The Last Days of Rover 

I remember filming this doco, it was a sad shoot when we realised how bad things really had been. The unions really shot them selves in the foot.

Had 3 75's 2 great 1 troublesome, absolutely gorgeous car couldn't believe I was driving something so simply gorgeous.

I have got a rover 75 connoisseur se estate that’s our daily driver, had it for 10 years it was previously owned by my dad. It’s done 140,000 miles it’s one of the comfiest cars I have had. And keeps running fine absolutely brilliant car can’t fault it.

I really wish MG Rover where producing cars today. I think some of the comments on the video are unfair - take an aim at BMW as well - not allowing Rover to produce an MG version of the 400 and 200 in the mid-1990s (when they were released in 2001, they were very successful, particularly the MG ZR - Britain's best selling hot-hatch). The stripping of Land/Range Rover and Mini from Rover Group and over-pricing the 200 and 400 - and dare I say, keeping the aged 800 alive all the way until 1999!

The rovers from the Honda era were very well build. And they were not style for a victorian horror writer with a top hat, like that 75 BMW came up with. Rover should had kept cars in the style of the SD1, but then with Honda reliability.

The Rover 75 is a future classic. 10 years from now us Brits will look at it and wish we had one.

"BMW had effectively replaced rover as the supplier of executive cars for the middle classes" THAT was the problem, not the krauts kicking their arses but that the idea of rover being a comparable marque to BMW being alien to me, a 25 yr old. Granted I'm not a proper petrol-head, but that was the issue. They'd driven that brand into the ground.

@FrightfulAccountant Another reason why the Rover 75 failed was because people remembered Rover and British Leyland's design failures (such as both the SD1 and the Rover 800) all too well. By the time the 75 came out Rover (like General Motors) had already done so much damage to it's public image, to the point where most people did'nt care. The 75 was also priced to compete with BMW, Mercedes, Lexus and others. If the 75 was sold at a cheap price, Rover would still be here today...

20 years on and the classic car market has not taken these cars to its hearts. the 75 in 2020 can be picked up on ebay for £1400 for a good one. a daily driver for £600. The P6 on the other hand....

How convenient they 'forgot' to mention BMWs chairman torpedoing the 75 on its launch by telling the world rover was over this killing the car the day it was born

despite the fact that the Mini became a massive sales success globally, even the Americans buy it by the million and their car magazines gave it lots of awards

i got my first car the other day. its a rover 45, and i'm proud to drive something british, with honda reliability. I will be buying rovers for as long as they are in existance, and considering that MG is on its way back, rover could easily rise again.

I bet the German or French Governments would not let this happen to its car industry

Ive had many rovers mgs now drive a mg zr facelift its a great car

My first car was a Rover 75 - not one of those talked about here but a 1950 P4 model. It was a car of very high quality, conservative in its engineering but superb in its construction. That quality continued through the P5 and P6 models. I bought a P6 3500 model and was very pleased with it. Then came the SD1 model - my mother bought one on the strength of my experience. It was an appalling car, very poorly put together - for example, a sun visor fell off as my mother drove it home from the dealer. Her experience was not unique and by the time of the Honda Legend/Rover Vitesse model, the reputation of Rover was such that it was well and truly outsold by the Honda. Rovers then disappeared from the market here until the new 75 was introduced. Some neighbours bought one and their experience was as bad as my mother's some 30 years earlier. They were not alone and Rover very quickly went from the market here, with no attempt at a further revival.

I love my rover 75, nervous as i am about its reliability in the future, presently its a pleasure to drive. Fangled computer engineering is going to make diy maintenance a bit more tedious, hopefully not insurmountable for an amateur

But the CityRover was an absolute mistake though, I don't think virtually anyone would disagree with that.

@supertrix101 Rover always had the image of a luxury brand. The SD1 3500 vitesse was priced to compete the BMW M5... The Rover 200 indeed was the first 'sensible' car the offered, but still it was priced higher then the Honda Civic it was derived from. The Rover 800 had some problems with the first series, but after that it became a real bullet proof car. Both the honda and the K engines seemd to last forever. and the 600 was a big succes on the continent!

