'I remember the days when we had 40% of the market building rubbish, we're now building good cars and nobody buys them!' I think that chap hit the nail on the head. Once tarnished a brand is very difficult to revive.
The situation was very complex, I don't believe it is that easy to sum up. I also find it hard to believe that the cars were not rubbish, by 2005 the Rover 25/MG ZR was _still_ based on the 200 platform from the 1980's.
Surprised they lasted aslong as they did with as said very old outdated models that kept getting re-badged. They should binned the family cars and become a sports car manufacturer
Can't believe this is over 15 years ago! today, the site of the old factory is gone mostly, with a small section still building a small quantity of cars under the MG badge. The rest of the site is mixed between retail & what looks like North Korean housing blocks of flats!
There really were some appalling, cretinously poor management decisions towards the end. Instead of doing a deal with BMW on the R30 project (and there was a deal to be had), which would have given them a bang up to date Focus/Golf rival that would have brought much needed volume and turnover, they decided instead to launch a supercar... Oh, and of course that cynical attempt to nail some Rover badges onto a £3,000 Tata, and sell it for £6,500. When that failed, they did half baked refreshes on their ancient range, while progressively stripping all the cost, and the quality out of it. If you drive an early 75, even with a few miles on it, and then jump in one of the post facelift models, they are barely recognisable as the same car. The quality of the later cars is truly shocking.
The government! We had a blind Minister of Education, a prat who wanted to get rid of House of Lord's. The fat Prat has a seat alongside the blind bollocks. What did we expect when you had total fools running the country.
And how were the workers repaid? By people buying chinese crap, badged as MG's, as Longbridge was dismantled. So much for patriotism. I owned a Maestro, at that time, if anybody is wondering, and a Mini before that. 🇬🇧
Let's not look back with rose-tinted glasses - BL made terrible cars and this is from someone who grew up with them. Rusted in years and forever breaking down.
Very sadly the single worst car I ever drove was a Rover 214, rented in Portugal. You could tell it had been designed and put together on a shoestring. They never were going to compete long term with the likes of Volkswagen, Toyota or Peugeot Citroen with their economies of scale.
You must have been lucky to drive more premium marques then, as there were much worse cars to be had, than what MG Rover produced. The trouble with Rover started with BL, and their gross lack of investment, and continued use of old technology, which carried on through the 80's. Add to that the strikes of the 70's, brought on by Marxist union leaders, is it any wonder that the lack of investment continued? Which culminated in the RUST HEAPS that were the Metro, Maestro, and Montego? The writing was on the wall, and not even BMW quality improvements during the 90's could save Rover. Buyers have long memories, and by then, had been converted to better built, better value foreign imports. The 75 should have been the car to help turn Rover's fortunes around, along with the planned replacements for the 200/400 series, but it was too late, and the new 200 went on to become the BMW 1 series, which has been a fantastic success for BMW. I still think Rover should have been re-nationalised, and new quality control, and working practices implemented until the company went back into the black. The government could have given incentives to buy Rover products, such as discounts to ordinary consumers, and not just fleet buyers, and corporation tax incentives for 10 years or so. This, may or may not have saved our only British owned volume producer. But to not even try, especially under a socialist government, was CRIMINAL in my view.
