NB MG R.I.P

[NorthernWave]

The futures not looking good for the 'BRITISH' car plant MGR. A real shame to see yet another british industry die!!
I think many of us have had an MG or Rover at some point and I for one know that the various MG's I owned were fantastic. More fun than I could shake a stick at.
If only more of us would buy british, and the british press would stop slating anything british!!!

Chris

 

[Geoffs]

Not been a proper MG since the Abingdon plant closed. Sticking an MG badge on a 400 or 75 ain't the same.

Don't get me wrong. Not against Rovers. My daughter has a 400 and it's a cracking motor. Poeople crticise an old model range, but to my mind the 200, 400 and 75 can still match anything Ford, Vauxhall or anyone else can put up.

Anyway, off to Poole and boating for the day now/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif.

 

[oldgit]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

Sorry to disagree but,MG apart from the very early cars produced a string of very ordinary dull sports cars.Not denying that they gave lots of fun to many people but the company was a "classic" case of what was wrong with our car industry.Most of the later cars were just in production far to long.Only the little frogeye(Healey) broke any new ground.After that came a string of mildly restyled slow and dire products built around the ancient "A" and "B" blocks.With a sad far to late effort to gain power with the MGC V8.Triumph started sort of OK with the rather girly /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gifSpitfire and the cramped GT6,but the disaster of the dreadful unreliable Stag and the TR7,that was the end of them.While smaller companies innovated such as Jenson(4 wheel drive)Lotus(Engines/suspension/plastic bodies) and TVR,BL just declined in that genteel way that the british do so well.Had they dared to produce something a bit radical,the good old public would have ignored it it droves,prefering sports cars that reflected the tweedy pipe smoking image we love to perpetuate.
BMW made the big mistake of thinking that the UK wanted old fashioned retromobiles such as the 75 and having realised that what we all really wanted was nice reliable well built german cars,gave Rover 500M in cash and made their escape,taking along with them the new Mini.
The company was a lost cause ages ago and should have been put out of its misery a few years ago when we had the chance.Nostalgia will not keep any company in the red,perhaps a niche market such as Morgan will be its future.Do I feel sympathy for the poor buggers being made redundant,of course,But the real villians of the piece are those who for one reason or another did not take the chance to sort this mess years ago.
Always remember of chum of mine moaning that his year old Austin Healey 3000 was an absolute dinosaur compared to his mates newly aquired Elan.

 

[SteveE]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

What amazes me is whether we like the Rover or MG is personal choice, but the lack of government not to buy British for local council, police forces, the armed forces etc is criminal. I resent seeing Merc's, BMW's and Volvo's as Police cars when a Rover would be as good and in some cases probably better...

Thats how Blair and Brown could have helped MG....

 

[Lakesailor]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

Nostalgia should be reserved for the Cooper S (the real one of course).
BMW knew what they were doing by keeping the name.

 

[oldgit]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

Soory again steve but can only comment from personal trade experience that the 75 has not got a good reliabilty reputation are far as engine reliabilty is concerned.
Drove a brand new small rover last week and immediately was aware of engine vibration coming through the gearstick and the lack of sophistication in the cabin..Small things I know,but just shows how far off the pace the Rover is.
Want a decent car,get the new generation Octavia or want to support the UK workforce buy something decent that is built in this country.

 

[britemp]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

Aahhh, a classic oldgit post - never one to let your ignorance of a subject get in the way of your opinions are you? /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

There's never been an MGC V8. The C was a stright 6, the MGB was available as a V8. What has triumph got to do with MG-Rover? If you want to go back to BL days why not quote Land Rover and Jaguar - both BL brands now doing rather well, the only difference being better management and much more investment. The new Mini was designed entirely by Rover engineers at Cowley and uses a Rover designed and built engine. As for your other examples, the 4WD system in the Jensen was designed by Rover engineers working at Ferguson Formula, Lotus have for many years used engines designed and built by Rover and still do today as do Caterham. TVR would not exist without the Rover V8.

I do agree entirely with you about the mis-management issue however. Most of Rovers current line-up problems are a result of BMW's complete inability to understand what they had bought. The 75 is a good car aimed at a market that doesn't exist and they didn't have the faintest idea what MG meant - in a survey of US Mazda Miata (MX-5) owners, 65% said they would seriously consider replacing their car with an MGF if it was available in the US, but it never was.

Receivers have not been appointed to wind the company up, administrators have been appointed to refinance or sell the company as a going concern, let's hope they achieve this quickly with sufficient investment for the company to flourish and protect the 20,000 plus jobs that rely on it.

 

[oldgit]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

Was the 1097? or big engine cooper ever built in house at BL or was it sorted by outside fettlers.

 

[britemp]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

JD Power survey 2000 - Rover 75 comes 5th out of over 100 european saloons for reliability, beating BMW. . . . . . . . /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[britemp]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

Unsurprisingly, the Cooper engine mods were designed Cooper in Warwick who were owned by BMC. The engines were all built in-house by BMC. All the Mini Cooper engines were BMC A-series units, the ones you criticise in your other post. They still managed to win just about every race they entered however. . . . . . . /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Lakesailor]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

[ QUOTE ]
Was the 1097? or big engine cooper ever built in house at BL or was it sorted by outside fettlers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cooper S engines were 1071cc then 970cc (shorter stroke on same engine to get into 1litre racing class) and then 1275cc. There were many alterations (different block casting the main one) to the regular "a" series engines.

