Ford buys Rover
Discussion
red_rover said:
Oh ignorance shows up again!
No - Rover pre-BMW was profitable
Would BMW have bought Rover Group if it was losing money?
No - Rover was making profit for the first time and was going to be a force to be reckoned with.
No - Rover pre-BMW was profitable
Would BMW have bought Rover Group if it was losing money?
No - Rover was making profit for the first time and was going to be a force to be reckoned with.
This gets worse!
Rover was not profitable, it relied on government handouts to stay afloat. BMW took over because it saw company for sale on the cheap that could have been turned around but they soon realised Rover was a mess from top to bottom, crippled by unions, fat cats, poor reputation and washed its hands.
Your final comment in laughable, the only force going on in Rover was from unions f***ing things up
Oh sorry Disco1 - I think you're mistaking your world for reality.
BMW bought Rover from BAe (a Private company - NOT STATE).
Rover Group had been making money for about two years untill BMW bought Rover Group off BAe for £800 million. BAe sold because car making didn't fit in with its own industry.
BMW bought Rover mainly because;
BMW were a lot smaller back in 1994 and a take-over looked likely
Rover Group slotted in perfectly - a Range of premium FWD cars and a range of premium 4X4s.
The then Manager of BMW was an angolphile and loved Rover and all the other marques.
Also a BIG bonus was that the Rover Group had recently had a huge upswing in sales to continental Europe when the market there was contracting, Rover being the only company to actually grow their sales at that time. Furthermore, their sales were actually on course to overtake BMW's.
Rover Group also owned 20% stake in Honda UK. And Honda UK owned a 20% stake in Rover Group ltd.
Rover Group had NEVER recieved a handout. British Leyland and Austin-Rover group both did as they were state owned, all though it must be said, by the time it became Ausin-Rover group it didn't really have many hand outs. Just before Austin-Rover was to be privatised and sold to BAe, Graham Day was given the job of getting it ready for sale - and thus Rover Group was formed.
So PLEASE do some research rather than reading News Of the World or listning to Jeremy Clarkson before you make these stupid remarks!
BMW bought Rover from BAe (a Private company - NOT STATE).
Rover Group had been making money for about two years untill BMW bought Rover Group off BAe for £800 million. BAe sold because car making didn't fit in with its own industry.
BMW bought Rover mainly because;
BMW were a lot smaller back in 1994 and a take-over looked likely
Rover Group slotted in perfectly - a Range of premium FWD cars and a range of premium 4X4s.
The then Manager of BMW was an angolphile and loved Rover and all the other marques.
Also a BIG bonus was that the Rover Group had recently had a huge upswing in sales to continental Europe when the market there was contracting, Rover being the only company to actually grow their sales at that time. Furthermore, their sales were actually on course to overtake BMW's.
Rover Group also owned 20% stake in Honda UK. And Honda UK owned a 20% stake in Rover Group ltd.
Rover Group had NEVER recieved a handout. British Leyland and Austin-Rover group both did as they were state owned, all though it must be said, by the time it became Ausin-Rover group it didn't really have many hand outs. Just before Austin-Rover was to be privatised and sold to BAe, Graham Day was given the job of getting it ready for sale - and thus Rover Group was formed.
So PLEASE do some research rather than reading News Of the World or listning to Jeremy Clarkson before you make these stupid remarks!
Edited by red_rover on Thursday 21st September 00:06
Edited by red_rover on Thursday 21st September 00:08
The main thrust of Disco1s comments are right on target,
Rover was limping along as a Honda satellite of sorts. All that was really happening in UK was body manufacture and final assembly so in cost terms in cost of build terms it didn't much matter whether the cars looked like Rovers or looked like Hondas. When BaE sold out they knew full well they were selling a mixture of valuable brands (Land Rover, potentially Mini etc) and a lame duck. I'm sure everyone, BMW included, knew that the Honda link could not survive a sale to anyone other than Honda and that without Honda the future was bleak. Once the sale went through to anyone other than Honda poor old MG Rover was dead in the water.
The tragedy is that Towns and his mates were allowed to rape the remnants of the business as it finally sank with full support from the government. The other, less politically comfortable, option of scuttling Rover and saving MG made far more business sense.
None of this matters much today because, Honda are doing well in UK with their own factory; Mini is doing well in UK with its own factory and any remnants of MG sports cars would be hopelessly out-classed by the latest offerings from bigger manufacturers including Z4, MX5, 350Z, S2000, Cayman and Z06.
Rover was limping along as a Honda satellite of sorts. All that was really happening in UK was body manufacture and final assembly so in cost terms in cost of build terms it didn't much matter whether the cars looked like Rovers or looked like Hondas. When BaE sold out they knew full well they were selling a mixture of valuable brands (Land Rover, potentially Mini etc) and a lame duck. I'm sure everyone, BMW included, knew that the Honda link could not survive a sale to anyone other than Honda and that without Honda the future was bleak. Once the sale went through to anyone other than Honda poor old MG Rover was dead in the water.
