Longbridge, end of an era?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4422705.stm
I hope not.
not another manufacturing industry down the toilet. we cant all work in tescos or mcdonalds
atb
steve
It took the damned Chinese long enough to decide didnt it? It would be good to hear the reasons why they thought it wasnt viable, as didnt Rover have
a new car and series of engines planned for next year?
The problem though doesnt just stop with Rovers 6000 employees. There are firms all over the midlands that produce(d) parts for Rover, and those parts
probably constitute a large income to those companies.
Stay tuned as more smaller businesses fold...
David 
are you sure? if they had a new car and new engines, the deal with the chinese wouldnt have been so important.
thing is, rover are a small manufacturer, that doesnt even appeal in their own market cos the cars are too old and if you cant sell cars, you cant
make new models. catch 22.
very few car manufacturers make money. It could be considered that the govt could nationalise and make rover strong, which would create jobs, stop
imports cos we would buy british, and improve the economy by helping balance of payments. It may even be tolerated that rover could lose money. it
wont happen, not in the least cos its against eec rules.
In the middle of last year, I was in south korea on a 5 day trip. This involved neing driven for hours and hours over those days on the motorways and
roads of south korea.
korea isnt rikshaws and stuff - its a lot like japan - very industrialised and western influenced.
without a word of a lie, I only saw THREE non korean cars (they were beemers) in all that time. They make a lot more models than we see here, right up
to huge limos. They dont drive the little stuff much.
When I asked why all the cars were korea, i was told that they like to buy korean. What wasnt said is that the koreans dont like the japs much, and so
likely dont buy their cars.
when i first drove in 1977, foreign cars were a small part of the market. Now they are ALL the market.
atb
steve
[Edited on 7/4/05 by stephen_gusterson]
The word over on blatchat is that this anouncement is premature - according to MG Rover management.
I hope so - but they need to start being a viable business or it's only a matter of time.
I hope something can be salvaged - it would be a shame to lose our last volume manufacturer, not to mention all those jobs.
quote:
Originally posted by zilspeed
The word over on blatchat is that this anouncement is premature - according to MG Rover management.
I hope so - but they need to start being a viable business or it's only a matter of time.
quote:
Originally posted by stephen_gusterson
when i first drove in 1977, foreign cars were a small part of the market. Now they are ALL the market.
atb
steve
[Edited on 7/4/05 by stephen_gusterson]
i might have kept that quiet!
some of the pics ive seen make it look a bit like
a triumph herald.
freakily, the pic came from a french site!
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://carcatalog2.free.fr/hist8w.jpg&imgrefurl=http://carcatalog2.free.fr/hist10f.htm&h=353&w=54
9&sz=66&tbnid=kVrcpWXP1cwJ:&tbnh=83&tbnw=129&start=2&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dreliant%2Brebel%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG
Rescued attachment rebel.jpg
quote:
Originally posted by zilspeed
The word over on blatchat is that this anouncement is premature - according to MG Rover management.
I hope so - but they need to start being a viable business or it's only a matter of time.
Word has it that the Shanghi Auto are in the process of buying FIAT, apparently the books are not 'as' bad.
Calculations are showing that 35-40,000 people will be affected by this closure due to the high number of subcontractors that Rover used.
It was inevitable... but MG may survive as a seperate entity - but doing what, who knows?
we "used" to do a fair bit of work at Rover, they where well n truely set up by BMW, look at the BMW mini sales, that line was installed and set up at Birmingham then moved by BMW.........
BMW got the know how to build 4x4s, the BMW 100, the rights to rape the Mini marque, destroyed Rover who were seen as a potential threat to BMWs core business and set thier bigest Japanese rival Honda back a few years in europe enough said.
Have any of you driven past Longbridge recently?
Some areas are already derelict. Old East Works is now Powertrain Ltd. Don't they supply Rover with engines? And who will now supply engines to
C*t**h*m?
RIP Austin, Morris, Wolseley, probably Rover; someone will buy the MG brand.
Apparently BMW kept Triumph and Riley.
Tough on all those folks whose livelihoods depend on MG Rover.
power train also supply to Lotus and a good number of other small applications, including a hovercraft, I believe.
From what I hear, Rover are not insolvent yet but with wage bills still coming in, it won't be long.
Rover do have a new model ready to go, they just need £100,000,000 to get it onto the forecourts.
