The best two cars I have ever owned was a Land Rover Defender and a Rover 100, so I am a fan, but the public are not stupid. MG Rover's slick advertising does not make up for old designs, warmed up. The Metro was designed in the late 1970's but kept going until 1998, by which time it looked silly against Johnny Foreigner. Rust was also a problem. The K Series engine was a brilliant design let down by a duff head gasket which lazy Rover left too late to rectify. The Cityrover? Oh dear....
I blame BMW mainly. BMW started it by seriously de-valuing the brand. BMW stopped all the sporty and fast models (Rover's where infact desireable in the early/mid 1990's), prevented new models from being sportier or having sporty veriants, they then left the company in the shit taking Land Rover and Mini (and took all the credit for the MINI). Perhaps the Phoenix 4 finished the company off, or helped too. Possibly some poor managment decisions where made. BUT, it started in the 1990's with BMW.
BMW left rover with 1 billion pounds in the kitty,the damage was done long before with poor management decisions and poor car designs,they couldn’t complete with better cars coming from Germany and the Japanese brands ,then throw Vauxhall and ford in the mix and it’s a very crowded market place rover stood still for far too long
Everyone who owned the group damaged it, from the BL poor management, to the asset stripping of British Aerospace and BMW. Phoenix was just stringing out a dead donkey for 5 more years. It’s a shame as the whole group really did have a superb range of cars.
@@howard81 the underinvestment in BAe days did for it in my opinion. The P4 kept everything going for 5 more years & gave us the MGs (which BMW would never have sanctioned in a million years). If the Chinese JV had gone ahead it might all still be here today.
just got a zt 1.8 turbo,always loved these cars.the old skool shape is really cool and the engine pulls like a train, as far as the head gasket goes every car on brand has its problems and a head gasket is such an easy fix by the way the water pump is the real problem just keep an eye on it.the mg zt a lot of bang for ya buck................................
@LCCR1993 couldnt agree more, mg rover cars are great if the head gasket goes it is so cheap to sort them especially if your a mechanic yourself and can do it xD
It seems that the management didn't know what the problems are, the corp ad didn't address the reliabity problem, which kills Rover/MG any chance to survive in the sea of good cars
RIP Vangelis...the music used in the Brand Values update is called "Conquest Of Paradise" It was the soundtrack from Ridley Scott's 1992 film 1492: Conquest of Paradise ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8bvNdNzeBsE.html
I think if the money bmw left for mg rover was invested into a new model it could of been so different they should of worked with the italians for style japanese for engine and drivetrain and the rover body and interior
Now just a memory. Had Blair and his daft government given BMW the investment they asked for, as afterall every other country invests in its national motor sector, BMW would have broight the new small Rover to market, and perhaps it would have kept the company alive.
MG Rover died because money greedy directors sold it off to BMW who didn't want another european competitor who, sorry to say, were classed in the Jaguar/Mercedes area at that point.
I suppose there has to be a looser in business, MG Rover group had too many problems and these problems were nothing new - they went back decades. The 1960s / 70s culture of the company was it's major downfall. BMW soon realised they had dropped a major bollock by getting involved with this company, they obviously saw the money hemorrhaging away and decided to run for the hills. Still sad though the way it panned out.
@@ep1929 True - and for those people who criticised the government (i.e the taxpayer) for not bailing out Rover, just look at all the money that was sunk into British Leyland over the years and how that turned out. Companies fail for a reason and Rover failed because no one wanted to buy their cars (including the British public) - simple as that.