John Cooper Racing did the original stuff on the non-S 997cc cars, but BMC Special Tuning soon took over and Stuart Turner together with Alec Issigonis (who had initially been against the idea) developed the S versions.

 

[lanason]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

The 1097cc engine was used in the Morris Minor.
now that was a real Morris Garages product. I want one for my daughter to learn to drive on - great first car car. My first one was BGL 696 C, grey with red insides, i bort her 6 months before my 17th birthday. £60 without an MOT. spent £30 on the rear spring hangers and had a wonderful car.

 

[Lakesailor]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

Being pedantic (and I am) the Morris Minor was a sidevalve 803cc engine.
this became the Morris 1000 with the introduction of a full width windscreen and ohv 998cc engine which later became the 1098cc engine which was also used in the Austin/Morris 1100 and early Metros

The Morris Minor/1000 was a great car. I had several. Favourite was the pickup.

 

[oldgit]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

Sorry,for inaccurate info but it is so easy to mix up one outdated and overweight car with another(MGC MGV8 and now the 75 with guess what a V8)and as for Lotus think they went for K series cos the engine they really wanted,the toyota,was not available. Prior to that their power of choice was either Ford or the in house 907. Think only the Lotus 6 ? used the old BMC A donkey.

 

[[2068]]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

Most of what the company built doesn't make sense as a car range. The MG-TF deserves to survive, as does the MG ZT (IMHO, the Rover 75 was closer to what a small Jaguar should have been than the X-Type...)

The 25 and 45 and their derivatives were good cars in their time, which was about 1995. Rover as a brand is pretty much worthless, but I would be disappointed if something couldn't be done with at least some of the workforce, the MG-TF line, and the MG brand.

(the only people buying Rover 25/45's were either the very old, because they had always bought one, or the very young, because of the massive depreciation and cheap insurance).

In any case, the Icarus Four deserve to get the boot: new management required.

dv.

 

[SimonA]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

I drive a Rover 75. I think it is an under rated car, mine has full leather, V6 engine, auto gearbox, sat nav, TV with teletext, cruise control, electric everything. It's a great motorway car.

I think MG Rover should have dumped the rest of the range and just made 75's and MG's. I once had a Rover 25 (1.4), and it was rubbish. The cambelt had a nasty habit of snapping every 20k or so, which bent all the valves.

 

[steverow]

Where I live(Warwick) we're desperately hoping that the company can be salvaged. There are many suppliers to Longbridge in Warwick, Leamington and Coventry, the Corporate HQ of Wagon..major major suppliers is here, the Gaydon Test track is five miles away and experimental centre is there as well.
There must be at least 5000 jobs in this area dependent on it.
Add to the problems the fact that Jaguar are ceasing production in Coventry, and Peugeot are taking shifts off at Ryton, and knowing the weasely French, they'll be shutting that down as well, the most efficient car plant in Europe..but when it comes down to jobs..you know who the French will save first...their own.
Massey Ferguson production at Coventry has all but ceased..soon there will be nothing left, and this area will by like the Welsh Valleys.
The Government should really learn the lessons and stop British Companies being sold off to foreign concerns.
As as been shown, they owe us no loyalty, and show us none either.
I'm afraid the damage was done to Rover by BMW, who failed to understand it at all.
Equally the problems at Jaguar are down to Ford, who are wondering why the American market has collapsed, and just cant understand why the great American public dont want to buy a Ford with a Jaguar badge on it. Take away the Heritage, and you kill the appeal of the product.

Steve.

 

[NorthernWave]

OLDGIT: I think you are wrong about the lotus, why? out here in the states the Lotus Elise comes with the ToyMota engine. It wouldn't be too good to use the K series out here as no other car shares that engine.

I think the U.S market could be huge for MG and Rover but only for the 75/ZT V6 and V8's and the TF. For the rest of the range to be any good out here they would have to throw alot of money at updating them. But as with the Jaguar situation they must stay british. The americans love our heritage.


Chris

 

[britemp]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

LOL, wrong again! Lotus chose the K-series because it was very good and more importantly, light and tunable, as per Colin Chapmans theory of the benficial spiral of lightness. They have only recently chosen the Toyota Celica engine because it is pre-homologated for the US market and was introduced so that US sales could begin. Yeah only the 6 and some other obscure, unsuccessful competition car used the A series. Mini Cooper I think it was called. . . . . . . /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I don't mind you having an irrational hatred of MG Rover, just don't try to back it up with facts you don't understand!

So tell me oldgit, what paragon of automotive design and engineering is your chosen steed? /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[britemp]

Re:Will this company please lie down.

Agree entirely, except much more worthless brands than Rover have gone on to greatness such as Skoda. Rover have a much less steep hill to climb than the one our Czech friends have conquered.