The then Govt I voted for all my life turned their backs on the many thousands of Folks dependent on Longbridge for their livelihood. MG-Rover was not "Public Sector" then. Had it been, they would have provided rescue funds like they always do for bottomless Public sector money pits. I shall never vote for them again. Sad to observe, come the next election , many Brits think that shower has all the answers ... no chance.Their growth area as always will be the Public Sector. That's where many of their votes are. Public Sector. Now riddled with Red Robbo clones with everybody old mindsets just like the bad old days in the now extinct UK Industrial Base.
@@T16MGJ This time government helped a hill descend control. If you believed different, it’s not politician problem. Every asset worthy was taken - jaguar, land rover, mini legacy and proposition- and phoenix 4 didn’t know a shit about running a manufacturer. British industry lost sight of and guts to compete on open markets, so, when Britain lost its captive markets( aka Colonies), there wasn’t a competitive environment left. Americans did go for jackpot, german and Japanese took some market share. Even french did things better and more reasonable. Thatcher’s mistake was not closing BL fast enough
@@2m1fy18 yeah, when you were allowing Red Robo and his buddies to go on strike over stupid things, that’s when you should have been heartbroken about the damage he and his cronies were doing to British industry and global reputation. But on strike, was more vacay.. cool. Now it’s a permanent vacay.. BL,British rail, British Steel, etc… All going strike in sympathy over stupid stuff is what killed Longbridge, and so much more.. I believe it was Thatcher who said (on the subject of endless bailouts). The problem with spending other peoples money is you run out of people you can drain for that money.. and that’s when business brains go live and make jobs in other countries. This new labour government will be a bigger disaster than the last Tory government. The UK needs another Iron Lady.
I was a Finance trainee at Longbridge 1975-77, with various jobs letting me see and experience many parts of the site (especially on the Power Train side). The workforce was indeed de-motivated, and strikes were frequent, but management was also weak and clueless. Above all there had been massive under-investment in plant, equipment, and infastructure, which was never rectified. It was a huge, sprawling site, with a large number of individual factories for various processes and products, many of which had machine tools and equipment dating back to WW2 (on in the case of the Toolroom, 1912).
The word "Theft" keeps floating in and out of my consciousness. I own a Rover R8 today and consider that it's the pinnacle of Rover/BL history ie 1989 bto 1994 before the rapacious BMW and the Four Highwaymen when the relationship with Honda was rosy. A much better partner in every way than BMW or venture capital.
Shafting Honda the way that was allowed to happen was unforgiveable. Those we entrust our and our Nation's assets well being fail us miserably. They continue to confuse "Foreign Investment" with asset stripping and as you rightly describe "Theft" ... The Bavarian outfit needed TWO Small Cars to redress the imbalance seen by their EU Masters of their otherwise "Gas Guzzler" model range or face the wrath of EU punitive measures. The "Bini" and R30 Rover 45 replacement which became the 1 series apparently allowed them to dodge that massive bullet. Then if that was not enough, clever accounting showing the massive costs of R&D against Rover Group accounts of those two small cars to demonstrate ... and here I use their very words... THE ENGLISH PATIENT. Still we allow the rest of the world to take this nation's taxpayers for the mugs we are. Sometimes by as many as over one thousand a day! Brits form long queues to pay over the odds for German stuff. MUGS. Only in the UK the land of the increasingly self-inflicted ... sadly.
I understand that they simply got the two small cars ( Bini and R30/1 Series ) added to their otherwise "Gas Guzzler" range or face punitive financial penalties under EU guidelines. Witness setting the HUGE R&D costs of those two small cars clever accounting only on Rover Group Accounts to demonstrate and here I use the BMW Top Brass very words. THE ENGLISH PATIENT. Those we entrust to this Nation's longer term well being have failed us miserably and continue to do so. They see the myth of "Foreign Investment" whereas reality sees wide spread asset stripping across the Nation ongoing for decades. Did the Bavarian outfit not sell the JLR part asset of the massively asset rich Rover group to FOMOCO for more than they paid for the whole Rover group? Or, was that more news of the fake variety? Still us Mug-Brits stand for the asset stripping three card tricks and British largess abuse incoming daily by sometimes over one thousand a day. It will not end well ///
@@KarlHamilton So who sold JLR to FOMOCO out of the massively asset rich former Rover Group for more than they paid for the whole sheebang? Maybe that was news of the all too frequent FAKE variety too.
