The Rise And Fall Of Rover - How Tragedy KILLED Rover Cars
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- Опубликовано: 29 янв 2025
- In this video we cover Rover cars, how they were once at their height used by royalty and prime ministers, appearing prominently in Downing Street and British politics to their fall going from this perception of their brand, to James May and Top Gears hidden camera expose report.
This is the story of the rise and fall of one of the greatest car manufacturers and marques Britain has ever known, from the Rover p5, p6 and SD1 to the 800 and the 75. Charting its missed opportunities at the hands of British Leyland and the many industrial and managerial issues that led to its ultimate downfall.
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Credits:
AROnline - general Rover/BL information SD1, P7 video, P8 and P6BS photos and general information
Driven to write - Rover P5 general information
James Taylor - History of Rover cars 1945 - 2005
If you'd like to read more my sources are linked below
ARonline BL History - www.aronline.c...
P5 In Parliament Driven to Write - driventowrite....
AROnline Rover P6BS and P8 - www.aronline.c...
As an ARG former marketing guy it started to go seriously wrong when the SD1 was engineered down to a price by Leyland bean counters. Surely one of the most beautiful looking cars but so badly built. The series 2 from 1982 looked great but the quality was only skin deep. Those terrible straight six Triumph designed engines were soon to eat camshafts. 800, 200, 400 and 600 reached a high point but so dependant on Honda quality and tech. BMW never wanted to do what VW did for Skoda, the brand was badly managed into collapse. MG Rover never had the money to revive it hence crap like the City Rover that sealed its fate
Rolls of Rolls Royce refused to listen to the accountants during a cash crisis and kept quality and reliability as a byword...never advertised and went on to new strength and success.
I remember them well . The 6 cylinder engine had a non bleed back valve in the top of the block that would carbon up and jam shut stopping oil feed to the whole top end turning everything to blue and brown corrugated iron. I worked at a rover dismantles and drove a P5B and the boss had a 110. We sold heads off crashed 2.6 Sd1’s and the rest of the engine was scrapped. A sad ending.
I'd say it was all doomed by the time the SD1 came, because all the reasons for it in the early 70's by people who came mainly from Ford UK thinking they had patent for all the knowledge of the world (most notably Barber), which drove the sensible people like Turnbull away. The thing was that over them at Ford they had the big company watching them, but at BL, they were lead by a man who knew nothing about car business and also thought he knew everything best. Byl the time the SD1 it was the Ryder report, that was all too wrong, the government diong all the wrong decisions and when Edwards came, well what else more could he do.
In the 90's I'd say BMW really wanted to do well with Rover, but the CEO of BMW Pischetsrieder was too dreamy for his German counterparts, which eventually lead to his demise.
Also the British government did not really help things as usual. And as for Jion Towers, well, I don¨t understand. He lead Rover into prosperity in the 90's, only to take it over and rob it some years later of it's employees retirement money? Well, this is basically how the so called Great Britain became what it is now, only scaled down to one simple company.
Rover and the whole BL could have been so much more, the cars were interesting, practical, some even good looking, yet they got it all so wrong.
It's design was inspired by a Citroen, possibly the CX but I'm not sure.
So, it wasn't evil commie workers, but something as mundane as short-sighted bean counters?
BMW never had any intention of keeping Austin Rover afloat. Their sole aim was to harvest the brand names that had promise... Mini, Jaguar and land rover. And Land rover was only so they could create their own poor excuse for an suv, the X series.
Once they stripped what they wanted, they laughed as they sold the remains back to the management buy out. Then selling Jaguar and landrover to the yanks. While turning the always loved mini into something so far removed from the original concept, it doesn't deserve to wear the mini name.
They also took the rover r30 prototype and create the 1 series out of it..
Except that if you read Issigonis's biography, there is a prototype photo of a car from his era that is startlingly like the new generation inflated Mini. Edit: it was designated XC/9001, although evolved into the Landcrab.
beemer never had jaguar. Ford bought it in about 1990, before BMW took over Rover.
The CEO of BMW staked his entire career on Rover, they were relatively hands off and gave them quite a bit of cash to come up with the 75, it just missed the mark, BAe on the other hand...
Sadly, British Aerospace had asset stripped the company long before BMW got involved. BMW piled in good money after bad, and were even willing to put their new diesel in the 75. In the end they have to give Rover away before they ended going bankrupt themselves. The Phoenix 4 never had much desire to save the company, and couldn’t if they had tried as the company was losing hundreds of millions a year.
Sleeping on the job.
I worked in a major coachbuilder. Sleeping on the job was notoriously happening. This was the mid 80s. Drinking 6pints at lunchtime was the norm. Striking for anything like a sunny day was happening. I remember we went on strike. Because a guy was late for the roll trolley. I am not making that up.
Yep, it was happening in the print industry too. They were the sleeping years 😅
@@roverenderalligator9104the thatcher years , the death of British heavy industry 😭
Yep. And all the whole time the Japanese were making gains. Same thing happened in Australia when they stopped making Holdens in 2017. Zero foresight. They Just thought things would always stay the same. That people would keep on buying the brands.
@@neilwalsh4058 my dad sent money to the polish coal miners. The polish cut coal for us during the miners strike. Thatcher was not to Blame .scragill was to blame. The car industry was destroyed by unions and engineering disasters. Again not Thatcher.steel industry . China.
@@neilwalsh4058 she was making people sleep on the job. 🤔
My family has had several Rovers since the 70s.
From the 2000 TC and several P6s and a right-hand drive P5 3500 to the SD1 3500 and Vitesse
to now the Rover 75,
The P models in particular will remain in our memories forever with their quality.
My dream was my 3500 Vitesse.
All of them always had a few problems but we still love them today.
