[nicksanderson]

Rover was always going to struggle, and having to fight so much bad press hasn't helped. If it's true that production has stopped because suppliers are scared of not being paid, then those sections of the press who seem to have really had it in for Rover finally seem to have got their way.

I think that Rover have been hurt very badly by the Britsh disease of assuming that anything british is rubbish - In Italy when Fiat was in trouble the public carried on buying their cars - the same with Renault in France. But in England there's a sneering section of the media that attacks anything British and this becomes the nosedive that we're seeing now - unfortunately I think that, although the name will be saved, Longbridge will be a giant Barrat housing development in 5 years time.

 

[nicksanderson]

Do you think that this is what the Chineese actually wanted as they can now buy the bits of the company that they want from the receivers (name, engine plant etc) without having to worry about the staff or closing the factory.........

 

[nicksanderson]

i ve heard some crap over the years about how londgbridge was europes most inefficient car plant and all that, but most car plants only assemble the cars, at rover they used to not only do that but make the engines, grind the gears , stitch the seats etc, skills that are nt found at any other plant in the uk, in many ways rover resembles the plight of the city, dogged by its past and unable to shift an out dated reputation by the ignorance of the british public.
its not so much the fault of the current set up as those that went before them, dumping honda was a massive mistake, we could nt make enough of em when we were with them, bmw made terible mistakes, not eplacing the metro, uping the prices and dampning down the sportier end of the range, why? if they'd have done what mg did for the range, and with the mini, and new range rover coming on board, rover would be laughing now! the rover work force is as good as any in the world, you only have to look at the new mini and range rover for that,
at the end of the day i cant blame people for not wanting to buy a car thats effectivly 10- 15 year old design but given a new car things would have been different....

One of the most sensible views I've seen on this is a very long time. It makes you wonder why BMW did several things:

1. Only make the MG F with tiny little engines (maybe so it didn't compete with the BMW Z3?)
2. As you said "damp down the sportiness", imagine if they'd made a 800 or 75 with the BMW 3 series 3.0 litre engine
3. Drag their feet over replacing the Mini.
4. Make the cars expensive (i did read the the current 25 ne 200 was supposed to be called the 100 and replace the Metro/100 with the current 45/400 to replace the 200/400 they had at the time - that would explain why those cars were good but far too expensive)
5. Not make any of their cars share technology/platforms with BMWs

etc
etc

Rover dies the day that BMW took all of the profitable bits (MINI and LandRover) and sold of the rest (they evan wanted to close the whole lot down at one point!).