Rover - any hope?

Uncle Ants said:
er. Just a thought (which contradicts my earlier pessimistic post). If they build Rovers in China, I suspect the smart thing to do might be to sell them to the Chinese. There are rather a lot of them. You never know. The Rover 25 could become the Chinese equivalent of the Hindustan Ambassador in India (aka the Morris Oxford).

Pity about global warming though.
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That is true, but if its built in China and its a massive sucess what is to stop SAIC taking the Rover brand and closing down Longbridge?

The way I under stand is SAIC will take a 75% share, making the existing directors powerless.
 
Matt F said:
Thanks for that. I want diesel really so no RX300 and the option of 7 seats would be good. I think you may be thinking of the Shogun Sport when you mention the LM200 - I'm on about the normal huge Shogun with 7 seats - Warrior is just one of the trims (leather, big alloys) available on both.

Landcruiser is a good shout - I've seen new shap LWB diesels for early £20's - big bugger though - would want parking sensors all round. I also like the look of the new Discovery but not sure I'd trust its reliability

The there is the new Nissan Pathfinder - seven seats, diesel - looks good from most angles apart from the rear where it looks like an old Astra estate. Might well check it out although Autocar reckonned it's underpowered. I think they start at £24K so maybe £2K off in a couple of months when the brokers start to do their stuff.

If all that fails then it will be a case of sod the 7 seats and go for a diesel X-Trail/RAV4/CRV.

Matt.
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I advised my cousin to get a Cruiser, which she did, she tows a horsebox and has no probs with the size, well worth a look. My mum has a CRV and its a decent motor plus they now have that fantastic 2.2 CDTi . Your right about the shogun, I had the original warrior in mind, worth a test drive but I wouldnt put it up with the cruiser.
 
amazingtrade said:
That is true, but if its built in China and its a massive sucess what is to stop SAIC taking the Rover brand and closing down Longbridge?

The way I under stand is SAIC will take a 75% share, making the existing directors powerless.
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Yes, every cloud has a silver lining :D
 
Indeed, Warrior is just a trim level for the Shogun. There are three different cars that go by "shogun":

Shogun Pinin - Rival to the RAV4, CRV, Freeloader, etc, although it actually has a low-range box and will out-offroad any of them. Shame it will never be used to do so.

Shogun Sport - Previously called the Mitsubishi Challenger, this is indeed based on the L200 pick-up chassis and driveline. Thus it's not the most practical nor the most refined vehicle out there, but compared to any other middle-weight 4x4s it is a far better tow-car thanks to the leaf-sprung rear end. Same goes for the L200.

Shogun - the big boy. It doesn't have the on-road dynamics of the X5, ML or new Range-rover but it is still a genuine mud plugger. Mainly of interest to the country set I guess, ours has proven its worth on more than a few occasions.
 
Its a good job the pinnin is good off-road coz thats the only place you'd want to drive one, quite an awful little thing really. The challenger, sport or whatever was originally called a warrior in the early grey import days. I bought my shogun to pull a 2.5T trailer at work, it was with horror we discovered that a Vauxhall Vivaro van we have made a better job of it and cost alot loss too, so I chopped it.
 
Thats the problem with running a business on cashflow, once it stops coming in its a very quick end. I cant help but think a deal with the recievers is becoming a more attractive proposition for the chinese. Pleased to see Mr Edwards and Co have direct ownership of the finance company, now if i was cynical..................
 
Dev said:
I get mine in 3 weeks. :bmw:
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You will be impressed - I took delivery of mine lunchtime. Biggest surprise; it really doesn't sound like a diesel (the 320D does) - it sounds like a straight six - okay not as smooth as the petrol but still that lovely thrum that in-line fours don't have.

Sports suspension is fine - I'd read it was too hard for UK roads - don't believe a word of it - it's firmer than the standard car but by no means uncomfortable.

Harmon Kardon system sounds good (I'd probably say really good had I not had decent aftermarket ICE in the past) - a lot better than the standard system - I won't be competing in any sound offs but, unlike the standard one, it has plenty of mid and bass.