Rebadging foreign cars sounds like Holden Australia rebadging GM Korea Daewoo cars.

I feel Rover, the workers at Rover, the fans of Rovers and everyone ever in some way connected were the expandable asset in a bigger game. A Game of Car industry, a game of Politics and more. The first domino to where we are now, almost seemed planned. No one who could do anything cared about Rover, just what they could take from her carcass.

I'm miss it!!

WHO LOVES ROVER will get me the archives

I love the 75 and I'm 12

Also, to sell the Rover for 10 pounds is a tax dodge. They, the owners did the same with the Range Rover, it exchanged hands for the Grande sum of 1 pound..

Jaguar Land Rover own the Rover marque. Why don't they release a budget jaguar brand call it Rover and install last generation mechanics in it from older jaguars? It would make a fortune. Most working class can't afford a jaguar but everyone seems to like them. If you had a new car with last gen jaguar mechanics and fittings and called Rover and made it in the UK and incorporated competitive finance deals on them they'd make a bloody killing. But alas they're short sighted. Still British companies are run by workers who want a fortune and management who couldn't run a puss up in a brewery.

Love the dapper chapper at 2:39

The ironic thing is all these boy racers choose the Rover 75 to tune and race so it had got Bling Bling in the end.

James May still sounds the same... just that he do not shout now..

No no no . The boys from Brittain did the trick , with a little aid of the Bavarians .! Did the Bavarians anything for the P4 P6 and the Majestic P5 ? Don't downplay yourself dear Britts ! I am the proud owner of a 2000 Cowley built 75 1.8 Connoseur for 5 years now , and love it to bits . I will keep this Britt Beauty as long as possible .

@fathead431 You do realise that the Rover brand is owned by Tata as well as Jaq and Land Rover. If Rover itself were to rise again it would be no different to any British branded car on the road today. If Rover were to be brought back, the likely hood is that it will be just the CityRover again. The new MG 6 is essentially a Chinese car like a Jaguar is Indian and Bentley is German. The only properly British cars are ultra-exclusives, like Aston Martin, Mclaren, Morgan etc.

didn't expect James May there XD

смотрю и плачу .

Rover at the end kind of came across as "Last desperate attempt."

Interesting you should say that. I've read that executives of the Ford Motor Company here in the States did much the same with a new car that they launched in 1957 - something called the Edsel.

The Rover is an amazingcar. The mechanics have done every thing to make owners dissatisfied.

Britain lost engineering supremacy somewhere in the 1950s. Rover was part of the long slide since then (even rolls royce has gone offshore!) Those of us living in "the colonies" came to regard "made in Britain" as a warning label by the end of the 1960s - and with good reason too.

Mid 90s were the last point Rover could have turned it around. BMW had a solid plan for the 55, 35, crossover etc. But it just couldn't work out. After that, game was up. I do wonder if Alchamy could have made a good go of it with MG but I know they couldn't quite find the finance.

James May is telling the truth... 3::45

4:41 I wonder how close those german executives were to being certifiable when they sold the company, they were probably like "JUST TAKE THE COMPANY! PUT US OUT OF OUR MISERY."

😢

It always looked to me as though the rover 75 was developed especially for old men. Granted the retro new mini and new beetle were doing well, Chrysler made the PT cruiser (admittedly looked like a hearse especially if you had it in a dark colour) and the rolls silver seraph was effectively an updated silver shadow was out so harking back to the past was not unique but somehow the rover 75, like nearly all the BL products before it (maestro/montego, allegro, maxi etc) missed the mark. It also had to contend with the terrible reputation earned by those preceding cars. The retro styled jag x type, s type and XJ of the era missed the mark too and jag wouldn’t be around now if they hadn’t changed tack and brought out the xf when they did to set the stall out for the future, if only rover could’ve realised that at some point.

And what about the role of BMW? Rover wanted to design a sporty Rover 75, but BMW wanted them to do a retro 75. It didn‘t work for Jaguar with the S-Type, nor for VW with the Beetle and do you remember the PT Cruiser? Very helpful by BMW was the statement of their CEO when the car was launched at the Motor Show!

