Jet 1. Which led to the BRM jet powered racing cars. The problem for Rover, was like so many British companies that were starved of cash after WW2 they ended up merged with Austin at their outdated Longbridge plant and with Austin's poor quality control. BAs had already asset stripped the company and that's exactly what BMW ended up doing too.
By the time they were sold for £10 there wasnt much left and they were therefore doomed. All their new profitable models were kept by BMW and only the 75 was included in the deal. However, that had already been jinxed by BMW at its launch, and in any case it was just not enough. Yet if Rover had kept all their new models they would now be profitable and secure.
Fortunately the Land Rover subsidiary is still doing well, which BMW sold for more money than they originally paid for the whole Rover group. Also Landrover has been reported to be launching a new Road Rover. So will Rovers subsidiary be actual resurrecting their own parent company ? I hope so, Rover was far to good a company to die.
My mums cousin worked in cowley so I’ve heard a lot so sad
You make very good documentaries, but please consider using shorter sentences. They're never-ending, and it's easy to lose track halfway through.
Take, for example, this:
"The choice was, therefore, simply to buy an ailing mass-market carmaker, and then use the profits of this firm to help support the wider BMW group without diluting the prestige of the BMW name, and therefore, through injections of cash and the influence of German executives at the Longbridge plant in Birmingham, the company set a new course for the Rover Group that would see a complete refurbishment of its product range, the priority of which was to axe those models which still required the use of Honda underpinning such as the Rover 200, 400, 600 and 800, as the acquisition of Rover by BMW voided the former's contract with Honda to supply parts and technical assistance that had been signed in 1979, thus requiring significant royalty payments by BMW to Honda in order to allow the continued use of their engineering, while order British Leyland models, such as the Metro, Maestro, Montego and the original Mini, would be retired over the course of the decade and replaced with a new swathe of cars, although the ownership of BMW was not entirely to Rover's benefit, as with the launch of the high popular MG F in 1995 as a revival of the legendary MG marque, BMW refused to sell the car in the United States as they feared it would steal sales from their own brand new drop-top roadster, the BMW Z2, killing a potentially lucrative market for the MG brand."
That's one sentence! In my opinion, that's just too long.
I agree. I really like the subject matter and the quality of the author's videos but I do find that I need to focus intensely to retain any level of comprehension.
@@roygardiner2229 It would help if he stopped using the progressive form so much.
Had to stop at 1.32,sentence structures are convoluted and the speed of narration make these a hard watch.Also,what’s a Montaygo?
Rover killed Rover
But you could have mentioned that it was bought by SAIC
The assumption, that the BMW 1series evolved from the R30 is far fetched. Or was the R30 intended to be rear wheel drive as well? That's a totally different architecture. All Rovers a part of the 75 were front wheel drive, as inherited by Honda... Just take a look at 9:11 where you get a side view of the R30, as well as the other design sketches shown later: That (and the other) bonnet(s) would have never fitted an inline six cylinder engine, yet the BMW 1 Series does. The R30 rear end, that basically ends after the rear wheels, would never have fitted the rear wheel dive and exhaust system. That R30 is basic front wheel drive, Sir Alec Issigonis style architecture. That has no whatsoever similarity with a BMW 1 Series.
R30 was nowhere near finished and was always planned to be FWD. I can’t remember the name of the R30 lead interior theme, but if I recall correctly it did reappear either in the 1-series or Z4. Regardless R30 wasn’t a basis for the 1-series.
BMW’s arrival was a catastrophe for Rover.
So many 'car experts' make horrid decisions. Kaiser-Frazer; Edsel line; Cadillac mid-80s "double-downsized" flops, also Cimarron and Catera; Bricklin, DeLorean; etc. ad nauseum
It’s a total shame, I had x2 Rovers (620) last had until it reached 21 years old, despite a lot of false stigma “unreliable poor build “ was nonsense, they were great cars and was super reliable, and never ever let me down, it was earlier cars that nailed the Fate and lack of funding , I can think of many modern car makers that are absolute 💩 and people still buy them 🤦♂️ interesting video 👍🏽
Seems the Gerry's got Rover to design and build concept cars for them just to steal them. The last car in the video looks awfully like a Merc Mk1 A Class or an Audi variant.
I owned both a MG ZR and an MG ZS with the V6 engine. Great cars and briliant fun but they were quite unreliable though. My ZR had constant head gasket issues and my ZS developed bizarre electrical faults. I kept them limping on though.
Those who thought back then that the Rover-Honda, Ronda, was bad, were deeply offended by the silly Tata Indica called Cityrover. The R30 war the crash and the Cityrover was the burn of this company.
