Austin Rover - Austin Montego - Salesman Training Video (1984) 

Dreaming of Montego Bay, and then waking up to remember you own an Austin Montego. What a feeling.

Brilliant video, so many recognisable faces! Lindsay & Egan were great - saw Egan on stage and he was wonderful.

I have to admit that part at the end was pretty hilarious. I can see a dealership operating just like that too.

what a great upload! Have been entertained throughout!

Robert Lindsay has come far since this video!

I don't know what particular experiences people have had with the Montego. But when I say my friend kicked hell out of his dad's one: I'm talking about 35/nearly 70/nearly 100 in 1st 2nd and 3rd (disrespectfully). Also handbrake turns everywhere. He told his dad once it needed new tyres. Dad's reply "because you've left them all the way down the road!" Still the car started first time and every time. And never broke down. I believe it had a tiny bit of surface rust on the lower door panels when they sold it. When they when to trade it in the dealer inspected it. Basically he confirmed that the front panels were misaligned (heavy frontal accident repair), it was burning oil, having had miles and miles of hard - and I mean hard abuse. He said that the only thing right with it, was it's roof. On the way home actually he realised that he had managed to wreck the sunrooof as well. The car started first time and every time, and had it not been driven like that it would have made a perfect family car. The father liked it so much, he bought another one. I've thought long and hard about comments about them being, awful, rusty and generally terrible. But for the life of me, I can't see how that's true. The only thing it really needed was power steering, or perhaps a 2 litre. But they were options, and the 1.6 wasnt too slow, so can't complain really.

Sold him an Ital? No wonder he didn't come back.

Not sure why everyone is so down on the Montego. My mate's dad had one and his son kicked the hell out of it. It was a lot tougher than it looked. The engine was well isolated from the cabin from NVH and it was reasonably quick. If it wasn't owned by a test pilot, I'm sure it would have made a great family car. The one problem the early cars had was the ECU, but in about 1993 What Car rated them as about the most reliable car you could buy. The future was FWD, Ford's drive train was antiquated by then. I remember struggling to keep up with a Montego in the wet (albeit in a Ford Cortina V). It was so capable the guy had a young family in it, no doubt wondering why this maniac in a relic from history behind him was sliding all over the place.

"We'd have done better setting fire to the cars and collecting the insurance money" - valid plan for any Austin dealership

I've watched this every month since I found it top top top TV love it

I couldn’t stop watching!

subscribed, this is comedy gold.

Nice bit of nostalgia 👍 I've watched it again I love this video again! I'm gonna get a Montego or a Rover 75. God I was born out of my time I just love the BL, Austin Rover, and Rover era it's so nostalgic and proper I'm just an old hat!!

A shame Austin Rover went bankrupt in 2005 and the Longbridge factory is demolished. Depressing at the time watching the news and seeing the redundant workers leaving the factory with their belongings.

Brilliant! Hilarious step back into the past!

These training videos were everywhere, in the 80s. They now have a near-comic cult status.

Power to the people! I had a turbo diesel ex taxi ( before every private hire was Skoda) They were popular , but had a mk 2 cavalier 1.6 l in that colour and it was fantastic.

I remember Peter Egan, but Robert Lindsay will always be Woolfie Smith to me. Power to the people!

Ah the days of the MG Maestro and Montego. The turbo versions!

Next time we've got to be organised.

I really liked the montego, it was a proper car, and brilliant handling. The looks were subjective, but I liked it. What went wrong? From what I remember, the build quality was the biggest issue.

Remember doing 120 mph in a montego turbo, seemed awesome at the time.

You've got superpowers that enable teletransportation, mind reading, uploading information into brains, mind control etc. So what do you use these powers for? Bringing about world peace, ending poverty, enabling justice, saving our environment or helping Citizen Smith sell Austin Montegos?

POWER TO THE PEEPEEEEEEEEEEEEL!!

I think the Bowtie guy is part of the Q continuum who was bored that day.

