It’s an absolute disgrace that the government let Rover fail! When you think about the greedy banks that were rescued it just shows where their priorities lie! This car would sell now, and shows how the future could have been - so sad! I had a new black Rover 75 connoisseur with cream leather. It was absolutely wonderful! Well done in rescuing this Tom!👍
Well done Tom, take a bow!! So refreshing to see a young person with such a passion for the British motor industry and MG Rover in particular. Thank you for raising the pubic consciousness and saving her!
I’d be very interested to know which members of the design team later worked for Vauxhall! As said above the large cabin mpv/luxury cross over (Vel Satis / Signum) was what the public should have wanted, not the endless SUV lookalikes that they actually wanted. Well done for getting it noticed & look forward to seeing it done.
Wow! What a fantastic achievement! Very well done! Got to admit, I’m still kind of glad the RDX-60 didn’t make production - and it certainly wasn’t a Golf, Astra, or even an Alfa 147 (the nearest I can think of as an example of a hatchback made from a cut down Exec saloon) competitor, but as a piece of British car manufacturing history, it’s absolutely golden!
Well done Tom, hopefully once restored to her best the British museum invite you back for a test drive. Any update on the other models at longbridge like the coupe mfg? Well done again, keep up the great work & looking forward to your next vid.
Hi Tom that's great news on all the other cars, looking forward to your vids on all the other mg/rover in the near future. You have saved these cars from being forgotten forever, left to rot & possibly destroyed. You are these car's saviour. Keep up the great work & all the best with your SD project.
The wheels are "irmscher stila" wheels, which were an upgrade for the Signum/Vectra in the irmscher parts catalogue. I have had a look at the designs very closely and they are identical.
Hi Tom. I was at The 2023 Appledore Classic Car show this year. I spotted an MG that did make very limited production(only 2 apparently). It looks similar but not the same. It was called the SVS but even the owner didn’t know what it stood for. I think it was a 4 litre but don’t quote me. I’m 60 and I have never seen it before. Take a look the video is titled “Appledore classic car show 16th July 2023”. According to the owner it stopped production when Rover went under. Shame really some of the best cars were coming out then. Keep up the good work young man . By the way the video is of the prize winners. Regards Graham 👍
This is so cool. I'd love to climb into the back of the car and start wiping down all the water. It looks really soggy and damp in there. The car is going to be massively popular and I cannot wait to see it.
Fantastic to see - well done! The car obviously is an early concept, and there are things I do and don't like about it. If they had had the money to develop the idea further it would have been interesting to see how the production car would have been. I spent every week buying Autocar from the mid 90s to the mid 00s to see if there was any news on the R40/75, then the R30 and latterly RDX60 and X120 - taking lots of flack from friends for my love of all things Rover! So its really wonderful to know this has been saved. Look forward to any updates on the other cars too
This is actually quite a late concept, albeit one built in a rush, after the 2003 redesign. There was a clinic of the original proposal in late 2002 or early 2003, when engineering was close to completion. The response at the clinic was so bad, that the core X60 (MG hatchback) was significantly re-designed, and I think all work on RD61 and 62 stopped. The need to stop engineering while the vehicle was redesigned was probably a contributing factor to the collapse of TWR.
Absolutely fantastic achievement! Its actually made me feel a little bit better this morning because for the last 20 years I've heard nothing but terrible and depressing news about Longbridge. This is the first positive news. You are a hero ❤
Well done Tom, I think we all share a sense of relief that now the car really is in a safe place (and hopefully join by the other prototypes soon). I work pretty close to the BMM so I will seek this one out to have a close look, do you know when it’s going on public display please?
Well done😊 im really glad its safe now, good work, i will be visiting the motor museum in the summer, so im hoping it should be ready by then. Regarding the rear suspension, as you probably already know, i think the reason why its has a different suspension than the 75 was because it had BMW design and therefore MG Rover would have to license it for this new car. What would be more interesting is maybe getting in touch with Peter Stevens, it would be lovely to see both him and that car together again.😊
Really interesting. There is an awful lot of Opel/Vauxhall in there, the shut lines, the general shapes and themes, the way the bumpers and wings intersect, the interior architecture. I wonder if there are any design staff, clsy modellers etc who worked on both cars.
So pleased to see your passion for these cars! I was sceptical that the car would ‘make it home’ in one piece. So often big corporates will just destroy stuff like this. Good job!