The tragedy is that Towns and his mates were allowed to rape the remnants of the business as it finally sank with full support from the government. The other, less politically comfortable, option of scuttling Rover and saving MG made far more business sense.
None of this matters much today because, Honda are doing well in UK with their own factory; Mini is doing well in UK with its own factory and any remnants of MG sports cars would be hopelessly out-classed by the latest offerings from bigger manufacturers including Z4, MX5, 350Z, S2000, Cayman and Z06.
red_rover said:
Oh ignorance shows up again!
No - Rover pre-BMW was profitable
Would BMW have bought Rover Group if it was losing money?
No - Rover was making profit for the first time and was going to be a force to be reckoned with.
No - Rover pre-BMW was profitable
Would BMW have bought Rover Group if it was losing money?
No - Rover was making profit for the first time and was going to be a force to be reckoned with.
LOL you are painful. they made a TINY profit after many years of subsidies by not investing in new platforms. given the costs and development time of new platforms/engines for that sector i'd estimate they should have been spending £200m a year. they wern't. so they showed a tiny profit. its pretty basic stuff. if bmw stopped all development how good would their profits look? how good would they look in 20 years?
are you incapable of understanding the difference between a good product (which is extremely debateable) and a sh1t company (which is a matter of history).
francisb said:
red_rover said:
Oh ignorance shows up again!
No - Rover pre-BMW was profitable
Would BMW have bought Rover Group if it was losing money?
No - Rover was making profit for the first time and was going to be a force to be reckoned with.
No - Rover pre-BMW was profitable
Would BMW have bought Rover Group if it was losing money?
No - Rover was making profit for the first time and was going to be a force to be reckoned with.
LOL you are painful. they made a TINY profit after many years of subsidies by not investing in new platforms. given the costs and development time of new platforms/engines for that sector i'd estimate they should have been spending £200m a year. they wern't. so they showed a tiny profit. its pretty basic stuff. if bmw stopped all development how good would their profits look? how good would they look in 20 years?
are you incapable of understanding the difference between a good product (which is extremely debateable) and a sh1t company (which is a matter of history).
How did you work that out? Pre BMW there cars where bang upto date as they where co developed with Honda, post BMW and no Honda involvement there products became dated quickly.
The biggest mistake in the whole rover sell off was bmw buying it instead of honda.
smilerbaker said:
How did you work that out? Pre BMW there cars where bang upto date as they where co developed with Honda, post BMW and no Honda involvement there products became dated quickly.
thats the whole point!!!
you dont wait for your products to date before developing new ones. during the "golden years" (
) pre-bmw, red rover keeps banging on about, they should have been investing $billions in the NEXT range. they wernt investing anything. bmw (quite rightly - they're not a charity) just cherry picked the good bits and saw a mkt for the 75 and invested in that. rover was already doomed at that stage having fallen behind by not developing. you guys are backing a horse in the 2:30 that got shot this morning. a lot like this thread should be.
francisb said:
smilerbaker said:
How did you work that out? Pre BMW there cars where bang upto date as they where co developed with Honda, post BMW and no Honda involvement there products became dated quickly.
thats the whole point!!!
you dont wait for your products to date before developing new ones. during the "golden years" (
) pre-bmw, red rover keeps banging on about, they should have been investing $billions in the NEXT range. they wernt investing anything. bmw (quite rightly - they're not a charity) just cherry picked the good bits and saw a mkt for the 75 and invested in that. rover was already doomed at that stage having fallen behind by not developing. you guys are backing a horse in the 2:30 that got shot this morning. a lot like this thread should be.
I dont think anyone on here is disagring with you! they never needed to invest billions on the next range as they where co.developing them with honda. bmw knew this, so should have had some sort of plan to replace the range as it was obvious honda would bugger off.
The whole argument has been that some people are saying all rovers are crap and all break down, have hgf, compairing them to cars that cost double the price etc
when in fact they arn't all crap, in fact the only crap rover (city rover aside) I can think of was the 213.
My own personal opinion (based on actually owning a few in my time) is that for the money they are great cars, I have brought cars that where many times the cost of a rover and they have cost a fortune to service, repair and run and have also let me down. I have never been let down by any of the rover cars I have owned (5 if I recall correctly, new and old)
how you can compair a rover 200 for 8k against a 3 series at 20k+ is just beyond me.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
That 213 was a rebadged and retrimmed Honda Ballade - apart from rust, it was the one to have with the Civic engine - they got it wrong by not competing with the Escort and Astra but going against cars of a larger and more expensive class, chasing profit - anyone else remember the ads for the Rover 216 Sprint which compared it to the 316i - that was the problem - overbelief that the badge was worth a premium in the 1980's and particularly the early 1990s. Whereas in Europe (esp France) it was seen as one above contemporary Skodas but below Renault, PSA, VW etc.the 213 just looked boxy to me, my bro had one, and the rust!!!
francisb said:
red_rover said:
Oh ignorance shows up again!
