Why the hell did this country let MGR fail.

Yes, they produced some old products, but they were damn good and distinctive.

I actually believe that MGR were actually starting to turn the corner, and had they been allowed to get the next generation of products out, they would have been damn good.

they didn't do too bad even when they had no money. Revamping the 25, and making the ZR's and Streetwises too. A lot of people went for em!

 

Why the hell did this country let MGR fail.

Yes, they produced some old products, but they were damn good and distinctive.

I actually believe that MGR were actually starting to turn the corner, and had they been allowed to get the next generation of products out, they would have been damn good.

I agree, if only there was enough money in the pot so that MGR could get their ideas into production, things would be so much different now.

 

When I read about all the little things that the ex-MGR engineers had in development, it is very very sad.

 

The thing is, ideas are cheap enough but to develop an idea into a road going car costs a great deal of money, money which MGR couldn't get their hands on. MGR desperately needed a cash injection to make their ideas reality. The 75 coupe concept looked stunning, that car alone would of raised MGRs profile.

 

Launching the new ZR with a 2.0 K series engine with 200bhp would certainly have made its mark again as a real contender for hot hatch status. I really dont think this remodelled stuff cuts it really. Yes it may look slightly different and a mis-match of various parts, it needs something special that will set it apart from the rest. Its a case of "seen it all before" really.

 

Yeah I agree they needed to do something different. But not marginal stuff.

The 45 replacement would have made a mark.

 

:lol: I saw a black CityRover the other day being driven by an elderly couple and it actually looked good, it looked like a Metro. If only the interior was replaced, the suspension refined and the price lowered slightly. MGR could of actually been onto a winner with that car, instead it was a disgraceful attempt at a 100/Metro replacement.

 

Yup, Kevin Howe raped that project. They would have been better badging it as something different, maybe an Austin. Pricing it at £5,995 and they could have got away with the crudeness. But my pricing it £2k more and badging it as a Rover, expectations were so much more.

 

I guess things were so desperate back then, that any opportunity as persued, even to the detriment of image.

I've split this discussion, as this is important and has moved away from the original topic.

 

I've split this discussion, as this is important and has moved away from the original topic.

Good thinking Ian, I was going to suggest maybe deleting our posts as we had gone slightly off-topic. :lol:

Superminis are incredibly important and I think that superminis are what many manufacturers spend great effort on getting right. The VW Fox for instance is a cracking little car and gets people into VW ownership at a relatively budget price.

MGR should of used what available resources they had more wisely, the development of a budget small sector car should of been considered a fairly high priority. Did MGR actually have any supermini concepts or was the CityRover all that they had to offer?

 

I think they desperately needed a decent small car. the metro was always their best seller, and had they spent the money they had on developing a new small car (rover 15?) instead of that rediculous SV and also spending money developing the MG range it would possiably have saved them. Just my oppinion though.... Good thread Ian!

 

Yup, supermini's are the bread and butter of every car maker.

They introduce youngsters to the brand and mean that they develop to buy more expensive models in the range.

MGR missed out enormously.

 

I believe that the CityRover was the only project.

 

I cant recall hearing of any other small car projects or concepts either. That's actually quite poor really.

What were MGR playing at? Surely the SV or even the ZT V8 projects could of waited a little longer. A proper small car should of been developed, rather than giving us a CityRover.

 

SV Should never have happened, and V8 75/ZT didnt make any money at all, i think the predictions for it were "break even" per car sold ! Not forgetting the company had two attempts at doing it, Prodrive made a mess of it to start with (they won the bidding to engineer the car as they were cheaper than MGR Product engineering!) then MGR had to more or less start again at the original price quoted, so in effect it cost twice what it should have done !

 

I have asked this question myself several times since 2005, even if the government had propped up the company i still think it would have gone bust in the current financial climate.

If companies like Toyota, Nissan, Ford, JLR, Aston, GM, Chrysler etc are struggling, huge companies in their own right, i dont think MGR would have been able to survive, it would have been a case of "Putting off the inevitable" fora couple of years.

In hind sight i can see why the government let it go, a shame, but look at how they wont give money to the remaining car companies in the UK.

 

In hind sight i can see why the government let it go, a shame, but look at how they wont give money to the remaining car companies in the UK.

well they are going to be giving a load of money to an indian company (land rover) in the next few weeks...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7983203.stm

 

An odd question for you Ex tester, it is rumoured that the 75 chassis re engineering cost £30million. IF you had undertaken something similar on the 45 instead would it have been impossible to eliminate or at least cut the ammount of royalties paid to Honda? As I understand it money was lost on every 45/ZS so could eliminating the royalty make all the difference?