The company was really Austin. They pinched the MG and Rover names from other groups in the company. Rovers are still being made here in the UK, under the Landrover name, remember, the first Landrovers were made by the original Rover Cars, before they merged with Austin. Longbridge was Austin.
Well MG was originally a Morris brand (MG stands for Morris Garage, Morris' racing car division) so it's fair to say that the MG was a part of the same company as Austin was. over of course came with Leyland into the BLMC. Sadly that's where it all began to fade, because when Austin-Morris director George Turnbull left, there was no common sense left among the BL managers. They forced the marques like Rover to lower their build standards and together with the bad behaving workforce, that was it. And then the government stepped in, strapped the company of cash, so they never had enough money to develop a new up to date car. The Montego and Maestro fundamentally weren't bad cars, but their design was dated, because there weren't enough money to develop it faster than they did. And after this failure the only thing left of BL was Rover, so they decided to name themselves Rover. The original Rover car plant in Solihull was closed in 1978 just a few years after being renewed.
It’s sad, too, that people listened to the overblown sensationalism and scathing, often unnecessary, criticism peddled by TV car shows at the time. Let’s not forget how big they became, but I got fed up with their ridiculous ‘we hate everything unless it’s a supercar’ mantra. They don’t live in the real world, buzzing sound like boy racers in millionaire toys. Rather than focusing on sensible reviews and even how to look after our cars, they went hell bent on getting ratings and talking trash about actually good cars for a laugh. Makes one wonder how much money was being paid… I had some MG Rover models; they had good and not so good qualities just like many other brands. Admittedly, the British reputation for poor quality and reliability was too hard to shake off, and BMW knew it. The MGs, though in particular, if set up right, are superb sports cars, and Clarkson had no idea what he was talking about. Really. He was painfully oblivious to the fact that MG began by taking Morris cars and modifying them!! The MGF, TF, ZR, ZS, ZT and ZTT were proper MGs in the modified tradition. They still enjoy a devoted following today, and are true MGs. I believe all this criticism this would have affected MG Rover as, after all, people would have seen the show and instead bought something else just by listening to these clowns. Sad how the the opinions of a few middle aged boy racers and ratings hungry tv execs could help destroy the livelihood of thousands of midlands workers and plunge their families into poverty.
I have to agree, there's a reason we own 3 rover 75s and have had a number of rovers in the family over the years. The criticism the cars received wasn't really fair by any means. The whole K series head gasket garbage... Many other car manufacturers were having issues with head gaskets failing but mg rover and the K series was made a public example of and was ridiculed and remains so to this very day.
Oh yes, the debacle of the elastomer head gasket melting and design flaws around the cooling system blew up disastrously in MG Rover’s face and helped flush the whole company down the toilet. It was an embarrassment; the last thing the company needed. Sad thing was, I had a TF which had the head gasket and cooling issues sorted, and it ran fine after that! Mg Rover, I feel, should have majored on quality and reliability, and aimed at what people, especially younger ones, wanted. What did the marketing people do-focused even more on traditional British values; ie pipe and slippers! Everyone knew BL cars were shit, and the mud stuck ever after. MG certainly helped, but the patchy build and hgf failure burnt many fingers.
@@connclissmann6514 Not so long ago , here in Great Britain 🇬🇧 we made cars , tools . Electrical items, Now we make nothing. Why.. because we put are selves down….
