So is it only real BMW, Ford and VW that are making any money?
The 75 is a decent motor and they make a good used buy. Honda needed Rover to get round the trading restrictions at the time, soon as that barrier was removed the couldnt wait to get shut. Honda have gone from strength to strength and rover have gone from erm, hmmm. Saying all that, a friend of mine needed a cheap car, she a single mum with £1500 to spend. A quite ring around my old trader budies got me a mint '98 416i top spec with 50k, full main dealer service history, 12 month MOT etc, not bad for 1500 notes.
The 9-2X is a rebadge scooby. The 9-3 and 9-5 are bastardised vectra and cavalier(!) respectively. Matt F - I think you're right. My dad had a P6 3500 in between his S-type 3.8 (the original S-type, not the Lincoln LS Ford thing) and XJ12 5.3. Now he drives a 740iL.
Thats the problem though they are still making them cars now! Ok with a revised nose and a slightly more modern dash board but they are still essential a 1995 Honda Civic. I think its a shame Rover has come to this, but it was probably obvious since the mid 90's. Only 25 years ago Rover (BL) was one of the worlds largest car makers, now they are probably one of the worlds smallest, even Lada are selling more cars! I am going to the shops in a minute, I have to walk through a large car park, I will see if I can spot any 54 or 05 reg Rovers.
BMW must only have just started making money, Ford havnt for years, VW are still paying for Ferdinand Piech's mass purchase of Seat, Bugatti, Skoda etc etc
One other thing we haven't mentioned is brand and country loyalty. When I was a youngster growing up in the '70s it was actually unusual for the man in the street to by a foreign car - for most it really did come down to a Ford, Vauxhall or Leyland (probably in that order). There was alsmost a feeling of solidarity in that not only did you know what you were getting but you were protecting British workers' jobs. Move forward to now and it's so unclear e.g. buying certain models of Nissan and Honda are good for UK workers but, to be honest, few care about that and just want the best car regardless of who makes it. And, going back to Rover, the trouble is once you've experienced the all round quality of something like a 3 series there are only a few cars/marques that might tempt you away and Rover most certainly isn't one of them. Matt (3 series driver and about to change to another, newer & faster one)
Hi, It will be a shame if Rover go. I have owned a number of Rover or BL cars over the years. The downside has been that they were fairly crap. My fave was the Rover P6 2000 SC that owned in the late 80's. I got it off a mate who had lost his licence. It was one of these. It had cigar! lighter and a 'clapometer' style speedo. It was heavy to drive but looked good. I liked owning it. Mine prove to be unreliable. Before that I had an Austin Maxi and an Austin Allegro. Bloody awful cars! The Allegro even had a square steering wheel! The Maxi only redeeming feature was you could get a lot of stuff in it. Here are some more nails in the coffin. SCIDB
Hi, Here is a site that gives more details of the Austin/Rover/BMC/BL range of cars. How the mighty have fallen. http://www.austin-rover.co.uk SCIDB
I was asking my dad the other day what the car the worst car he has ever driven was, my dad has owned lots of cheap bangers. He said the worst car has had ever driven was the Austin Marina, he said even at 60mph you could feel the car falling to pieces on you. My dad said even the Lada was built much better than that. I also asked my grandad who has owned everything from coritna's to Nissan Micra's. He said the worst car he had was the Alegro, the best by far was the Nissan Micra. My grandad said that the Fords of the 1970's were almost as badly bad as BL products though. He said his Cortina's were although nicer to drive than BL products, where shockingly badly made.
Apart from the german stuff not much was well built in the 70's! In the 70's our glorious national car industry took the attitude that making cars was a side issue, anyway what else could you buy? Rover have run out of re-branding ideas, it wasnt that long that Rover's were sold along side Austin's as the 'upmarket' brand. My dissertation was on the car industry, it was an eye opener when I delved deep into the past of the car industry.
Its pretty simple really isn't it? Rover make crap cars. Loan or no loan they will eventually close unless they stop making crap cars.
Yep, I wonder if the cash injection means they can stop making crap cars though? I would the £100 million just be a total waste of tax payers money if its only going to close down in 6 months time anyway?
Rovers seem to be amazingly successful here in Portugal where they are, inexplicably, still regarded as an upmarket brand only a notch or so below the Germans. Barring that anomaly though the Rover brand is damaged goods and can never recover IMO. Michael.
Okay if no-one's going to ask I'll tell you anyway - should be getting a Sept 2003 330D Sport later this week :bmw: Power (204bhp, 302lbs/ft torque) and economy (43mpg combined) Matt. p.s. and as this is a hifi forum I can mention that it has the Harmon Kardon hifi upgrade.
Look I'm sorry but I'm excited by it (and Dev clearly is too). I'm sure you felt the same when waiting to take delivery of your Rover 420SDi Matt.
i think it's great, but personally i'm just not that bothered any more. bmw's are fine cars with an image problem however if you can live with the image, good for you. i've done my time in flash motors give me an estate or mpv every time now - with a diesel of course. cheers julian