53 MPG!!!!! The end was so funny :-)

In every department Montego has the edge

I wonder if the Product Insight had the fact they would rust the minute they left Brum.

Oh, I've lived through this lot. My very last Austin was an Ambassador. I've mostly bought Japanese since. Montego was a good car. It had to follow a most appalling double act of Marina/Ital. But the Cavalier/Sierra domination was too much, and then when Montego was getting long in the tooth along came Primera which was a superb bulletproof design with class leading roadholding and suspension - so anyone looking for "something different" may have gone this way. I enjoy your ROVR videos - thanks!

Is that Robert Lindsay?? Yes the credits just confirmed haha

No idea why I've just watched this but glad I have. Comedy gold. 9:05- it's got a boot! 31:09 - I dare say he already has 😂

Wolfie Smith finally got a job then.

typical trick on legroom. Front seat far forward when he is in the back.

FROM THE GOOD OLD DAYS

Love Austin Rover, Love the Montego, Loved this! but also at 29:48 He is the guy who played Mr griffiths the caretaker of Grange hill school 1986-1992! Also worth noting from range Hill, is that Mr. Bronson drove a Y registered blue Austin Meastro! I think it was a 1.6L!

It's 2018 and I work in aftersales. Why am I watching a sales training video from the year I was born?

powa to da people!

Hey is the guy in the photo not from V for Vendetta??

If Rover, Honda and Volvo made a team it would have worked. The Honda engineers were broken hearted when they couldn't buy Rover. Not my theory, it's the Honda people I knew. Honda very nearly sorted out Rover. Staff training was excellent. The new Mini was complete when BMW moved in. Same Cowley staff that were said to be useless.

My dad had one - it was a perfectly decent car - he got about 6 decent years out of it - never really looked after it properly either

Good reliable Motor

I need to buy a Sierra

Had a 1.3 one, mini engine looked lost.

That's a young wolfie 😂

What did I just watch!? Lol

Wolfie is on a bad trip.

Not bad looking but how long before ir rusts away?

A hilarious admission that they are struggling against a very strong opposition.

Robert Lindsey looks like Matt Hancock there. Hancock used to remind me of a second hand car salesman anyway.

Never knew Tom Darblay drove a sierra

I always hankered after a ?Perkins prima? diesel estate version Montego which I used to think was rather an elegant looking car. Austin Rover had a rather conformist middle class golf club vibe going on that was entirely at odds with the ford Vauxhall style. Chalk and cheese really. Arguably you will see traces of Montego technology in cars today but Sierras were stone simple pieces of cost engineering already obsolete in their day but not necessarily the worse for that.

Im sure that's Ben Harper from my family

It would have looked so much better if only they had angled the rear windows behind the C-pillar down towards the rear door window line…

Happy man......😅

AR might have done better if they'd employed unknown actors for a mere training video. The Montego was a half decent car, I knew several with later models and they were really good workhorses.

Montego Vs Sierra......what a choice!

Shame he didn't shout "Power to the People" at the end !

like every car purchase - good cars and products sell themselves ! whatever fancy marketing you do - customers want reliability and durability , low depreciation

Sending out invitations on the day before the event, that shows faith in the Royal Mail and a hope that no potential Montego owner needs prior notice or has anything better to do.

Wolfie's sold out! ;oD

Assembly in Cowley, had to be kept in a garage because they could not fix a boot leak.

They were desperate to bring more than just the cars up to a world standard back then aye lol

Hoist with his own petard. lol.

The bodywork side panels look like someone has sprayed it with a halfords can.

Poor Citizen Smith reduced to this 😥

It is cockney accent: considering I’m doing 20,000 a year and I’ve only had the odd but of mechanical trouble😂honest at least!

I do like me some decent *_roldholding_*

Robert Lindsey acting gigs must have taken a dive after he did citizen smith for him to take a Rover training video in 1984

If I had godlike superpowers, I'd definitely use them to get a sneak preview of a dreadful 80s saloon car.

