ROVER

[SADDLEWORTH]

Rover closed or not closed          

[perksy]

Phoenix Group Board Can't Loose though can they  

They Own the Site, and What's that Worth  

[nlash]

Rover closed what next ,labour party dont care .

This makes me so angry... the government can't go around bailing out private companies when their management get it wrong, using what is effectively taxpayers money. The syndicate got their sums wrong and as a result the ailing company looks to have finally paid the price.

Edited to add, I think the government did what they could to try and rescue the deal but the Chinese aren't stupid are they? Who would buy a company that owed so much money to their suppliers? It wouldn't exactly have a swift turnaround to being a profit maker would it?

[perksy]

This makes me so angry... the government can't go around bailing out private companies when their management get it wrong, using what is effectively taxpayers money. The syndicate got their sums wrong and as a result the ailing company looks to have finally paid the price.

Agree.

Local Hospital where i work has a Brand New CT Scanner in Bubble Wrap Because there's No Money to Turn it on and Staff it.

This Can't be right    

[mike m]

A sad day for all those who have lost there jobs but in reality they have made S*** cars for decades and got away with it, it was inevitable in the end

Mike

[jeff oakley]

My wife has an MGTF and it is not s**t far from it, however they were doomed after bmw bailed out. The real problem is that they had too little money to develop a new range and a workforce who were still in the dark ages compared to Nissan and Toyota. The workforce still have a management and worker mentality and as a result did not care enough about the customers and the product.

The goverment is right not to bail them out as it is not a financially good move for the tax payer, but you have to feel for the 6000 direct employees and the thousands of indirect who will loose their jobs.

The chinese will now buy the technology and the plant for a song from the receiver ship the jobs abroad and the plant will become an IKea or such like. A very sad day indeed.

[CedricTheBrave]

Been on the cards for years now

Shame tho that the MGF is still one of the best selling of the 2 seater sports cars

The quality control and the fact that they are still selling the same car rover 45 /200 zt or whatever you call it has been the final straw tho

[kik1.6se]

I have been impressed by the efforts to improve the image of Rover, by building proper cars such as the V8 engined rear wheel drive MG-ZT and the SV supercar.  I carn't help thinking that the money spent on these models would have been better spent on a decent small car instead of the City Rover (Tata).  Also the Streetwise has got to be one of the daftest cars of recent times.

Kirk.

[Mark B]

Just been on the news that apparently the government are giving them 40 million to sort it out, you tell there's an election looming    

[Richgm]

Working for one of rovers suppliers I guess that this will have some sort of effect on me and there will be job losses at my firm.

I still blame it on BMW. The fact that the broke the company up. Sold Landrover (After they got the 4X4 technology off them for the X5) kept the new mini as they had a good idea it would make money. and just left a handful of poor models and not much hope of being able to develop anything better.

The 40 Million the Gov' has just announced is to try and help suppliers not keep the company going. I think that this will be the end of Rover as we know it I hope that some body will take over the MGF and keep it going but after that I guess that Rover may well disappear.  

*edit* Just to add about the talk of money off the Goverment. If you think about it. With upto 30 thousand jobs going how much tax and NI do those people pay and how much dole will they claim. Wouldn't take too long to eat up that money. So it works out cheaper to bung a few million at the problem.

[Tomcat]

The money they spent on the RWD ZT and the SV was relatively small compaired with the massive development cost of a new platform as they came off already developed platforms in the case of the ZT and the SV is no more than a slightly well groomed prototype, lots of donor bits, fabricated assemblies, low investment tooling etc.

They did the best I think they could have done with the money available but just hadn't got the 3 or 400 million it takes to develop a new production model about 6 years ago that they needed.

The funding came through the MG ranges and they again have done it on a small budget and now are less than 2 years away from launching the RDX60 platform, unfortunately the people who were developing it (they had to outsource it as they haven't the resource in house anymore) went bust which delayed the program (it typically takes about 5 years to develop a new car from scratch) so it is not all thier own fault! I think they have done especially well rebuilding and sharpenning thier image!

Sad day if it comes! It will be a big blow for the UK automotive industry!

[kik1.6se]

The money they spent on the RWD ZT and the SV was relatively small compaired with the massive development cost of a new platform as they came off already developed platforms in the case of the ZT and the SV is no more than a slightly well groomed prototype, lots of donor bits, fabricated assemblies, low investment tooling etc.

Thats true i guess, although still think they could've shared a another manufactures platform and come up with a better car than a rebadged Tata.  But again its all down to cost in the end.

Maybe an MG city rover would have helped, as the MG models are the one which have been selling the most of recently, but i'm not sure how you could make the city rover sporty.

Kirk

[Tomcat]

Its a fair pont, a sporty City Rover would have been about as much use as t*ts on a fish!

There were several attempts to find someone better than Tata to do a joint venture with and Shanghai was the best of them and was looking hopefull. However I am not sure what the tie-up with Shanghai Automotive would have done in the longer term for MGR, there were suspicions that all production would disappear overseas as Shanghai would have been the controlling partner.

Hopefully the 40 Million will enable them (if it comes) to get the next platform launched and kick-start the falling sales!

[Matt Seabrook]

I still blame it on BMW. The fact that the broke the company up. Sold Landrover (After they got the 4X4 technology off them for the X5) kept the new mini as they had a good idea it would make money. and just left a handful of poor models and not much hope of being able to develop anything better.

Big successful companies are ruthless and only deal with how much they can make. At the end of the day if one part of a company is not making money I cant blame BMW for selling it off. They are not a charity after all.

[Martin Keene]

I think that this will be the end of Rover as we know it I hope that some body will take over the MGF and keep it going but after that I guess that Rover may well disappear.  

I sincerly hope this to be the case. MG's engineers have prove they can make decent handling cars from very average base products and the MG name still seems to be very well respected. They still seem to be selling lots of the baby ZR round this way.

They still have their own engine, gearboxes, drivetrains, R&D facilities, production, etc.

I would be very surprised if somebody doesn't buy it and dump the Rover part, strip the rest back the essentials to make MG's and maybe flog it to a big player in a few years.