 

It is, perhaps, time to stop weeping into our beers over poor MGR. Despite the organisation's extraordinary ability to refresh models on a miniscule budget, every decade or so it is necessary to have a generous godfather donate a huge pile of cash to develop entirely new models. For MGR in 2005 only the 75 had any life left in it at all, the rest of the range was desperate for wholesale replacement. Remember, the only new models were largely assembled from imported parts and engineering. How much of the SV and 75 V8 was actual MGR engineering, I wonder?

With sales dwindling naturally due to model life cycle factors all the investment funds for new models would have had to have come from the government. So what cost a new range of vehicles? £2 billion? £3 billion? That's even assuming that the manufacturing side could somehow continue until the new models appeared. Then we would have had to wait a few more years until the new models had raised sales to a sustainable level.

The government's budget is limited (unless you feel like paying more taxes) so to come up with this kind of money it would have had to cancel other projects. Take your pick what these should be: perhaps national training programmes could be closed down, or JLR and Nissan denied loans.

I deeply regret what happened to MGR, but in the end what is most important for the country is whether the workers are as well, or better, employed elsewhere. I think we know that the assembly workers are worse off, but I do hope that the engineers are now better able to exploit their talents with well funded employers, rather than cobbling together new cars from imported bits and pieces.

 

IMO it was such a shame to let them go under !

Somebody correct me if im wrong but when mg-rover went under weren't the ZR and TF the best sellers in there class. Both as been said re-workings of older models but with i believe still plenty of life left in them !
The SV which always seems to come in for stick as being the wrong car at the wrong time i believe would give the brand more desirability !
All in all i think with a bit of government help financial and maybe got the police and other forms of public services to use MG-ROVER products could have made the difference. Ok yes i think they would be struggling now to in this current financial climate but i think it all could have been better for the country to have MG-ROVER still, altho this is all just words as there is no going back !

 

You are correct D/T. The ZR and TF were best sellers in their respective classes.

 

Shoeless, you obviously didn't read ExTesters post above, or any of his others, as you wouldn't have made the comment "How much of the SV and 75 V8 was actual MGR engineering, I wonder?"

 

Alright, a bit of a rhetorical question because the answer is obvious: not much! If I remember rightly, the 75 V8 had an American engine and transmission, with an Australian rear axle. So that leaves a new rear suspension and a reworked front suspension courtesy of MGR. The SV was even worse, being an MGR styling job on a De Tomaso/Qvale Mangusta. So please correct me, how much original MGR engineering (not Rover Group) actually went into these things?

 

So please correct me, how much original MGR engineering (not Rover Group) actually went into these things?

obviously quite alot because it corners very well....unlike the peoples cars who supplied the engine.

and besides, no one can deny the SV is a spitfire with 4 wheels :happy:

 

There's a video kicking around on YouTube of (I think) Sky News doing a phone in poll asking whether the Government should bail out MG Rover.

75% of the British public said no...

Shameful.

 

There's a video kicking around on YouTube of (I think) Sky News doing a phone in poll asking whether the Government should bail out MG Rover.

75% of the British public said no...

Shameful.

75% said no most likely because everyone seems to be unable to hold face in the storm with anything these days.
40 years ago if MG went into trouble british people would have bought them to strengthen the british enconomy.

 

This country doesn't invest in it's people or anything, until its gone, sold off or broke. Everything has to be done cheap (eg our motorway thickness of tarmac is considerably less than Germany, little wonder then when they are noisy and less durable).

I will probably be shot down in flames for the common misconception of 'running the country down' - I LOVE my country, which is why I speak up for it and say its the malaise of its leaders in Govt and industry like MGR over several decades with their eroding policies of underinvestment which did for MGR in the end....

Dave

 

How much did the TF out-sell the MX-5 by in the year that MG-R went under?

If the ZR is claimed as 'best selling in its class', what is it being compared with?

The TF is a good enough car that it's back in production now, and has (to some extent, and with the caveat of a major recession) proved successful today.

The 75/ZT remain impressive and fairly timeless, and you might imagine the type still being in production in a facelifted form.