Greetings from Germany to England and I wish all Rover owners a carefree and enjoyable journey in the future!
Similar here - my father had 1947 Rover 14 (P3?), 1961 Rover 80 P4, 1968 Rover 2000 Automatic in Zircon Blue with cream leather. I bought a 2300 Manual in the 1990s. Looking now for a 1968 3500 (aluminium grille) in Zircon Blue.
Same as my family but now Bentley
Yes the Rover was a very good car- I had five over the years- two P4, one P5 and two P6.
The Rover 75 was a gorgeous car. Unfortunately it was built ten years too late.
I drove a 75 Diesel with the full mounting a true Rover . drove a P5 no(B) for more than 15 years, not easy in germany but better than anything else.
@@michaelpielorz9283 Quite agree, I had the BMW diesel model.
When my Dad retired as an electronics engineer he got a part time job as a delivery driver to keep him busy. They issued Citroen vans. He used to deliver parts to Rover / BL. The unions wouldn't let him deliver and go on site in a non BL van, he used to unload the pallets and leave them by the gate house where they rusted. They hit their own self destruct button. It's such a terrible shame. Systematically destroyed by the left.
Dear black. The working man is his own biggest enemy
@@petercarrana5464 This true. Just drove back from Ft William, I am tired cuz its 550 miles. We detoured to Newcastle and Sunderland. 150 years of coal under our feet. No mines now, so no quality coking coal to make high quality steel from. Saw two Black5's today, one on the Jacobite and one at Gothland.
My dad drove Rovers in the 1950s and I remember them with great fondness and a little pride. I was taken aback when I got into a P4 model at a vintage car show in the naughties and that Rover smell of leather, wood and oil yanked me back 50 years!
@oleleclos I've had that experience with BMC interior vinyl smell, re-experiencing an Austin 1100 interior. I don't think such pungency would be allowed to waft out of a P4. I certainly loved as a sub-ten year old our Rover 100 over the Austin in the household. Sadly, the P4 was displaced by a Ford Popular as a knee-jerk reaction to the early 1970s oil crisis.
So sad to see a world beater, destroyed by the bean counters and then beaten by everyone and his dog.
no rich tories,,,who owned the papers,,,and had vested interests,,,,service your bm.merc audi,,,,,,oil filter,,,,,,pay for your dentures.....
Management devoid of ideas, designers hamstringed by being forced to the corporate parts bin and communist unions calling the staff out all the time.
The British automotive industry has been plagued with management corruption, trades union corruption, general incompetence and worker laziness.
Poor Management and Greedy Bolshey work force!
That is what caused Rover and BLs demise.
Sadly, the UK has never recovered. No longer building ships, and most industry has gone into decline or gone forever.
Entire towns are derelict, whilst cities like Birmingham are unrecognisable as British any more. There's more Indians and Pakistanis there than in the United States cricket team!
The UK is dying, and nearsighted governments are either unwilling or unable to stop it withering on the vine.
Nope. The work force were made greedy and bolshey by a greedy and bolshey government. You haven't got to go back that far in history to see just how bad the working classes had it.
@@68404 Too bad Francis Urquhart never actually made it to the PM's chair 30 years back.
Pissing on your workers is like pissing in your own soup.
yes, it was a time when that happened across th board. We did make some good cars. Shame about it all.
A friend of mine worked in a Rover dealer in the 80's , 90's and told me when Honda arrived they just stopped breaking down ! Great . After Honda went he started buying Honda's himself .
Because of head gaskets who would have done that I wonder 🤔
Yhe English funded the k series and oyhers just for Japan to take a back hander yhe British are responsible for the demise of English manufacturer like rover ,all by design no coincidence rover was doing well when yzee Germans said let's sell the company so they can't make nomore 75 s models
I liked the Honda - Rovers, they were even more attractive than the cars they were based on. If the government hadn't driven a coach and horses through the collaboration by selling Rover to BMW and leaving Honda very miffed Rover could have continued to have a very rosey future.
In the late 60's my father purchased a Rover P5, he owned it longer than any other car in his life time. When it exceeded it's life and the body was no longer maintainable despite having engine life left, it was replaced with a newer style Rover. He never liked it nor did he find it had comparable comfort. Though I was young, because he was often overseas I frequently drove it full time, I always felt a uniquely prestige feeling to be behind the wheel. My father always said he never drove a car with the same pride of engineering and build quality. As the Rover brand went into decline and the newer replacement models he found to be plagued with problems he wouldn't touch the brand again and watched it decline. I still look at older photo's and video's with the Rover P5 in them and feel it was one of the most iconic UK cars.
I remember about 10 yrs ago working at Ferrari in Maranello. There was a group of English guys who specialised in clay modelling. Because of the high quality of their work, they had been working for some of the biggest automotive manufacturers in the world. They had all learnt their trade at Rover.
My 67 TC 2000 saved 3 friends and my life because of it’s solid construction withstanding an horrific accident😊
I used to work for rover in 1980s the sd1 was being built the problem with rover was the staff they wes stealing items every day I did see parts going out the door I did see people carrying boxes of parts headlights, door locks, dash parts no-one checked what was leaving the factory and with all the industrial strikes the staff dragged rover down no wonder rover went under
Based on my brief SD1 misery, anything that was supposed to keep rainwater and rust out or vital fluids in was evidently nicked.
Wasn't only Rover. I remember hearing of a Vauxhall security guard who was sacked when the union complained about him trying to stop workers taking parts out of the factory.
@@philhealey4443LOL!
@@philhealey4443 I must admit I loved my V8 SD1 I had in the late 80's, but you couldn't put a paper shopping bag down in the boot cos when you went to pick it up the base of the bag and everything that was in it would be all over the boot floor
@davidtaylor8244 My dream car proved a nightmare of rising damp and rust at 4 years old. Still, the glovebox provided inexhaustible supplies of fresh rainwater to top up coolant leaks.