I was part of the trade union within the longbridge plant and at pay talks in 2000 we were told that the money would run out in five years. Nothing was done in those five years to keep the place going, Woodley knew this he sat and lied on this programme
There was a UK TV programme which followed Tower’s around in his daily duties at Rover as the BMW takeover took place. I can vividly remember the disdain he showed for BMW and he was so stupid to showed it in front of the cameras. Of course the TV company showed it. How anybody could have faith in such a person then was beyond me. The quality of UK managers in this industry comes into sharp focus - so many crazy stupid decisions and the politicians were not so much better.
"BMW abandoned Rover". Really? I thought BMW sold it. As your film reports, it then ran for 4 years. The crisis for Rover started long before BMW got involved.
This was extremely devastating news when it was broadcasted and the last sole remaining of the true British car industry. The government was also to blame for the collapse of Rover for not helping them out as a few years later when the bankruptcy of the banks occurred. They stepped in to help them and taken over likes of RBS. They could have taken control of Rover but they didn’t
As tragic as the MG Rover failure was, with the benefit of hindsight there was an inevitability to its demise as it went under in economically stable times the GFC would've definitely finished it off for good. Car companies are high investment long term businesses and with outdated facilities, aged model range, no worthwhile funding and zero time for development they were doomed from the beginning. BL/Austin Rover/Rover group/MG Rover was a company in managed decline for 30 years and 2005 was it's bookend but at least some fragments of the former business survive today
@@rowlewis81 the damage was done in the British Aerospace ownership period through chronic underinvestment year after year in the company, though it didn’t become evident until the BMW era. So yes it was subsequently very difficult for anyone to make the business a success after that.
BMW got what technology they wanted from land rover and kept the mini, they couldn’t loose. Meanwhile Rover had old products that had many cost cutting measures and they sold the property rights to China.
@@ropi4524 correct, back in 1994 when bmw bought rover it was a different story, how many Dacias did you see on the streets of England back then, Kia Sportage probably wasn’t available.
I’ve heard some hairy stories about Longbridge from people who were there. Apparently procurement worked like a social charity for the region blokes had their houses renovated with materials bought for Longbridge. “I need a new cam for me Mini” “oops - take this one it’s damaged “ (drops cam on factory floor) It’s very very hard to feel sympathy they had many chances
@@aakeister I was at Longbridge 1975-77, and can confirm that there was plenty of the old Johnny Cash song "One Piece At A Time" going on at Longbridge.
Id love to know who bought that 75 V8 and where it went to.... seen as it has an export marker on the reg? 🤔 It had the similar reg of my old eacop rover 25 streetwise of BW04... I remember a couple of years ago PWC sent my brother a cheque for a whopping (get-this) £0.25p in the post for wages from unpaid wages put it in a frame.
Car companies are a nightmare to run, 15,000 parts to be assembled, new models must be a success, the money to develop new models must be available from profits, if you have profits, how many units per week must be produced, probably a couple of hundred thousands, car company assemblers are relatively well paid compared to other so called blue collar jobs. Don't hear of oil companies going out of business, but do hear of their vast profits.
The shape and the name is the only thing they kept though. After the first reveal at Geneva BMW went through an extended process of de-roverisation. The first time the public saw that shape it was on hydrogas with a k-series up front.
BMW developed the MINI, but it would not have saved Rover. MINI doesn't make money. The MINI was designed by BMW in Munich, like the Range Rover of the period.
All along BMW wanted Land Rover to help them develop their own all new BMW X5 ,then sell it off but they wanted to keep Mini to help them cover more market share with an Iconic Brand. By not letting Rover retain the Mini in which they had developed using their small car expertise -Rover was doomed.. Mini was the bedrock of the Rover European dealer network and without Mini the dealers left the Franchise and there was no other Modern top seller as the Metro was far too long in the tooth and the Rover 75 although good could not deliver the sales needed.