There was serious money in making these in the 70s and 80s. Kept a lot of actors in money and made John Cleese wealthy : before his ex-wives took it all

Imagine if despite being a shit unreliable vehicle this had found an enthusiast following of people willing to spend every spare bit of money they had on winches and tyres and repairs and breakdowns.... One Life - Live It in a Montego.

Funny stuff, I was selling Cavaliers at the time, in the same garage that rallied Russ Swift's Astra and Nova.

The vault-like security of the boot must indeed have created a stampede of eager customers.

Mince

If only ARG had got their shit together 2 years earlier and launched it then.. they could've done some serious damage to the rivals... as it stands they launched it too late.... and kept it going too long.

The reality was that they knew the car was flawed both in styling and reliability before the launch, the failure of the styling led them to bringing in Roy Axe he wanted to scrap it but the money had already been spent on the tooling, but reliability was down to BL's lack of development and investment resources as it had been with the Allegro, Princess, TR7 and SD1. But the real killer was that Ford and GM had a European wide sales network, BL's network on the continent had disappeared during the 70s, with the failure of the Allegro and Princess and the failure to offer a SuperMini which is where the market growth had been in the 70s. This meant that they could shift volumes BL could only dream of and so they offered significant discounts that BL could not make a profit at.

19:28 customer buggered off and bought a Reliant

Funny how they didn't compare it to a Honda accord better than both of them

At the Montego vs Cavalier "stop tape" moment, I'd say, "I'm off to a Vauxhall dealership"....

I proposed a Volvo clone to the man at Rover who could have made it happen. He said " You know it. I know it and they know we are wrong " There were a few people above him who blocked these things. He was paid to keep quiet. The Volvo clone was to sell on it being a workhorse. The Montego was a better car than most realise, BL didn't think rust important alas. If you go to the Gaydon museum there was a prototype. The 820 was the wrong one to use for this, likely that would have been chosen. I didn't work for Rover. My drinking buddy was a boss. Do you know I can't remember his name now. That's him being quiet. MDi engine was by Perkins. Perkins are or were best of the best.

Good grief. Excruciating.

Hell's bells this is a trip back to awful hair, awful suits and cheesy actors!! But - one positive - the Montego estate was a great load carrier.

Austin rover cars have reliability and quality, tell me another joke lol

courtesy light delay... Where did it all go wrong? after the ww2 I guess. when the upper class were found out, and the working class had had enough.

Robert Lindsay might be a great actor but he was a crap car salesman

Trying to big up a Montego. ..no mean feat even for actors. ..I bet the fees were good

The sierra driver in the real world would never buy a shity montego!

Despite all this, Montego's were shite

The fiat regatta is the European cheap option. Cause you re in the cheap and not so premium arena. You realize this, or you ll go bancrupt! Now the Regatta is only 21000 guilders, but its based on the Ritmo. It is not precisely new. But it is not evident what to focus on, you look at the customer 1st. Within the country Italy has appealing modern cars. England..Montego is the least bad. 1984..hope Honda saves ya.. They have a secret extra, the seat Malaga is a cheaper version of the regata. Its 1.2 engine of a audi 50 all in all, they call system Porsche and its in fact a drehfreudig one. But it isn t fast. Usually -marketing heard of it? - customers have never heard of the Malaga. Proceeding with thee Nissan Bluebird..

To be fair the Montego was dogshit. Depreciation and rotting festering bodywork as well as crass build quality all enemies of the Rover brand.

This is a singularly boring film! Training films are usually lively, and proud of something special! This is deadly dull and clinical! It's just full of endless facts, like a phone book, or a dictionary! There is NOTHING emotive about this at all. Look how enthusiastically a new FILM gets promoted, for example!

These cars where awful. apart from the diesel models (which where slightly okay ). but the styling christ. looked like they'd all been in accidents before they had left the showroom.

Worst car ever made. Thankfully my company returned them for Ford Sierra

What a sad job… to sell these tossmobiles to people who think these were good cars..🙈🙄