I owned and drove a 1963 P4 110 from 1998 to 2015 as an everyday car. Never a fault or breakdown, even in France for 6 months of each year for 14 trips and 3,000 miles a trip. Much admired wherever we went.
You have peculiar taste in prototypes.
If you drove a French dustbin in Dordogne Jacque Chirac would have welcomed you with open arms.
Back in the 80s I worked for a small pen printing company and set up the machine to print several hundred expensive Parker pens with the iconic viking boat for the Rover dealership. Unfortunately it was only at the very end when I was admiring how good they looked did I realise to my horror that I had got the colours back to front so the image was a red boat and gold sails rather than the other way around. My boss had a terrible temper and it was not unknown for him to violently fling pens around at walls if they were not done properly. Terrified I said nothing and off they went to the dealersip. They never noticed and I heard nothing more. What's even more funny is that an example of the job was kept by the boss and proudly kept in the promotional 'show-off' cabinet to show new clients!
Nice one! Bet you were glad to have got away with that. :)
I had several of the Honda based Rovers in the 1980's and 1990's and they were great cars. I think Rover failed because BMW were bad owners, afraid to do for Rover what Honda did; allow them to use BMW platforms and engines. Imagine how good a Rover bodied and trimmed 3 series would have been. BMW and Rover could have complimented each other like VW and Audi do. A real tradgedy that this never happened.
BMW were not bad owners but when the British government turned against them these was no other option then to sell Rover. Please read the book "The end of the road, the true downfall of Rover". Honda played a role in this when they refused to buy Rover. It was more profitable to sell parts and technology to Rover at high prices. There was also a clause stating that Rover was not allowed to export cars to the US because they would be competing with Honda. The UK government were also unwilling to help save Rover.
@@josvandencamp8441Honda never refused to buy Rover. British Aerospace were going to share ownership with them in 1994, then a few days later BAe said buy it all, or we sell to BMW. Honda were given no time for a considered response for such a large undertaking, so had to decline.
@@josvandencamp8441 The British Government pumped £millions into Rover but at the end of the day the company was mismanaged and had had its day, don't get me wrong I loved Rovers and I have owned SD1's 800's and 75's .If my dog was 14 years old and riddled with cancer I would not spend 7k at the vets in the hope that I could get another few weeks with him, nor would I want my government doing the same with my tax money.
@@davidtaylor8244 The British Government pumped £millions in Rover after the Phoenix Consortium took over Rover. BMW didn't get financial help. That was de reason that BMW sold Rover. Too many people in the British Government were against Rover being owned by BMW.
@@josvandencamp8441 At the end of the day Governments should not have to pump any tax payers money into failing private companies, BMW only ever wanted to asset strip the group and that is the true reason they sold Rover otherwise why did they not sell it as a whole going concern, why did they carve off the profitable elements such as Landrover and Mini
Well done Tom, you really do these history documentaries well.
I bought my brand new Admiralty blue Rover P5B coupe in 1969, and drove it everywhere in the UK as a daily car, I rebuilt the engine five years later and replaced the gearbox cluster around the same time, I took it to the Isle of Man where I lived later and eventually sold it to a family member who restored it and passed it on in 2003. I hope that it is still on the road, its original registration was XGP777G .
Ive been driving Rover's since 1979. My all time favorite being my old 3500 P6. When i got a 3500 SD1 after the P6 failed its MOT the fuel economy amazed me. I remember driving from Chesterfield to Blackpool & thinking the fuel gauge had stuck on full. The 216VP was okay but rusted away fast, didn't really rate it. The best Rover i ever owned was a 2,000 W reg 45 Club diesel which had 12k when i bought it & over 400k when i parted with it. Currently have 75 diesel tourer which is currently on sorn & will probably be my last Rover bringing 45 yrs era to a close.
Another amazing well researched video Tom. I may be wrong but I think BMW really finished Rover by taking with them the new designs that were intended to replace the Honda platformed cars. One only has to look at the success of the Mini & the 1 series BMW.
I do sometimes feel like BMWs more mainstream success can be attributed to the Mini and the 1 series which allegedly started as R30.
I bought my first 2000TC in '81, my P5B Saloon in '85 & l still have that one. More P6's followed then a P4 110. My daily is now a '75 1.8 bought in 2015, now approaching 197,000 miles.
@roverenderalligator9104
My experience of the 75 has been chequered. Have to be honest I much preferred the older models. They were much easier to maintain
British management and internal rivalries, what a recipe for failure. The NHS has been broken by the same poor management and political micro-managing.
The way you say 'But there was a problem' is priceless.
Great video. I have a 2003 Rover 75 that I have owned for 19 years. It is an excellent car. I have not had a single problem with it in all that time, which is more than I can say for the BMWs and Jaguars that I have owned.
Good for you. I'm still running a 1970 Morris Minor Traveller, still going strong, and you can still get all the parts for them!
@@FMFGUF If I could get my hands on one, I'd buy a Jag Mark II in a second. Would even sell my house if necessary. But, the ones for sale are either rusted out or so modified they're not the real thing but are terrifically expensive.
The day a rover badge was mounted on a metro was a nail in the coffin, going back to the city rover tata heap of crap, now tata are killing jaguar land-rover with terrible engine failures on there in house engines. Between the unions, cash shortages all,helped kill such a great brand
Tata are also putting the final nails in the coffin of the British steel industry, Port Talbot steelworks is just down the road from where I live and Tata are making over 2000 men redundant thus ending decades of employment and putting the men on the dole.
@@adamweston4152they got millions in grants for it too when they bought it for a pound🤷♂️
Brand in fighting didn't help either, but don't let management off the hook here. They managed it alright, managed it into the ground, but always came out with early retirement and index linked pensions.