I've heard Rover MIGHT be coming back in two years under Tata Motors control, but it's not going to be all new designs with the traditional Rover traditions values and qualities it used to have, it's going to be based on Tata Motors existing car designs ie a badge engineered range of models. Good luck to that, it's car reviewers and customers who'll decide how successful this new iteration of Rover will be, not Tata Motors.
Obviously didn't pay him enough. I've also seen Clarkson praise that engine in different cars, the exact same engine, power etc. The guy is nothing more than an entertainer.
i see people here trying to blame bmw and all other that tried to save rover.. i think the death of rover started much earlier.. in the late 60's and early 70's. the strikes ruined the british car industry, im not sure if british people realize how bad of a rep the british cars really had otuside of britain. i live in another eiropean country, with hard climate. british cars where common here in the middle of the century, but when i was growing up in the 80's and the 90's there where still some around and they where with out any doubt the worst cars most people had ever seen. horrendus reliabillity, outdated, badly made and people just gave up on them. in the late 90's early 00's rover was way beond having any chance of rediming it self. this brand was long dead interesting point i saw someone ride over here that mg/rover wasn't really rover, it was austin.. i actually think that is the case
Quite a lot of the facts from the report left out. I think BMW wanted to eliminate their competitor and sunk Rover on purpose. The Dowry was to cover BMW for the legal time period after sale when they could still be responsible for Rovers liabilities.
I haven't found a single document or documentary that goes into all the details as to why BMW pulled out and why saic refused a deal at the final hour. Not one document or documentary has ever mention the fact bmw were building CAB1 at Longbridge with plans for the r50 mini and r30 rover 55 to begin production. The site was being built in early 2000 right up until suddenly, BMW wanted to pull out and sell longbridge. I doubt we will ever actually know the truth in the end but, I feel this documentary gives a better insight as to why saic didn't go ahead. John Moulton perhaps had the right idea of retiring the rover brand and continuing with the mg brand and scaling back production.
BMW didn’t do their homework on rover. They wanted to expand their volume and rover seemed like a perfect fit. They rushed into it without doing their due diligence
It always was toxic, every since all the Union shit from the 70’s….it was a brand with a negative image, so why would someone want to aspire to drive a Rover when it was so lamented in so many ways. From then on it was doomed
That's a good start, but then move forward to the late 80's/early 90's. At that time, Honda was selling the Legend on the Australian market and selling a good number of them. Leyland was trying to sell a near identical Rover with little success. Why? People remembered the poor quality workmanship of Rovers from the mid-70's onwards, cars with pieces falling off on the way home from the dealer's showroom. That new tradition was carried on with the new Rover 75. Now, I'd owned a P4 75 and it was a car of very high quality, apparent even when it was 15 or more years old. But from the mid-70's, none of that Rover tradition remained.
Honestly, I wouldnt blame BMW, they helped Rover to get the best mechanics available, but the brand was toxic, couldnt compete with the likes of Merc or Beemer, or even VW... blame the Phoenix asses, they knew very well the company was going down, and did not bother to secure its future, they should have ben looking for a partnership right after they paid those £10 for it, which again if £10 is all it takes to buy a car company, there must be something seriously wrong with it... as a European from the continent, it never felt like the car for me. If felt like the car for the Brits only, local car for local people. Sorry, but dont blame Beemer, the blame lies in Longbridge. Sorry for the workers and their families, but thats all I AM SORRY FOR... Rover was beyond salvagable, even Skoda was a better deal for VW, and where is Skoda today and where is Rover???