The best hope for Rover is that they get bought by a car company who will "do a volkswagen". Even that would be too little for UK
manufacturing.
I smell a rat on the part of the chinese.......drop Rover then come in to pick up the peices for next to bugger all....
Yep the Chinese are going to be able to get just the bits they want for a song.
quote:
Originally posted by Jon Ison
we "used" to do a fair bit of work at Rover, they where well n truely set up by BMW, look at the BMW mini sales, that line was installed and set up at Birmingham then moved by BMW.........
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gusterson
what if......
the chinese dont do the deal. its bankrupt.
the administrator sells the business for a song......
to a bunch of chinese?
atb
steve
quote:
Originally posted by Triton
I smell a rat on the part of the chinese.......drop Rover then come in to pick up the peices for next to bugger all....
) but that would have to be licensed from BMW. ... with Britishtrident.
BMW may have sold off RR & kept Mini, but I don't know where you're coming from with the BMW 100?!
The 1-series is not related to any Rover in any way - it's all 3-series parts (engine, box, diff, electronics, etc) on a smaller platform. Rover
would wish they had knowledge of how to build something like that (i.e. it sells, and makes a profit!).
Furthermore when they gave (gave NOT sold) the company to John Towers, they included several hundred millions of pounds of free finance, over 70,000
vehicles in used stock, and left behind the very advanced 75 design and production line, which Rover would have NEVER been able to afford to build.
And as for Rover being a core competitor - hardly! What were Rover selling at the time they took over - the 200/400/600/800!
I'm sure BMW were quaking in their boots over people choosing a Rover 800 over a BMW 5-series. NOT! Only delusion would lead you to think they
were real competitors.
I think the cleverest plan was John Towers' - buy the company for a pittance, transfer the ownership of the only really profitable company in the
group (Rover Finance) into Phoenix directors' ownership, then take £13m into their own pension fund. Good idea, wish I'd thought of it!
Rant over. I just think looking for others to blame is pointless - it is terribly unfortunate (I live near there so see the effects first hand) but
they make cars which few people want to buy, to an average standard of build quality, and they don't do it very efficiently. They're not a
charity, they're a company, supposed to make money, but they've made no money for years, it was inevitable.
Adam.
I am amassed that they have lasted as long as they have rover as a company has been on borrowed time for a long wile. In my opinion the BMW was purely an asset striping operation and allthow it gave rover some more time it was not much. The company image and product range needs work and un less they address the rover image and product image every year or so rover will go from owner to owner until nothing is left or they collapse
well let's face it !!
most people apart from twats(sorry selective few) would'nt even touch a rover let alone buy the whole firm ,
as the the whole austin/morris/triumph/ leyland/austin rover/rover group have made some real shite in there time...some of which i've had the
un/fortune to own...lol
[Edited on 8/4/05 by marcyboy]
quote:
Originally posted by James
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gusterson
what if......
the chinese dont do the deal. its bankrupt.
the administrator sells the business for a song......
to a bunch of chinese?
atb
steve
quote:
Originally posted by Triton
I smell a rat on the part of the chinese.......drop Rover then come in to pick up the peices for next to bugger all....
It's not that simple though.
According to Radio4 last night; BMW still own the rights to the Rover Brand. Meaning that SAIC can take very little from this. Apparently they were after some technology (presumably stuff BMW put in place!
Apparently SAIC will get very little for the £60m they've already spent.
Cheers,
James
i dont understand the so called value of the MG brand.
there hasnt been a real MG for decades!!!!
the MGB was a bit naff. so you have to go back to the 40s and 50s for anything tangeable.
what kinda brand is that?
atb
steve
The MGF was successfull, in the sense it made a profit. There were talks of selling MG seperately to to Rover, with restored production to MGF. This I
somehow doubt will happen. Few manufactures - even on Locost scale - put all their eggs in one basket.
There are fairly detained plans floating on the net - that the concept of the GB200 at Genieva bout 10 years ago was looking close to a finish. Only
as late as Portsmouth Millenium Tower - renamed to Spinniker Tower after planning and funding crisi.
Appearntly, Shanghi Automotive were planning on keeping the designs but moving production. They currently make VW Polos and Golfs for the Chinese
market, and that contract ends 2007. THe have the build facilities but nothing to build.
Whatever happens. Its life. Everything is born, and everything dies. That is our only certainly.
What our ebay - here Rover comes!