Big car says maestro and montego did it. Metro was a decent car when fettled
This is an interesting video (well, all yours are) because you cover the context so extensively. What was clearly a mistake was to keep such a hands-off management approach to Rover. A forensic approach to improving quality was required at the very least, so - for example - motoring journalists would have been able to recognise improving quality and that there was also a reason for it. As it was it seemed to have drifted downwards in quality, in some areas at least, and that is a death knell for a company.
@Retired Bore Thanks for that insight
The problem was that BMW was a relatively small and quite lean company having been managing increasing volumes through improved productivity. Whilst this gave them the money to sweep up Rover and contemplate poring all the money and more into it to make it work, it simply did not have the managers and engineers to put into a business that had spent the previous 15 years doing little more than light facelifts to Hondas.
I contracted at Longbridge installing the K Series engine train in 89/90.
I believe every K series came with a guarantee. The cylinder head gasket was guaranteed to fail at around 70000 miles. Mine lasted till 75000. That engine kept many mechanics in gainful employment.
Bad management and the unions killed rover.
Yes, and the problems began already in the 1960’s. Amazing that the company stayed alive for so long. Brilliant ideas and designs coupled with horrible execution and build quality.
They think it's all rover lmao 🤣
"....Rover Group formed by the privatisation of British Leyland in 1986...". BL was rebranded as Rover Group in 1986, and Graham Day took over with the remit of making the Company saleable, but it wasn't until 1988 that it was sold to British Aerospace.
And secondly. I've read (and believe it more likely) that rather than refusing to let Rover sell the MGF in USA, BMW were surprised to find that Rover weren't planning on doing so. This was, I suspect, down to the cost of getting the k-series approved and the fear of another "Sterling" episode.
Great video as always! What I don't understand: why was Rover not able to improve "significantly" during the time period where BMW dumped so much money into them and left them so much freedom? I've seen your (mindblowing!) video on how the BL leadership used to be really incompetent, but was that still the case in the 90s? The plans seemed to make sense, the cash was there (for some time at least), why did nothing change? The refusal of the UK government to grant financial support, certainly a significant nail in Rover's coffin, happened after that period of "non-progress despite so much money". I wish I understood that 1994-2000 Rover period better.
They didn't 'dump money' into Rover. Rover were also very restricted in what BMW allowed them to do and that included performance models.
I'm not so sure about the suggestion the 1 series was a rover.
The under pinnings are straight from the E90 3 series.
Thank you for the detailed overview - and all in three sentences! In all seriousness, it may be a blessing in disguise that Daimler snatched up Chrysler before BMW had a chance to create a partnership for sharing Chrysler powertrains. Chrysler was in one of their momentary bright spots at the time, but who knows how long that would have lasted in an actual partnership.
daimler is the best car builder in the world ,the reason why mercedes with more than 50 years are running today like everyday cars,as an example the pagode ,or 230SL and from mid 60´s the 280SL was a new engine for the car ,the brand was daimler-mercedes till early 2000´s at least the ones developed in the 90´s
@@RUfromthe40s That may be, but Daimler bled Chrysler for everything they could. If you drove a 2008-2010 Chrysler Town & Country or 300, you would not think it was one of the best cars available. You'd probably cut yourself on the sharp edges of the rough, cheap plastics on every surface.
Whilst residing in the UK I had a Montego estate, good for two large dogs and pieces of furniture I used to deal in.
I had no outstanding bad issues with it.
@Wallace Carney I've had a French car, a Renault 4, frugal, comfortable and suited me just fine. Otherwise German, Swedish, US and Japanese cars have worked for me. Also a Morgan 4+4, if you know that vehicle.
At least the French still have a thriving automobile industry.
BTW having a French name doesn't mean I am French.
There was some very promising work being undertaken at Rover Group, prior to the BMW sell-off. I have to say though, that the BMW acquisition always felt like an exercise in asset stripping - BMW looking to acquire front and all wheel drive technology. The MINI design was pure Rover in terms of body and chassis design - the fact that BMW retained the brand speaks volumes.
This is well debunked myth.
The FWD technology was all Honda's (apart from the PSA derived gearboxes), if you look at the Rover 75 and the MINI (R50/52/53) they are in the way they are built and engineered BMWs, because Rover had not designed their own gearbox since the Metro and the Montego (not the estate that was done by a 3rd party) was the last bodyshell they engineered from the ground up. So they were entirely dependent on BMW engineering to replace Honda's (why both the 75 and Mini had MacPherson struts at the front and BMW patented Z axle at the back, just like a BMW).