@@illsaveyes Look on the bright side, they'll be able to buy more curry for their kind, and probably have a bit left over to fund call centres in Mumbai, etc.
‘I’m not driving a Mini Metro Lynne’
The Rover story is sad, why the government of the day allowed the company to slide into history is beyond me. The last domestic large scale british manufacturer.
I agree
With selling new Rovers in the late 70's I had nothing but great respect for them. The car drove beautifully, it was comfortable and we could sell every one of them. The problems with the factory disputes were always the problem, not knowing when the next SD1 would arrive and of course the good old press would make sure everybody would get to know about it. The slagging off of Leyland Cars had become everybody's pastime and contributed to ruining the company. it was a sad day when we lost a major British car manufacturer and a loss of all those jobs.
How much money would you throw at it? Governments threw massive amounts of tax payers money to no avail. Honda rescued them but BAE threw it all away. Personally I think that was the final nail (of many) for Rover.
To this day I don’t understand the BMW takeover. The family silver was sold and the writing was in the wall.
@@MattVF I agree alot of money was spent but it was management at fault during latter life of the group in what ever form. The good relationship with Honda was ruined by bad management. In the 70s it was the workforce that ruined the company. British industry has been eroded for what ever reason deliberately.
@MattVF it's not all about money, it's how it's managed. For BMW, the Mini brand was the attraction I believe.
There’s a Carry On film that perfectly illustrates the down fall of the British car industry (and British industry as a whole). Watch it at Your Convenience. The film has a happy ending, unlike our car industry and associated industries like steel.
In 1961 my father bought a new Rover P5. I was only six years old, but I remember the car clearly as my father kept the car until 1974. I wish we had kept that car, as my father took meticulate care of it, and was in perfect running order. My overwhelming memory was of the thick leather seats that were so comfortable, especially for long journeys.
Great video. My dad wouldn’t replace his P6 with an SD1. He thought the engineers were cheap. Gone was the sophisticated suspension. The interior had too much plastic and they couldn’t even be bothered to put the proper badge on the bonnet. Well then the build quality cemented the deal. No more rovers for him!
I remember getting out of a friend's parents' P6 and into a pre-production SD1 at a BL extravaganza at Goodwood. The contrast in interior quality was a heck of a shock with its drab, cheap and warped plastic fittings. Even back then in 1976 and only a teenager I wondered what on earth they were thinking of. I later heard of a wealthy individual who, after yet another breakdown, left his SD1at the road side, gave the key to the dealer and said he didn't want to see it again!
Mega Mismanagement Killed Rover!!
Useless Unions didn't help.
The turning point was the purchase by Leyland; from there on there was compromise in design and build quality and over zealous unions and poor management sealed the fate of a great marque.
I can recall the then Prime Minister James Callaghan receiving a new brown SD1 in 1977 and the window glass dropped inside the door on an official engagement... Callaghan was said to have retorted "I do not wish to see that car again!" and from then on older P5s where used... Hence why we see Maggie turning up on her election victory in one... Yet as for the brown SD1... Labour leader Michael Foot ended up using it... and he loved it as one of the perks of being Her Majesty's Official Opposition Leader...
With all the foibles of Leyland's paint shop at least they could get 70s Brown down pat
It's a miracle that any of the great British marques survived the corporate hellscape of BL. If I had crazy billionaire money, I'd be daily driving a frame-up, fully restored P5 coupé right now.
Purchased by leyland, the most ominous thing that can possibly happen to a car company
We have a habit of 'shooting ourselves in the foot' in the UK, this is not just in our manufacturing industry either.
Don't think you mentioned that Austin Rover was sold rather controversially to BAE in 1988 under the condition that they keep the company for six years. They didn't invest a lot into the company, so the Rover 800 was kept in production way too long.
Rover were developing the Whittle jet engine during WWII when they did a swap deal with Rolls-Royce to produce the V12 Meteor tank engine from the RR Merlin aero engine.... the RB code in RR jet engines stands for "Rover Barnoldswick" in reference to the Lancashire factory...
Rover merely produced the Whittle engine, not developing, other than production techniques perhaps.
@johnmoruzzi7236 The tank engines in Rover evidently went on for years - my mother was a tracer in the drawing office at 'The Rover' in the 1950s and reports working on tank engine drawings; maybe that period would have included the Meteorite, a sawn off V8 derivative of the Meteor which itself I understood started off built as modified normally aspirated crash salvaged Merlins. I'd always understood RB stood for Rolls Bentley, so maybe you've just hit the perceived kudos of my RB211 car number plate !
Not allowing the Branches to compete with each other means they cant compete with anyone Else either.
I had a 2-litre Diesel Rover 75 Connossieur NG51 ABV in white gold paint with a cream leather interior and walnut dash, fully loaded, electric everything. Wonderful road holding. It sat on the road like a tank. I paid £6000 for it with 75000 miles on the clock the week after Rover went bust. I gave it to a friend in 2017 with 250,000 miles on the clock. I never got less than 55mpg. If they built the same car now, I'd buy one tomorrow.
As former owner of 14 Rovers (from a 1949 P4 75 to a 1971 P5B coupé), I saw the decline in quality begin with a 1968 P5 saloon. The leather wasn't as good as previously, and external trim bits seemed to be of a thinner gauge metal. By the time I was considering a P6 3500, quality and reliability issues were too much, and I changed marques (to Mercedes-Benz). Seventeen Benzes later I know I made the switch at the right time.
Fuck the poor management; fuck the stroppy workers, fuck the power-hungry unions, and fuck Maggie Thatcher, all of of which were major factors in the decline of the British motor industry.