Performance - plenty there (this is the 204bhp model) - bigger power band than the 320D and the smooth engine encourages you to use it (unlike the 320D). 3rd gear particularly nice with a great long shove of thrust.

Handling - nicely balanced (doesn't feel nose heavy despite the big engine) and plenty of grip - as there should be with 255s on the back.

Economy - reset the computer then drove 12 miles into Bristol - mixture of roads and I was obviously giving it some having just got it. Result was a smidgen over 40mpg. Should return excellent motorway mpg figues as sixth gear is very tall - 70mph = 1950 revs!

So, very impressed indeed - nice motor.

Matt.
 
Mercs - our MD & Chairman bought his'n'hers new Mercs a few weeks ago - E320 estates. The day after picking them up, one of them wouldn't start...that went down rather well with the underpaid overworked workforce! ;-)
Scooby's - I took my (140K miles - owned for 7 years) for it's first trackday a couple of weeks ago - 160 miles of redlining & squealing rubber. Didn't bat an eyelid (except maybe for some new tyres in the near future & I think a bit of warping of front discs....got a little bit bumpy when they got V. V. hot., but they needed replacing anyway!!). Bulletproof.
Rover - never considered, never will be considered...
 
It seems the government have pulled the plug, about 15 minutes ago the secratary of state has put Rover into administration. The chineese company will get Rover's designs really cheaply and Longbridge will close.

Unless of course a miricle happens.
 
I don't think the Secretary of State put the company into administration, she has no such power over a private company. She merely made an announcement of the Rover board decision to go into administration.

The Government could not make an unsecured loan to MG Rover without being in breach of European Law. The loan could only be secured in this case if the deal with the Chinese was signed.

P.S. I'll bet the Phoenix consortium are laughing all the way to the bank. :mad:
 
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As I understand £100 million would only see the company in business for another two weeks. This wasn't enough for the chineese. Also the chineese can still get Rover, they can get their designs without the hassle of having to run longbridge.

A BBC news spokes person has said that John Towers have said the company has been put into admistration, earlier a Rover spokmen was saying they government have no legal right to do this.

I am not sure what is going on. Either way am very saddened that this is the end for British Leyland.

I also didn't know that the government put billions into BL in the late 70's.
 
Very sad - I live in the area and am about the only male in my family never to have actually worked there.

If Longbridge does close it will completely decimate the area as the knock on effect for shed loads of local businesses will also go with it - but, sadly, this has been on the cards since BMW took it over.
 
BMW did to an awful job of running it, but the company has lost money since 1975 when the government nationalised British Leyland.

I think there has been a lot of confusion and technicaly the company has not gone into liquidisation but it seems there is no choice but for this to happen. MG Rover cannot make money with Rover's, MG cannot make money without the bulk manfuacturer of parts i.e Rover.

So even if the company stopped making Rover's and concentrated on MGs they still wouldn't make money and there will be loads of job losses.

The government have offered £40 million for companies in the area to try and miimise the damage of Rover going as much as possible.
 
amazingtrade said:
BMW did to an awful job of running it,
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Rollocks. BMW were sold a dummy, because they were lead to believe that they would acquire FWD platform engineering experience from Rover. All that experience, however, actually belonged to Honda, and BMW were forced to engineer the 75 from scratch. For a first go at FWD, they did a damn good job, and the new mini goes on to prove that they got it figured pretty fast. BMW pumped millions into rover and found they were getting nowhere, so they let it go. If they hadn't have stepped in then rover wouldn't have lasted as long as they did.
 
But John Towers has managed to reduce lossses from about £700 million a year to £70 million. Why are they making more money now? Is it just because they stopped developing new models?

Also surely BMW must have realised that their exisiting cars were all Honda based? The newest none Honda based car they had at the time was probably the 1983 Montego.
 
It was a shame as at the time Rover had some decent models - all of them with Honda engines in them - which they lost when BMW bought them.
 

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