In fairness... BMW was only wishing to expand its actual size due to being at risk of being swallowed up by its competitors the such like mercedes. Many car manufacturers were doing it all around the same sort of time frame. Hence Renault bought nissan. The issue is... BMW didn't want Rover to be successful, otherwise it would have had a competitor but saw the potential within the company in the early to mid 90s to begin the asset stripping process. VW themselves showed interest in buying Austin rover group from bae, something Honda should have done but chose not to. The real issues with the phoenix consortium was... They were out of their depth, they didn't have a business strategy and had no idea that finding a partner to fund future projects and development etc would be so difficult. The issue was.. the whole rover and mg brand in the u.k had been passed from pillar to post, lurched from one disaster to the next disaster for decades and all the while, other European manufacturing plants were becoming bigger, new plants being built, newer machinery and production equipment etc, Longbridge just couldn't have kept up and the equipment was becoming out of date and with a lack of.funds in real terms, the production of mg rover group vehicles from the early 00s was living on borrowed time. It's said that John towers had a 3 year plan for the company.. to which after 3 years.if no partner had been found he didn't know what the future would hold for the company. The only real thing that could have been done, of nothing other than to keep "some" vehicle production at Longbridge would have been to scale back production to a more niche market (similar to that of Morgan) so no longer in the business of mass production, begin the redundancy process to scale back the number of workers on the site and to scale back the size of the Longbridge site itself.. some of the land sold would have actually paid the redundancies off.. Retiring to the rover brand name from the market and putting all efforts into the mg brand with possible cost savings being made in some way by sharing engines and gearboxes like many vehicle manufacturers do (like how Merc, actually using renault engines do now)... Let's face it a rear wheel drive, front engine mounted mg tf with a ford st170 engine would probably have been a good competitor for the mx5 in the early to mid 00s but.. this isn't the route the phoenix four wanted to go down as well... If it was that route. John Moulton would have bought rover group and not the phoenix four.. let's face it, mg zt K series engine replaced with a ford engine under license.. would probably have given the buying public a boost in confidence over the hgf worries in the k series.
@@aclassofitsown75 in all honesty, I have nothing against Rover, but as an European from the continent, it never felt like to me that this was a car designed and built for anyone else than the British buying pulic. Now obviously other mwnufacturets sort of do that, but the clear focus is not on just one market. Rover has always been an oddity on the contient, many people didnt know what to do with it, people in DE for example had no reason to buy 200 instead of Polo for example as tbe 200 did not seem to do anythig better than the VW... the collapse of Rover is an interesting case study, but I feel the real end of the road started with their merger with BL, the rest has been a slow painful death march... comin from a country where Skoda is king, I have to wonder what VW did with this brand that worked, but didnt work with Rover. Afterall, Skoda was in the same predicament as was Rover when VW took over, and Wolfsburg didnt do anything different from BMW, and somehow it worked out. Maybe Rover was too damaged to be saved... its never a good thing when you buy a car company for £10... but the 75 was Beemer solid and without it, Rover would have collapsed earlier
75 was good but it was old fashioned and retro British people warned sharp design not olde England. People aspired to drive flash and advanced cars not flash backs.
@@DavidSmith-ze2wi Now our UK roads are full of butt ugly SUVs all looking the same in numerous shades of grey, Many carrying European marque names like Volvo, BMW and even MG. All built in the PRC. The peoples' Republic of China. There are no less than FIVE new MGs down my street. Two pure BEVs and the others the hybrid. Me being me, I speak to their owners. All have very good feedback. In January 2023, The MG Hybrid saw more UK registrations than any other brand's single model. They are everywhere but being just another same old SUV, easily overlooked in the ocean of sameness out there.
The Phoenix Four spent the money on the wrong priorities ie car racing, and didn't develop new cars. A badly backfired mis-step indeed. I would've ploughed the BMW gave into new models with modern features, and improved the build quality of existing models before running them out by way of special and limited run out editions, to be replaced by the new cars.
Why feel for a workforce that , as you mention , made poor products ? Oh , sinds 5 years I drive such a poor product they built in 2000 in Cowley that is .
The peasants as he called it were the main cause of the British car industry collapse,, sure chatty management helped, but ask any of these workers how many times they went on strike for stupid stuff.. if many of the opinionated people who are crying over the death of the British industry had of done the right thing when they were told to go on strike over the dumbest crap and fought for logic and work ethic over more tea breaks and overtime while sitting at home.. I was union at the time, we went on strike over the craziest crap. No wonder the businesses didn’t survive..