The MINI design came from a study done by BMWs styling team to consider what the Mini might have become had it been developed in the way the Porsche 911 had been instead of allowed to wither away. Rovers proposal for a Mini replacement was the Spiritual & Spiritual 2 which envisaged a Smart rear engine design.
As for AWD technology, the BMW X5 had already been signed off and BMW had no interest in ladder chassis and live axles that Defenders, Discoveries and Range Rovers were using (nor the giant panel gaps that came as standard). The third generation Range Rover that was developed during BMW ownership (and sold as part of the deal to Ford), follows BMW design philosophy because it was the result of a project that had originally been started before the takeover, to develop what had been envisaged to be the X7.
There is only one bit of Rover technology BMW can be said to have gained from Rover and that was the hill descent system they developed for the Freelander.
No matter how hard you try to hype up rover, all you said is wrong. Rover just sort of deserved to die. Just accept it. So much coping going around with rover fans.
@@grahamariss2111 Brilliant. They inherited a fked up car company (the English patient) with some good brands.
@@grahamariss2111 It is no myth. BMC/BL/Austin/Rover group was a specialist in FWD since the late 1950's. Look at their portfolio from the Mini onwards... and what BMW 'kept'.
@@anthonytelford7876 Yes, but the Ado16 (BMC 1100/1300) of 1963 was the high point, after that it was the Ado17 (BMC 1800/2200) that bombed in market, Allegro that bombed in the market and took with it the European sales network that the Mini and Ado16 had allowed them to establish, the Princess that bombed what was left and the Ambassador that they did not even bother to export it was that bad.
They then did the Metro, which was just a reskin of Allegro and Mini bits and so with its in sump gearbox and A series engine was already behind the curve as was shown when just 3 years later the 205 and UNO moved the super mini market two steps away from them.
Then they did the Maestro and Montego and this where we see the game is up, because there they abandoned the BMC technology and reverse engineered the VW Golf, to such an extent they abandoned their plans to copy the VW end on gearbox instead buying them in from VW. That was the last car they led the engineering on as after that they used Honda platforms and licensed gearboxes from Honda and PSA.
With the MINI BMW bought a brand name and an iconic look, bodyshell structure and suspension design including the a dead Z axle follow BMW practices as does the assembly process, it is a small fwd BMW that looks like a Mini and has a MINI badge on it.
Watched the whole 24.17 minutes and seconds of that. Very informative but some controversial viewpoints and opinions there which can mislead.
However, unless I somehow missed it, no mention of BMW's real and pressing need for small models in its otherwise "gas guzzler" model line up to address that imbalance or face punitive financial constraints under EU guidelines. The "Bini" and R30/One-Series provided that small car adjustment thus avoiding the wrath of the EU penalties. Which incidentally the massive R&D costs to Rover Group for those small cars set against clever accounting accounts to demonstrate what the Bavarian Outfit's Top Banana went on to describe and here I use the very words as "The English Patient".
Cynics like me at the time of the spiv-like cheap sell-off of the massively asset rich Rover Group to the Bavarian asset strippers are on record of stating it would all end in tears at Longbridge back them. Mug UK has plenty of form for getting bad deals and things badly wrong. Witness the handling of Lockdown and Pandemic costs. What those we entrust to this Nation's longer term well-being ( longer term...what's that? ) have and continue to fail the Nation miserably. Compounded by the other shower of Westminster incompetents turning their backs on the many thousands of good midland folks dependent on their livelihood, careers and jobs at Longbridge and elsewhere such as parts supplier and other services. Two such small firms closed down near to me soon after April 2005. Had MG-Rover been one of the many public sector money pits, rescue Taxpayer funding would always be made available for those bottomless money pits.
Also, again unless I missed it ( other distractions ) no mention of the subsequent JLR sell off to FOMOCO for £1bn which was rather more than the Bavarians paid for the whole of the asset rich former Rover Group.
Still they form long queues to take the UK taxpayers' hard to come by and indeed the Nation for mugs. Sometimes as many as a thousand a day. We as a Nation stand for the proverbial "Three card trick" time and time again. Precious little evidence that will change for the better anytime soon. Sadly, if ever.
Was surprised by the appearance of Lord Trimble at 16 minute mark
BMW exercised an asset stripping with Rover. And Rover where
the best as they was based on Honda. One of the best brands.
On BMW only their pricing is premium the rest is garbage.
I freaking love the Rover 75, such a classy and refined design, interior and exterior.
Sounds like just a horrible mismanagement.
A shame.
Thank You Rover❤