No - Rover pre-BMW was profitable
Would BMW have bought Rover Group if it was losing money?
No - Rover was making profit for the first time and was going to be a force to be reckoned with.
No - Rover pre-BMW was profitable
Would BMW have bought Rover Group if it was losing money?
No - Rover was making profit for the first time and was going to be a force to be reckoned with.
LOL you are painful. they made a TINY profit after many years of subsidies by not investing in new platforms. given the costs and development time of new platforms/engines for that sector i'd estimate they should have been spending £200m a year. they wern't. so they showed a tiny profit. its pretty basic stuff. if bmw stopped all development how good would their profits look? how good would they look in 20 years?
are you incapable of understanding the difference between a good product (which is extremely debateable) and a sh1t company (which is a matter of history).
Oh who is they?
Well they would be BAe. As mentioned earlier by moi, BAe and Rover Group weren't matched because both businesses were so different. HOWEVER, we did see Rover work on the Rover 200 mk3, the Freelander, the Range Rover mk2, started working on the Rover 75 and the development of the MGF.
BMW held closed accounts but by all accounts, during the Rover years, EVERYTHING was charged to Rover. In the just under 6 years of ownership, we only saw one Rover model come out that was actually mostly done in the BMW years. Rover Group paid for MINI development and engineering, the new MINI line, the Rover 75 line that was in Cowley originally and the redevelopment of Cowley and of course the entire R30 (45 and 25 replacment) project which has been languishing in a Muncich basement or been turned into the 1-series, something we will never know. Its also a small know fact that BMW charged Rover Group for every flight, every hotel for BMW managment.
Of course, Rover Group DID need lots of money to produce a line of cars that it could wave Honda goodbye too - and BMW did that by killing off the 600 and the 800 and replacing them both with one car. BMW then kept the Rover 45 replacment, and kept Rovers MINI and flogged off LandRover and its new new Range Rover.
If BMW kept a nerve, we would have seen Rover group with a New Rover 75, a new Rover 45 and 25, the new MINI and of course the entire LandRover business.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Erm I think you have memory problems. Rover was still seen as a premium marque in most of Europe right up untill the end. But in the 80's, the ROVER marque was still an Aspirational brand, even if it was less aspirational than it had been 10 years earlier.
The Rover 213 and 216 OVER took Montego sales (even though it was more expensive). And with the new Rover trim and such like the SD3 became a premium product, and was replaced with another, the R8 series (the co-development project with Honda).
And you honestly would want a Renault 11 over a Rover 216 Vitesse with REAL wood trim, full leather interior and stainless steal interior door handles?
Quote from austin-rover.co.uk
'The jump in sales of the car from late 1986 onwards can also be put down to the fact that the advertising and marketing emphasis of the company radically changed after the arrival of Graham Day. One surprising fact about the Rover 200 was unearthed by Austin Rover’s huge market research programme undertaken (from late 1985 into the following Spring) was that customers perceived the it as being an expensive car – as Kevin Morley put it, “Customers see the Rover 200 as a car with a starting price of £10,000”.
In fact, this was far from the truth – the entry-level 213 models actually cost nearer £7000 – and as a result, all advertising for the car centred on the range’s starting price but continued to make great play of its exclusivity. The resultant jump in sales following this change in tactic is plain to see from the SMMT figures listed above.'
Edited by red_rover on Thursday 21st September 11:50
red_rover said:
BMW got their sleeves in, cheapened the K-series hence why so many HGFs are from the BMW era, they also stopped developemtn on many other cars Rover had been working on. BMW paid for the R40 development (Rover 75) but they didn't do the development.
I've turned a blind eye to your sentimental ramblings thus far and tried to be balanced about this, not wishing to "bash" Rover, as it would upset you and others on this thread but I couldn't let this comment go unanswered sorry.
Yes, I too like the old Rover P6 and P5 alot and want to feel proud of something British but not to the point of dilusion.
BMW did NOT cheapen the K -series- I know you WANT to believe that. I work in the industry I know. The Head Gasket failures are related to the load the engine is under- so a Freelander would fair worse that say a Metro. It also effects the 1.8 litre damp liner cars more than the smaller capacities.
The bead comes away from important areas of the gasket and it doesn't help that the light weight open deck structure of the block in stretched form isn't the most rigid. None of these issues are insurmountable, but a production solution is more complex than simply throwing money at it.
This kind of serious dillusion and blinkered patriotism to the point of not seeing the truth is one of the things that has spelled the end of the British car industry. It's NOT healtthy. That, along with typical Anglo-American style non-technical top-heavy management structures, but that's another topic.
There was a time when Rover was up there with the best of them as this clip will show, the behemoth that was the BL takeover was where the rot set in. To go from makers of a car that the Queeen would personally drive to the CityRover says it all really.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2AXU373nsY
and this one!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=T2l3FCSx6x
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2AXU373nsY
and this one!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=T2l3FCSx6x
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