There was a rumour that they went on strike because it was too hot so they opened the big roller shutter doors. Then it went cold so they went on strike again because it was too cold.
@@Ianw236 it was true. I was a train driver for London Transport. If you are ever in London Underground, you will see about every 5 o6 stations a door at the drivers end of the platform. Inside this door is/was, (40 years ago) a water boiler(urn)for the train crew to make tea. If the boiler was not working the crew could kick the passenger’s off the train and run it empty till they were released at a break room location. A. Spare crew would put the train back in service while the “traumatized, tearless crew would replenish themselves with a break…. This was unions at there best. The things we went on strike for were insane.
@@Ianw236 I’m a fan of unions, but they must only have a ten year life, and no fees. It should be volunteers. Then it devolves when its need is fixed, it doesn’t stay active just to exist. And that’s what happened to BL and all of British industry.. the unions got so strong they brought down the British government many times.. they didn’t just kill BL they killed Britton.
"If BMW can't revive it, who possibly could? BMW are the best" if that's the case, why are BMW cars full of faults, most are which are very time consuming and expensive to rectify, sometimes main dealer only? Nobody seems to mind paying through the nose for all the problems aforementioned, just because it's a BMW. I wonder why this is so, exceptionally good marketing perhaps? All the German marques are trading on past reputations, they're just not as good as they used to be. Yet even when they were making decent(ish) motors MG Rover were CONSTANTLY lambasted, no matter what they did!
That's how you survive. Talked to a VW dealer and he estimated only some 5-10% profit came from selling cars. The rest was servicing and spares solely. BMWs are deliberately made to break down because owners are expected to afford it
Maybe what happened to Rover was a Karma thing. After all, where was the support from the Rover staff for the workers at Triumph in Canley, Coventry when it was being when it was being closed down, or for the staff at the Morris Engines factory at Courthouse Green, Coventry when that was being closed? There wasn't any support whatsoever, in fact it was more a case of ha, ha, ha, we're ok, tough luck.
The comments regarding BMW is totally wrong. They deliberately changed the indicators to a position that meant no sports versions could be made, it needed a full rebuild of the front. They asset stripped Rover of the Mini, they didn’t have a front wheel drive system, they stripped Land Rover as they didn’t have the ability to prof-Duce four wheel drive, they stripped the Land Rover engineering departments computers and took t-not just the mini, but also the new small car that became the 1 series, a company who supported the Nazis from the start and took until the mid eighties when forced to apologise. When the 75 was launched, the headlines were BMW doesn’t have faith in Rovers future. Utter sxum
Looking back......And I know its a lead balloon etc arrogance etc. sorry.......But didnt the employees ever have n incling that the cars were NOT competitive , no sales hotties. outta date? That the dirt d hit the fan? And all the strikes? Didnt they half look for other work. in the case Rover died??
Working in a foundry at the time a lot of folks knew folks working there. They were very well paid. And it was a time where a lot of British companies bought company cars and we pretty much supported our car makers by buying Rover. Once the better cheaper Japanese models came along fleet car buyers couldn’t justify to buy an inferior product.
BMW did what Rover should have done , Bring in the new mini as a brand on its own but typical in British company style they think that an old product can run forever and everyone will still be satisfied today and then when the shit hit The fan Taxpayer should bail the company again again and again
100% today there is no room for Rover in the industry. MG maybe, but no one is interested in driving a Rover unless you are the age of 60 or older. Even the younger drivers in the UK dont wanna be caught dead in a Rover, BMW saw this a long time ago, understood what pieces were worth anything, took them and moved on. Thats business, its a cold world out there. You want a Disney ending? Watch a Disney movie and let others stick to the true reality.
The MG version of the Rover 75 would have worked better if it had a twin-turbo V6 and AWD, not to mention that it probably would have been cheaper to go the twin-turbo V6 AWD route rather than re-engineering a FWD platform into a RWD one and paying Ford to borrow their 4.6 V8.
