The original Rover Car Company developed the Land Rover in 1947-48, hence Land ROVER. So it is fitting that the names are once again to be re-united.
Ford is to sell Aston Martin and there have been rumours that they might sell Jaguar. If they do that they might want to use the Rover name for a future upmarket range derived from European Fords, as an alternative to Volvos.
Or alternatively, if they wanted to sell Land Rover, it would possibly add quite a bit of value if it came with the rights to the 'Rover' name too.
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there have been rumours that they might sell Jaguar. >>
They have announced that they are not selling Jaguar.
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Oh! I didn't know that.
Presumably Ford also owns the Daimler name that was owned by Jaguar (not to be confused with Daimler-Benz / Daimler-Chrysler etc.)
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I would have thought that £6m was peanuts in this case.
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What's for you won't pass you by
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Absolutely - these guys talk in billions not millions.
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"If they do that they might want to use the Rover name for a future upmarket range derived from European Fords"
Upmarket?
You ARE joking of course.
Rover as a brand name thoroughly devalued by the range of "quality "cars produced .. 200/400/800 etc..
madf
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Does the purchase include other ex BMC "quality" marques such as Riley, Wolseley or Triumph?
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No BMW kept hold of those.
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No BMW kept hold of those.
Why would BMW want to keep them for?
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>> No BMW kept hold of those. >> >> Why would BMW want to keep them for?
Probably to use for a series of "limited edition" minis at some point just before they launch a new version.
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Does the purchase include other ex BMC "quality" marques such as Riley, Wolseley or Triumph?
Not quite. BMW kept hold of Triumph and Riley but the rest (Austin, Morris, Wolseley, Standard, Vanden-Plas etc) was passed to MG Rover, and is now owned by Nanjing.
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Whatever Ford does with the Rover brand will take some doing, but I fear that whilst there may be a business synergy between Ford and Rover, that they will seriously struggle to improve the image.
VW did it with Skoda and that took many years. Ford does not have quite the same reputation as VW. Oh!, and Ford have quite enough problems.
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>>>Upmarket?
>>>You ARE joking of course.
>>>Rover as a brand name thoroughly devalued by the range of "quality "cars produced .. 200/400/800 etc..
madf
At the moment, yes. But other successful names have been a joke in th past. e.g. VW - makers hopelessly outdated, bad-handling, uneconomical, slow but reliable aircooled beetles? Skoda? Renault - once makers of tinny rustbuckets with dubious styling. The Rover name could be 'in' again one day.
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> Renault - once makers of tinny rustbuckets with dubious styling.
And now makers of unreliable plastic lumps with dubious styling!
There was nothing much wrong with the 200/400. The only weak-spot was the K-series engine, and you could get a Honda version for much of the run. Given the choice of a 216 or an Escort or mid-90s Astra, I know which one I'd rather have.
It was bad management that killed Rover, not necessarily the quality of their vehicles, which were no worse than PSA, Renault or Fiat.
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