I have a 71 coupe
When do you feel Mercedes Benz lost the plot ? I've had and still have various festering models, convinced the W116 was the pinnacle, with W126 at least rustproof but showing signs of an accountant present, even more with W140. Same story I think with W123 vs W124 and whatever followed. True emotion is watching W116 and Unimog factory assembly films to understand the Zenith of Mercedes. And on Rover I was seduced in my youth by an SD1 2600. Six months of Hell ensued....
@@philhealey4443 Mercedes started having rust issues mid 90s lost the plot on w202 facelift
@heavyt749 If only the W116 and W123 had had the zinc based steel of the W126 and W124..... I put up with cab degradation on a 1996 Unimog, but nothing seems to rust like a Sprinter van of any age !
I remember sometime in the late 1980s, Prince Charles personally went to collect his brand-new Rover from a dealer. Of course Rover hyped it up to the max for the accompanying press and tv crews. Slight problem, less than 2 miles away after driving away from the dealer, his Rover broke down and had to be towed back to the dealer in the full glare of said media:) Let's put it this way, I'm sure that it hastened the demise of Rover!
Putting everything under the one Leyland umbrella was the biggest mistake in the history of British cars. And then the unions came along and destroyed it completely.
My Dad worked as an engine fitter at Rover's Tyseley, Birmingham works in the 1950's and 60's. We lived in Solihull and I remember as a child watching the Rover cars being tested on their own purpose-made track in the early 60's.
The Headmaster of my Junior School drove a Rover.
Landrovers were unique.
They had a prestige higher than any nowadays Mercedes or BMW.
Sadly it all went wrong...😢
Recently, I picked up a 3500(SD1) in 1999 from my late Uncle before he died. But the engine was a bit tired, so I replaced it with a 454 Corvette Big block, and it was a good thing for it, I ruled the Northwest drag strips back in the day, and I still have it today. Now if I can find a '67 P5 somewhere in New Mexico or Oklahoma where they were popular.
I went to Longridge in the 1970s to get some space heaters going .They were making the SD1 ,and they were having issues with paint on the cars at the time ,There was 42 space heater hanging from the roof .it turned out 35 were not blowing hot air out but was sucking air and achieving nothing one didnt work at all if i remember the rest worked but not efficiently .The guys on the night shift were propping the doors to the spray booths and ovens that were supposed to bake the paint solid. just get some heat into the building ,I went in when the night shift were working and it was bloody freezing that was why the paint wasnt baking ,Spoke to several of the guys on the production line and they all came out with the same complaint senior managers would not authorise maintenance because it affected there bonus It was bonkers not the fault of the guys on the shop floor but bloody awful managers ,
I kept my Rover 75 for 20 years, until I stopped driving. A wonderful car.
They were beautiful,solid cars. My Father wanted one in the late 60s, all We could afford was a Standard eight.😊
Hi Tom, love your channel, for a youngen like your good self to take such an interest in all this is excellent Thankyou Son! So Rover! Always loved them, when I was about your age 🤣👍 I was looking for a luxury barge! All my gen were mad on the XJ, I loved them too, But I needed to be different didn't I! 🤣 I had a mate who had a 59 P5 sedan(as we say in 🇳🇿) he and I loved the old girl, anyway I was still in UK in 76 and decided the replacement for my beautiful 66 Humber Sceptre would be a P5B coupé I was working on coastal tankers in the North Sea and was cashed up, I found my dream at Romans of Woking in the form of an Admiralty Blue Coupé! In 1976, she was 6 YOA with only 16000 miles on the clock, she was an absolute Doozy Love at 1st sight! I loved my Sceptre but this was Something Else! I paid the princely sum of 1600 quid for her, everyone loved her people would come up to me at servos and in the street! 😂 Later I got married and in 81 we emigrated to Australia, leave the Rover in UK! No freakin Way! We had her shipped out to Sydney then we moved to North Queensland, unfortunately due to family and work commitments I didn't have time to look after her in the fashion she was used to! 😭 So we very reluctantly had to part company 😭 That was early 2000's, She is still around up in Cairns and we'll looked after and worth a bloody fortune! 🤣 Fantastic amazing cars! Now I'm retired, I decided to get back into classics again, I couldn't find a 5B coupé that anyone in their right mind would sell! 🤣😭 So I bought a Jag! 😱 a lovely XJ8 but I will never forget my old Rover 3.5 P5B Coupé,! What a shame Rover was allowed to go down the tubes! 😭😭😊
What a fantastic insight into the Rover car. Brought back memories of the late 70 s when I owned a beautiful P6 in Racing Green/beige leather seats…. Certainly don’t make cars like this now.
Thank you for a great informative video.
Excellent piece on the real story of Rover. It was like most failures a culmination of many things. Back in the late 70’s/80’s Rover (BL) was heavily featured in documentaries and its was never for good reasons. Those of us who remember the magazine programme ‘Nationwide’ may recall a damning episode that concerned Rover product in Police forces, SD1 and RR being traffic cars. It was revealed that every UK police force had significant levels of vehicle unavailability due to serious and frequent failures. Back then the Home Office agreed fleet policy and specifications with manufacturers and a ‘you will buy this’ list was sent out.
Under BMW’s leadership though Rover probably suffered the death blows. BP’s comments on R75 launch were the tip of the iceberg. Rover racked up £m’s of losses on ludicrous BMW management practices, travel and accommodation bejng eyewatering, but development programmes still starved of cash. But the fault was all laid at the door of the Rover itself. MINI was taken in house to BMW and it struggled. Severely delayed and not feeling like a MINI should, it was the ‘Flight Shed’ guys at Longbridge who solved many of the handling and ride issues BMW engineered in. There was a huge amount of talent at MGR but the P4 frittered away the BMW payoff. I once witnessed a P4 director have a tantrum about the interior colour of ‘his’ MG SV and insist that it be completely re-trimmed at the cost of £1000’s. It dawned on me at that moment that they realised MGR was sunk and they were just squeezing out what they could. Could MGR have survived? Absolutely but it needed a much more coherent strategy. If some of the realistic projects had been developed MGR would have appeared a much more viable prospect for a JV.