The 1998 Rover 75 was one of the best 1992 cars built. There was nothing wrong with it from the point of view of quality and reliability. In fact, it was probably the best built Rover ever. The problem is it looked like the best car on the front row of the used car lot. While some British buyers like acres of walnut and many hides for their cars, the rest of the world just didn't want top pay for such posh items. It had olde world charm at a time the buyers wanted thing slike carbon fibre and exotic alloys, not things they could get from a lumber yard and an abattoir. Rover management was five years behind on a car that needed to sell like ice in a desert if the com[any was going to be saved. When the 75 reached sales that were only half of conservative estimates, the management geniuses decided they needed to go backwards in time to the Metro and Mini. Their idea of a new Metro was the Tata Indigo. It was shipped over mostly assembled with a few small finishing touches like bigger wheels and stiffer springs. The CityRover could have been a good seller for Rover if only they could have had the funds to do some minimal redesign and sell the car for £900 less. Rover was now depending on the the CityRover to sell 40,000 units a years at £6,895 each, thuis earning Rover about £50 million a year. If they could have been satisfied with a £35 million a year instead, the car may have sold. It wasn't an awful car, but it was awful when considering the price. Rover knew the CityRover needed work to be a good, rather than just good enough, supermini. Denying Top Gear a test vehicle and the pricing about killed off the CityRover before it even got started, selling only about 8,000 cars during the two years Rover had left. Rover from 2001 to 2005, felt like a junkie, reeling from his last fix to the next, and hoping somehow he could get clean with just one more fix. Of all the British car company failures. Rover was probably the most avoidable and most heartbreaking

I've seen this documentary and its a little unfair really - with mo mention of any successes during their last years such as the 'R8' Rover 200/400 launched in 1989 which was NOT a poor product, but rather a fantastic product......class leading in fact! The second generation Rover 400 1995-2000 was also a high quality product with a class leading ride, just a bit over priced. The 600 was great too. Also from memory they start talking about water leaks and doors falling off Rover SD1's - which is crap. The SD1 was a great car. Couple of quality issues on early cars, but other cars even the Granada had quality issues back then.

yet MG now making new cars & that plant too was next to longbridge, bmw on the otherhand were only interested in design rights of the famous mini & once they got that the rover franchise was just discarded like it was rubbish

@fathead431 Nope, Ford sold the dormant Rover brand along with JaguarLandRover, and the Daimler and Lancaster brands.

YE OLDE JAMES MAY

Car manufacturers should have included potential buyers in the design from first principles to final branding done properly a winner could emerge

I bought a mgtf assembled in china in 07. Chinese firms doesn't own the Rover brand, Ford or Tata kept it. MG is revived in shanghai now. but far from ideal.

Brexit reminds me of the demise of Rover. It is a competitive world out there and Britain is oblivious to it all.

At least Jaguar Land Rover is doing well in the UK and around the world. And the are many small British companies making cars like Ineos, TVR, Arial and many kit car companies like MEV (Mills Extreme Vehicles)

@TheClarksonFan no, rover is currently dormant and the brand is owned by ford. tata have nothing to do with rover/mg. shanghai auto. company own mg and have rover moulds, and sell rovers under the brand "roewe". if they were brough back and were made in china, then good! stuff made in china is cheaper. very few cars are properly british these days :(

@6devilishangel6 I don't say the 75 was an ugly car. In its own mysterious ways, the 75 was an elegant car... ...but we all know the market for victorian horror writers with a topper, was ano 1998 not the biggest you could imagin. From a market point of view, the 75 was a disaster. BMW complained the 75 didn't sell well... ...but they were the one who came up with it in the first place. RIP Rover (w)

The intentions of the Phoenix Five were good, but instead of investing in new cars, they squandered it all on racing and refused offers of cash to keep the company going, which is stupid beyond extreme, and they plundered the companies pension scheme, gave the Chinese the property and design rights to Rover's car line-up and walked away victorious!

it feels to me like gm and chrysler are going down the same road to destruction :(

jaguar land rover will be saved, for the first time in decades, they're both making cars that people aspire to. i'm 16 now, and i'm already contemplating buying a range rover the minute i can afford one.

