MG Rover

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MG Rover

alexb said:
I think they've done quite good things (looks-wise anyway) with the recently facelifted MG models, but the masses of people who've just bought them will be cursing!!

With regard to British car makers! Ha! I don't think so:

Jaguar is owned by Ford.
TVR is over by a Russian.
Aston Martin? Who knows!
Rolls Royce? Are they even British?

Haven't Ford got Aston? Seem to remember so, if not there's some links - the indicator stalks are the same as Mondeos.
 
cinqmeister said:
Haven't Ford got Aston? Seem to remember so, if not there's some links - the indicator stalks are the same as Mondeos.

Ford have owned Jag/Aston for ages, the XK8/DB7 were basically the same car, and had ford parts bin bits.

It is a shame for MG/Rover, especially as their new project looked quite promising.

The flash MG/Rover dealership near me, recently closed, so obviously they were struggling too.
 
James M said:
Ford have owned Jag/Aston for ages, the XK8/DB7 were basically the same car, and had ford parts bin bits.
Thought as much.

Aside from the prestige issue, which doesn't seem to concern the government an awful lot - if this Chinese company were to bail Rover out, would the 6000 jobs be secure anyway?

imho I reckon they'd relocate production to China soon after anyway.
 
The trouble is that there has been under investment in Rover for a long time and the unions also crippled manufacturing in the UK at a time when other car companies in Europe were expanding and improving quality. This was then made worse when the conservatives didn't encourage manufacturing or offer incentives. We are basically getting the results of 20 years of problems.

It's a real shame, especially for the 6,000 employee's and probably the same again who supply Rover with components. If you look back we used to be a huge manufacturing country, planes, cars, industrial equipment etc. Now a lot of design is done by UK companies/people, but they are manufactured elsewhere and that is also where the profit centres are.

I could moan for ages about the lack of manufacturing in the UK. This also means that people are unlikely to be trained in manufacturing processes, so it will leave a big gap educationally.

I think Richard Branson should buy them, he could turn it around.
 
poggy said:
The trouble is that there has been under investment in Rover for a long time and the unions also crippled manufacturing in the UK at a time when other car companies in Europe were expanding and improving quality. This was then made worse when the conservatives didn't encourage manufacturing or offer incentives. We are basically getting the results of 20 years of problems.

It's a real shame, especially for the 6,000 employee's and probably the same again who supply Rover with components. If you look back we used to be a huge manufacturing country, planes, cars, industrial equipment etc. Now a lot of design is done by UK companies/people, but they are manufactured elsewhere and that is also where the profit centres are.

I could moan for ages about the lack of manufacturing in the UK. This also means that people are unlikely to be trained in manufacturing processes, so it will leave a big gap educationally.

I think Richard Branson should buy them, he could turn it around.

Lol but would you want to drive a VirginAuto around? :rolleyes:
 
The main issue is the 6000 people who may be jobless. I don't like many rover cars, but still it would be nice to see them get an investor. Rather than losing all them needed jobs.
 
I have to say that I'm not sad to see rover go (the job issue aside) The cars INCLUDING the 75 look rubish, they've had build quality issues since they launched the new ranges, that were never really addressed. Two and three year old cars start to rust on the lower door skins, and tailgate and roof.

The problem rover seem to have had, is that they've never managed to get the workers unions on side thus workers don't perfrom as well, and thus build quality suffered, Ford had similar issues, but seem to have managed to get it sorted (well that was until they closed the jaguar plant etc...), vauxhall the same (do vauxhall still have a birming plant?). If you're going to build a car in brittain, you have to be able to pay the workers the going rate, and your cars are going to be more expensive, and if your selling more expensive cars, they have to be better than the competition, both in terms of looks and build quality. Rover were relying upon the fact that people would buy the cars because they're brittish.

Rover also made a huge mistake by dumping Honda, they really burned their bridges there because most of the technical staff were honda based, or moved to honda (gb) when the two companies parted.
 
Steve C said:
It's been confirmed. They are going into administration. The thing is, it's not inconceivable that this could happen to Fiat.

Nah the itallian government will bail them out. And FIAT cars are improving much more rapidly than rover cars were.
 
Alex said:
Nah the itallian government will bail them out. And FIAT cars are improving much more rapidly than rover cars were.

This a problem as European rules prohibit the goverment bailing them out and financially they are in a much worse position than Rover. Also the cars have not really improved at Fiat as they are still very close to the bottom in quality surveys. Rover is actually 24 out of 34 compared, so they have been improving quite well and had some new models lined up. There sales figures for March were higher than the main competitors in comparison.

I think Fiat are in a similar position and are doing exactly what Rover did, which is discount cars to boost sales. It's very difficult recover from this situation and re-build the brand value.
 
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