A bloke I knew in my little normandy town was a Rover enthusiast. The last one he had was a V8 Rover 75, a beauty, splendid car...I miss the diversity we had back then...where are all those italian and british cars???
Industrial action,greed and internal politics on behalf of senior management. A lack of investment in technology and recruitment.
Lastly shocking quality control
Great video as always. Lots of factors contributing to Rover's decline. Very sad.
Couple of small errors on dates (because I am pedantic) - the Rover 800 was launched in 1986, not 1985, and BMW got rid of Rover in 2000, not 1999.
You are right yes!
BMW wanted Land Rover and Mini.
The other marques were never wanted so were easy to move on.
My late father had a couple of Rover 10 cars when I was a kid. I remember they had a freewheel that could be enabled by a large black knob on the dashboard. They were old cars when he got them and he regularly had to patch up the rust eaten bodywork with the Oxy-Acetylene gear from where he worked at the time. He told me the engine had been designed by Bentley as a de-tuned racing engine. He also had to reline the drum brakes occasionally, I guess the freewheel (which he always used) would shorten brake life a bit. Good cars.
Getting into bed with British Leyland was the start of the rot set in and it massively crushed the brand's core values and led to some dreadful offerings. Even when things improved, that image stuck in car buyers minds, right up to it's death in 2005.
Did I miss the Rover 600 (Honda collabaration) mine was a great example 120k in 3 years and nothing other than an auxilliary belt failing.
This is my perception at the time, being a kid in the 90s and early 2000s. Wedge-shaped Hondas later adorned with old man walnut, upright 1940s grilles, chrome and green or burgundy paint, one face-lift too many, Metro, CityRover, StreetRover. What happened to the cutting-edge, futuristic trajectories of the P6 and SD1?
From what i saw the staff were the big issue. Remember pulling up at one of the BL plants to see workers loading their stollen parts into a car aided by the security guards! Then add the fact they were always on strike. Then the awful management. Great shame but they got what they asked for
I remember my step mum asking why there were no cars named after dogs. There's Jaguars, Wildcats, Peugeot and Holden have lions, why no dog?
My dad said "There is Rover"
I've had many Rovers over the years - a P4, SD1 V8, 825 (Honda engine seized), 827, 600 and the last a lovely 75. I think people forget buying a British car, any make, from the 60s to the 90s was very hit or miss, and more often a miss.
My father had a Granada, a Ford model where you said a Hail Mary before trying the brakes; a new Jag where the electric windows went down but not back up; and an Austin 1300 where one of the back wheels fell off after the suspension failed.
But my mother's Datsun always started, stopped when you wanted it to, and didn't fall apart after a year.
When you want to buy a new car, ask the dealer how many they get back to fix within a year.
But from the variety that works without help.
I had a P5 a limo early 1970s, I also had two P6 in the mid 1970s I absolutely loved driving those, they were followed by three SD1s into the mid 1980s . It was a very underrated car. Sadly, I suffered a Rover 800 for 12 months then switched to Jaguars. I bought my Dad a P4 in the late 1960s for £25 and he drove it for years.
The P6 Rovers were wonderful cars. Their major short-coming in the U.S. market was their complexity caused by the inboard rear disc brakes, and front coil spring suspension (designed the way it was so the gas turbine engine could be fitted under the hood). Rover attention to detail was superb. That is, until the British Leyland buyout and the changes B.L. brought into the old Rover Company Limited. I dearly loved Rovers and Land Rovers of the 1960's well into the 1970's. I found the NAS specification SD-1 a major shift to a down-market product due to the lack of quality the P6 Rovers had. (As one example, compare the "quality" with the SD-1's carpets with the wool carpeting used in the P6 cars. As another example, the P6 had four-wheel disc brakes; the SD-1 used front disc and rear drum brakes.) Nice video. I'll love the old Rover Company to the day I die. Great products were the result of a superb and dedicated work force. Andrew "Andy" McKane IV, 17 June 2024, Maunaloa, Molokai, Hawaii, USA.
@@andymckane7271 rovers must have been a rare sight in Hawaii, I only remember seeing two growing up in Canada, but it was the French part so auto eccentrics tended to french and Italian fare.
@@kenon6968 I've seen only one Land Rover Defender on Molokai. I've seen 2 or 3 Discoveries and, surprise of surprises, 1 Range Rover. Maui has a good number of Range Rovers and Discoveries on it. The Hana Ranch/Hotel Hana Maui from the 1970's and well into the 1980's operated a number of Series Land Rovers. I've seen several of the new Defenders on Kauai and Oahu. I've also seen a few Range Rovers on Kauai. I've been surprised at the number of Range Rovers I've seen on Oahu, as their are quite a few of them. The Big Island, the Island of Hawaii, seems to be more lacking in Land Rover vehicles than all these islands with the exception of Molokai. (We have between 7,500 and 8,500 people living on Molokai.) In years past, I owned a number of Land Rovers and also had some Rover cars. The 3500 NAS SD1 Rover convinced me to "get the hell out of the Land Rover/Rover business," as B.L.'s quality in those days---if one can call it "quality"---was the pits. Land Rover and Jaguar seem to be doing much better under Tata. But I'm old enough to remember the old days when Rover was still an independent company. That was a superb business with first-rate people, both its management and its employees. Andy McKane, Maunaloa, Hawaii.
At 3.32 there is the picture of a car that I remember. I think he said P4.