But the idea that the rest of the range were to the same high standard is debateable.

djs.69 makes an interesting point about national investment, but one core problem is a lack of inward investment by firms themselves. MG Rover are a prime example of a company who did not invest sufficiently in their own future - instead prioritising directors' emoluments and shareholder dividend - a common (some would say inherent) problem in UK industry.

 

How much did the TF out-sell the MX-5 by in the year that MG-R went under?

If I remember correctly, it outside the MX-5 by around a 1,000 in 2004, which is the last full year that both were on sale. You can't really count 2005, as MGR went bump in the first half.

If the ZR is claimed as 'best selling in its class', what is it being compared with?

I would imagine that it would have been compared to all of the other hot hatches - Civic Type R, Focus ST170, C2 VTS et al.

The TF is a good enough car that it's back in production now, and has (to some extent, and with the caveat of a major recession) proved successful today.

I don't think it has been a success sadly, with only 100 odd sold I think the world has moved on since the TF was last produced, and I guess people are concerned about MG going bump again.

The 75/ZT remain impressive and fairly timeless, and you might imagine the type still being in production in a facelifted form.

I think it would have needed a substantial facelift to keep competitive, and IIRC, it would have got one around 2006.

But the idea that the rest of the range were to the same high standard is debateable.

The 45 was out of its depth, the ZS less so because of the market it was aiming at. The entire range needed a substantial uplift. The 2005 MY cars were a step in the right direction with improved equipment levels - they should have been introduced at facelift time.

djs.69 makes an interesting point about national investment, but one core problem is a lack of inward investment by firms themselves. MG Rover are a prime example of a company who did not invest sufficiently in their own future - instead prioritising directors' emoluments and shareholder dividend - a common (some would say inherent) problem in UK industry.

Yep, I'm inclined to agree with you there.

 

Why the hell did this country let MGR fail.

It was not a case of letting it fail, it was inevitable by the time of the BMW sell off.

I worked there for 30 years and in all that time it was a story of decline and a shrinking company with just the odd high point. The resource required to produce a modern car was growing and the companies ability to respond was diminishing. It eventually got to the stage when it could never afford to produce a new product and went into a downward spiral.

If it had been propped up at the 11th hour, what would have changed to turn the company around?

 

Yes, you've hit the nail on the head.

Sometimes though, it just needs one element to give the impetus for everything else. One significant investment could have been the difference between a range of mid-sized cars being produced, at a profitably level, which allowed the funds to redevelop the rest of the range.

MGR Engineers were a talented bunch.

 

Tis a real shame that it went to the wall.

Some damn good ideas and good cars, spoilt by mis-managment and poor build/interiors on a shoestring. This stuff should never have happened and MG/Rover should never have been sold to other companies. But, hindsight is a wonderful thing and we cannot turn back the clock...pity really.

I agree with the City Rover, a marketing failure IMO. Tatty little box that looked okay but was let down with interior and price...Rover grabbed, like a drowning man to a straw, and it failed. Over-priced for a what you got. £2k cheaper and you would could have justified it. An old man near me bought a second hand 25 in nightfire red because he said the City-Rover was an expensive shoe-box with the refinement of an ox-cart. Not what he expected from a car with the Rover badge and name.

Si

 

the reason they failed was because the media (clarkson and and all those other idiot know nothing's) kept telling people like themselves, that they were a load of rubbish. you and i know differently;but there again, we owned them, and respected them.(if i wanted a racer i would have bought one)
the last management did not do them any favours (finacially) to much going into pension's.aka banks.iwas told by someone in the know that when the last management took over, the company would only be around 5/6 years. i did not agree with them. how wrong i was.

 

MGR failed for the same reasons SAAB, GM USA and all of Chrysler are currently failing.

Noone bought the cars in sufficient numbers. No amount of scapegoating of individuals can evade the fact. Had MGR a competitive car they would have sold. But by 2004 the range was well past its sellby date and the restyles were uniformly too little too late (why didn't they facelift the 25/45 when the MG arange was launched for example).

With sales of only 3% of their main market, there was no longer an economic, political or groundswell of public support for maintaing the brand. No overseas company wanted to take on the liabilities.

LDV is in the same position for the same reasons.

We live in a capitalist society. There have been around 6000 makes of car. Most have been mediocre at best. Even the best have gone into decline. But the car idustry in the uk is still alive worth £51 billion a year and as we know mostly exported.

 

I agree with what you are saying.

The only thing is, if MGR had facelifted the 25/45 when the MG range was launched, that would only have been a year or two after they had been facelifted from the 200/400.