@TheClarksonFan you're talking about the brand. rover, mg, vauxhall - all british brands, but not neccessarily british made. most "british" cars arent british made these days. tata owns jaguar ffs :/ I would love to see rover rise again, but sporting a different image.

Nothing like your own team stabbing you in the back is there !

BMW just wanted the Land Rover engineers to create the X5 .

I never understood why BMW didn't enforced their engineering quality on Rover and MG like they did with Mini. small reliable mass production cars of the BMW group could be sold as Rover without hurting the luxury car market. Imagine also an BMW M version as MG or BMW roadster Z4 as MGH. Sadly Rovers are still nice cars to see but not at technical level

BMW mini sells 500k a yr should have put that In production.....

ldv vans are as well and prob jaguar landrover group.

@TheClarksonFan *Jag

THE THIRD WORLD NATION I.E. INDIA BOUGHT ONE OF THE BRITISH JEWELS JAGUAR AND EVEN THE ROVER BADGE. HOW THINGS CAN TURN OUT IN THE END.

Rover 75

The 75 was a nice car, but its main competitor was the S-type and I know which one I'd rather have!!!

I think that the Conservative Party is being kept alive by emotion and financial investment. It is the Rover of politics in death throes.

How did they know that the city rover was failure even before it was sold?

Tel me : why has a Mercedec C class in Elegance guise acres of lether and even wood ? Why does a Toyota Avensis have acres of lether and , yes you gessed , wood ? What is the problem ? James May ownes a Rolls Shadow with , Yes here we are again , lether and wood ! What a hypocrit ! I am a Dutchman , and the very proud owner of a 75 connoseur , and yes , i LOVE it ! Extremely reliable , great comfort , rustfree after 21 years . Topgear DROP DEAD . ,

That's the problem the public and staff not buying the cars.But under investment and the cars being not up to scratch.The writing easy on the wall, always second best to Ford ....

Companies like Rover and SAAB began as fabulous car companies centred on engineering excellence and innovation but when taken over by large corporations ended up directionless and eventually run by faceless desk jockeys who were given a job to run a dying parrot then made decisions on how long they could keep themselves employed by keeping the (now) dead parrot going with zero money and new ideas.

The english public didnt get what the top brass was trying to do. The answer came immediatly. The Chinese answered the call. Tatamotors owns the Rover brand. The Chinese models reversed ingeneered models are called Roewe. Two things industry and public should learn from this is never to get drunk while doing business and never to put national feeling before business. The chinese got Rover nearly for free.

Well Rover said it was too posh to use BMW engines. .they will design their own engines...that was the Beginning of the End for Rover....Rolls Royce use BMW engines now....how ironic?😥

did they all have real wood dashs or were some fake

@fathead431 but would you seriously like to see Rover "rise" in the hands of a foreign owner? I dont want to seem xenophobic, but if anyone was to go for a foreign owned UK brand, Jaguar would be their first port of call? The name "Rover" itself carries negative connotations as well as a bad image. Its awfully sad, but true at the same time. the best anyone can go for nowdays is a Vauxhall Astra; at least its a UK brand with a strong UK manufacturing presence.

Rowvee RONG WEI LOL!

the biggest crime of course was what the dreaded bmw people did with the mini -- I still shudder in my sleep

This car company was the only good thing England had going four it

I would of boutht it for £10 and desined a good car like a ford focus

If rover would had been sold to rover, all this shit would never had happened...

Rover might have employed many, Quentin, but it was all taxpayers' cash. My pleasure.

not amongst mini enthusiasts- too unreliable.

A load of rubbish because even though the turmoil queit all of car companies went bust, not just Rover. Today there are Rover clubs all over the world five of them are in Germany. What car companie is British fully, not many at all but which country has it own car company which BMW or Mercedes etc haven't got there sticky hands in

hahaha i wouldnt exactly call that getting back at us! Its a well known fact we need foreign management.

cant wait for brexit when we can start building fabulous cars like this again :-)

Perfect second hand car for brexiters

Shit motors, always were, let’s have a strike

What an ugly car.

Britain made crap cars Get over it