A friend and I were talking in a field where Young Farmers were parking their cars.
Then I became aware of a ticking sound, quiet but definitely there. I spun around.
Just a few feet from me a quiet Rover was parking.
A dusty green coloure, but clean, unlike most of the other cars.
The same thing happened with all British and American cars . crap parts , rusty everything and terrible electrics . The best thing that happened to all motor industries where the Japanese . Far better build quality ,and far better reliability . I have 50 years of experience as a paint sprayer panel beater .
When I was a boy in the 60's, my parents bought two P3's. They were very quiet, sedate cars. I remember you could wind up the windsreen from the bottom. One of them had something called an overdrive (a sort of 5th geer). Also they had a freewheel for going downhill.
How many people worked at BL? Unfortunately not many of them! As a Rover fan you have pulled one out of the box here Tom. Great archival footage and commentary. 👍
I had a Rover 45 tdi. Loved it and never let me down .At 17 year old i had sold it for just 56 pounds but in running order .
As the owner of 2 Rover 75's in my lifetime...2L Diesel Est and a 2.5 Petrol saloon...simply the best and most reliable vehicles i have ever had the pleasure to own..
Easily. ❤
I owned a 75 for 5 years and 90K kilometers , a great car !
It was a 2000 Cowley built with all the goody's , before the beancounters with their " facelift " fucked it up .
There was only one quality issue , the fabric on the doorcarts and A- pillars blistered because of poor glue , all the rest was topquality !
I wish they still existed . 😢
Use English miles not kilometres
Why the continued assertion that the I6 was "sabotaged"? It was tuned to suit it's application & fit into the broader range. It wasn't meant to be a high rpm screamer it was to be a flexible, smooth & fuel efficient (and reliable) mid range engine option. If it was meant to be more than that it would have received the 4 valve cylinder head, individual throttles etc etc. You could also say that the V8 was sabotaged as the 4.4 was ditched & the heads & cam profiles used strangled output which they undoubtedly did (the SD1 version was quite a bit softer than the older P5/6 version), it's horses for courses, nothing is done in isolation. Having worked for Rover I can confirm that any internal competition is never friendly either, that's the actual issue. People get so transixed waging war on their neighbours they lose sight of where the fight actually is & the competition quietly take advantage. It's what has repeatedly happend.
As an American, I knew next to nothing about these cars. I was mostly involved with the big American 3. The only time I even ever heard about this brand was in Queen's, 'I'm In Love With My Car.' I feel educated now. And I understand the song a bit more...
Had a P5 back in the late 60s it was a beautiful car to drive fast very comfortable and safe. We used to cruise at 100 mile an hour on the German Autobarn.
my dear uncle always bought BL rover 213s etc then the penny dropped he realised the best part of the car was indeed the "Honda" engine so he changed tac and bought Honda
Yes, I believe it was a derivative of the Honda accord engine.
would say strikes killed it Tom,another great vid again
A good documentary, Rover’s demise was a result of bad management, under investment, cost cutting, strikes, and the dodgy build quality of a few of their cars as a result.
Rover’s design department had some great ideas proven by some of their prototypes, but bad management were stuck in their stuffy old ways, counting the beans and so these ideas never left prototype stage
Even when they had money given them to invest in better cars after the BMW split bad management blew it.
Thanks again Tom.
Our family car was a 3500 P6. Talk about luxury. My dad bought it when I was seven. It was one year old. Two months later my Uncle Ronnie (my mum's brother) bought a three year old P5B (V8).
Odly enough, my dad had a buddy (who we called 'uncle' He had a huge Ford Zodiac mk 3. The bloke said it was a mk3. He was very jealous of the two rovers. As they where both 3.5 litre V8's. I think the Zepher and Zodiac had the famous Ford Daganam "Essex" engine . My dad was a policeman. He had to drive the SD1 sometime. He said it was quick and handled well. But the comfort and luxury took a nose dive.
An interesting little video. I must say I didn't realise Rover's end was so mercenary. I'd just like to point out a total of 322,302 P6s were built. - Not 35,000 as stated in the video. As a P6 owner people forget how much these cars were embraced when new, giving them a big market share in the 1960's and well in to the 1970's.
For the P6 numbers it was the year of 1967. I should’ve made it clearer I think.
I once owned a P4 body style Rover, was a 105s as I remember. Really a fine car, loved driving it and much quality. It’s weak point was the oddly connected shift mechanism. If you got too aggressive with it the thing could break off in your hands. The engine was an “F” head too. It really was like a miniature Rolls Royce.
Thanks!
Welcome! Appreciate it :)
The P6 3.5 a la Mr Richardson is my fave Rover. My dad had a chocolate brown SD1 when I was very small.
Definitely pics taken in Italy- likely to be Turin. If you zoom the registration of the white 127 you will see the province in orange
Any business, no matter how large or small will inevitably fail if teamwork is non-existent and this video sadly reflects the case perfectly.
Japanese manufacturing companies create wonderful reliable refined products because of the high ethos standards embedded in each employees mind, from cleaner to top management.
This would be an excellent subject to be taught at school, with examples of failure and achievement when we choose to work as a team with everyone becoming a permenant winner.
Don't forget that Rover built motorcycles Between 1903 and 1924, Rover produced more than 10,000 motorcycles, There is at least two in the British Motor museum at Gayden
It’s mainly about the brand identity, the whole history of Rover is something for another video
Tom, another great video. I never really bought the ‘motoring press killed the brand’ line… but at times they didn’t help. I had an early (new shape) 400 new as a company car in ‘95. It did everything brilliantly and was way more desirable than contemporary Astras, Escorts, 306’s etc. Mine did over 100k miles in 4 years and had one minor fault in all that time. But the press were lukewarm because it was pricier than the aforementioned opposition but not large enough to be a Mondeo rival. At that time though, the price premium was deserved and the Rover brand still meant something.