Cool it’s been saved, personally I think it looks absolutely horrendous, I’m no car designer but the proportions look really strange. Like someone’s tacked a longer than normal vectra front end onto the back end of a Chinese Astra from the mid 2000s the interior is very Vauxhall too although I will admit I like the seats. Having said that I’d rather it be saved than not! So fantastic work.
Now there's a BMW 1 series if I ever saw one... Those absolute parasites! Great to see the prototypes being saved, it's nice to see the potential piece MG Rover of history being salvaged.
What an incredible opportunity, to look over and explore a car that is a one off. For an early design concept, it's incredible well developed and clearly made to be functioning. I guess they wanted to develop something quickly that could be experienced to help get the project approved. The different wheels on each side might be a way of showing what the car looks like on different wheel designs, simple trick some VMs do, some vary the styling on each side on some design mockups. It looks so modern, and yes there's links to the Vectra/Signum but that wouldn't have been known when it was designed. Looks really cool, really adds to the what ifs and makes you think what they were working away in the background as the ship was sinking. Was the TCV also saved? Will that be at the museum? That's the one that gets me excited. So forward thinking, really could've put rover on the map. Congratulations to you and your campaign, using RU-vid for good. I wished I could've done more when I was at Longbridge. Really want the TF coupe saved, and Lord Austin's office too, which has the actual famous coin he flipped that determined the entire future of Austin! So much history, some so recent that needs to be recovered and celebrated. SAIC wants to kill off all of old MG, bar the few examples of MGBs that are good for marketing.
I remember seeing pictures of it in Autotrader just hoping Rover would hurry up and get it into production so that they had a chance of competing with the likes of the Focus or Astra. The 45 was over 10 years old and Rover desperately needed a competitive Mid-size car to become profitable.
It’s very similar to my Vectra C SRi V6 estate a bit shorter though, well done Tom on giving this project the boost it needed to save our history instead of the latest trend to destroy it. 🇬🇧👍
Awesome to see that its saved. So interesting to see the workings (or lack of) on a prototype. I have been in a prototype myself but cant remember what it was as its so long ago haha
I really like the styling. Great work. Also some of the missing bits of trim there are other copies that can be replicated like door pull trim etc. 3D printed.
A great looking car that had it been produced, would have been a game changer for the brand and perhaps saved it from extinction. I’m glad this prototype has been saved.
Could I ask a question? I have a Rover 75 2001. It's always made a kind of mechanical whirring sound when I unlock and lock the doors but it goes off. Just lately it's continued whilst I drive intermittently. Any ideas what it is?
My father was the owner of a Rover 400, and this prototype of a possible next generation of the 400/45/ZS is completely different, with a design language a bit similar to MG SV-R Xpower. Not a bit of classic style or Rover 45/75. So similar to Opel Signum appeared in 2002, would have been considered a bad copy of it. A shame that the factory ended the production. By the way, do you know the coupe prototype of the Rover 75? That and the MG TF were my dreams. Finally I bought a Peugeot 406 coupe, which has a colour very similar to famous British green colour used by Rover. Congrats for the video and regards!!
It wasn't "RDX60". The overall programme was "RD/X60", with the MG hatchback as shown here being X60, and the planned Rover-badged saloon and cross-over estate versions being RD61 and RD62 (although I cannot now remember which was which).
Absolutely fantastic news, it great to see this has been saved for future generations. I cant wait to go and see it at the museum. Look forward to seeing this once they have restored it. Well done to everyone who has been involved to save it. Are the other cars also going to be there as well?
Well done for finding it. Having seen it I would not have traded in my ZT for one in a million years in 2006 when it was probably due for launch. Interior is nowhere near as pretty as 75 either. I doubt if Richard Woolley had any input on it . Interesting non the less !
Absolutely fascinating video! You see a lot of…patterns in car evolution. I reckon that was more a Signum/Vel Satis. Both of those were 2002-2009. Most production spans in cars, are 7 years. So probably some market intelligence was offered to all 3 companies. If you measure it, I would expect it to be a good bit bigger than a Golf of the era. And it looks to have a lot of rear legroom, which a Golf/Focus wouldn’t. Measure length and wheelbase and I’d bet it’s similar to those 2. Blown away by this….
What a great looking car. Of course the engine would overheat. Feel a bit teary for the lost opportunities. Probably too little too late, even if it did all come together, but I can dream. I’m 61. All I wanted to do when I was young, was be a development engineer for BL. I will view this car in time. I remember be as enthused as you.