On balance I think some of the Honda derived Rovers were the best of both manufacturers: Honda engineering and quality with added British luxury and the brilliant K series in many.
You were saying that the Rover brand lives on in the Land Rover, but just about every magazine and car journalist commenting on them says that you should only buy one if you are a masochist due to the lack of reliability. It's not a great recommendation.
You also mentioned the Ford ecoboost engine. Due to the Internet, more and more people are discovering the enormous problems with this engine. The Wet Belt system and the cracked heads loosing all of the coolant. I know many people, including myself, who have sold their Ford cars while they were worth something and bought another make.
Can I say that I enjoyed your video.👍
Used to have a P5b 3.5 Coupe back in the day with Webasto sun roof. Fabulous car beautifully finished and so relaxing to drive.Probably the last of the proper big Rovers
I bought a ROVER 75 2004 two years ago, and this for everyday use.. I know it has its quarks but it's one of the nicest cars I had. And there were many.
In the late 80’s I visited a few car plants and saw others. Dagenham the workers car park was 90% escort, capri, cortina, sierra. Ellesmere Port 90% Astra, nova, cavalier, likewise Luton was mostly astra, cavalier etc. Longbridge car park was Datsun, Toyota, Renault, VW … with an occasional Mini!!!
My first car was a 48 P3 I wish I had held onto it one of the best cars I have owned
I loved the SD1 in my childhood. It was marketed as Standard 2000 in India. The looks and road presence was awesome. It was totally different from the Japanese kei cars which we were familiar with. I think the Rover marquee can be revived by the Tata's. They can plan something below the Jaguar more like an executive car instead of a luxury one. I don't know how it will be perceived in the UK but I think it will be a great hit in India but of course it must have the underpinnings of a Jaguar and not of the Tata passenger vehicles.
You can hope that Tata will work towards that. India as a market is far greater than many outside realise. In Australia there are those who complain that as a RHD market, we only get the crap cars and no-one cares about RHD as it's seen as only the UK and Japan. How wrong they are (apart from missing several countries in Africa that are RHD). Australia presently gets cars from Mahindra and off road cars from Tata. However, the size of the growing Indian domestic market is such that it could completely absorb every quality car that they could make. At this stage we haven't been impressed with the quality of many Indian made products so that's a hurdle that needs to be cleared before the world looks forward to a luxury Indian Rover. (The Chinese are determined to dominate the world car market with their EVs and don't care if they destroy every brand from everywhere else.)
(Oh, many Indian cars will be being built with steel from our iron ore mines and made with Australian coking coal.)
Bolshie UNIONS responsible once again for EXPORTING JOBS overseas
In the 1950's Rover 90s were owned by the village Doctor, The Vet, and the local Vicar. These people were also the ones who had a telephone, in our village. So in 1966 I managed to buy my first car, a Rover 90, whilst working as a GPO apprentice. It only ran on 5 cylinders, as it would oil it's plug on #5, This was helped by changing to an N8 instead of the N5 Plug on that cylinder. It also needed a new exhaust, which would have cost me 6 weeks wages, and the brakes were leaking. I wish I could have afforded to keep it maintained, but even the 18 mpg made it too expensive for my pay scale. I think with modern materials, and modern oils, that P4 2.8 litre six cylinder engine should last for a very long time. But nowadays I suppose it would need to be fitted with an Exhaust Gas Recirculator, and other modern statutory nonsense.
One of the best cars i have ever owned was a 94 200 R8 convertible in stunning nightfire red it had the R3 style dash and cream leather. unfortunately it was hit in our driveway by a drunk driver in a BMW he had careered through the neighbours garden through the dividing fence and T-boned the rover it was a totally wrecked and written off. Sadly As they are getting hard and expensive to find highly doubt I'd ever own another.
Before they joined Leyland and soon became part of British Leyland, there were little things that could have had positive knock-on effects to improve their position (e.g. pre-war adoption of OHVs, a V6 around the same period as the V6 in the Lancia Aurelia, lighter P4, etc).
One question that sticks out would be what Rover could have done to increase its production capacity to cope with the unexpected success of the Land Rover to help expand into other niches, which would have allowed them to produce a P5-based answer to the Volvo Amazon by the mid-1950s?
I have to admit that I had never associated the Rover car company with the Land Rover. For me they were two completely different animals. Well, it was a little tricky. I'm sorry now that I did not understand (in the 1960's) that it was the same company.
I’m enjoying your content Tom and curious to know how your Rover 75 is going as haven’t seen any content on it for a while
Rover sick with "importance", does this ring any bell ?
Loving the clips of the Rover from the Roger Moore film The Man Who Haunted Himself. It turned into a Lamborghini Islero.
To me, Rover's end began at the beginning of the 1970s with several revolutionary projects cancelled by BL like the P8 and P10. The SD1 was sort of the last Rover in the traditional sense. Shame the build quality, the strikes and the service interval extension on the straight six scuppered its reputation.
The "Rondas" did keep it going, but
British Aerospace then BMW didn't really do the brand any favours I feel. If the Rover 35 and 55 had come to market maybe Rover would have survived.
What killed Rover? Bad management decisions from the BL merger to the end with the Phoenix Four I reckon.
I bought a Rover 416 saloon with 60000 on the clock. I assumed that all that bad workmanship and reliability issues were all behind them by then- how wrong was I ?? Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong. It cost me a small fortune with faults such as gearbox failure, cylinder head gasket, starter motor, alternator, radiator, air conditioning, Overheating, CV joints, bearings and ultimately corrosion . I was glad to see the back of it!!
I ran a Rover 218 for 160,000 trouble free miles. The only failure was an alternator. I still miss it!