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Rover (car)
Encyclopedia
The Rover Company is a former British car manufacturing company founded as Starley & Sutton Co. of Coventry
in 1878. After developing the template for the modern bicycle
with its Rover Safety Bicycle of 1885, the company moved into the automotive industry
. It started building motorcycles
and Rover cars, using their established marque with the iconic Viking Longship, from 1904 onwards. Land Rover
vehicles were added from 1948 onwards, with all production moving to the Solihull plant
after World War II
.
Despite a state-controlled absorption by the Leyland Motor Corporation (LMC) in 1967 and subsequent mergers, nationalisation and de-mergers, the Rover marque retained its identity first as an independent subsidiary division of LMC, and then through variously named groups of British Leyland through the 1970s and into the 1980s.
The Rover marque became the primary brand of the then newly renamed Rover Group
in 1988 as it passed first through the hands of British Aerospace
and then into the ownership of BMW Group
. Technological know-how gained from Honda
and financial investment during the BMW ownership led to a revival of the Rover marque during the 1990s in its core midsize segment.
In 2000, BMW sold the Rover and related MG car activities of the Rover Group to the Phoenix Consortium
, who established the MG Rover Group
at Longbridge
. BMW retained ownership of the Rover marque, allowing MG Rover to use it under licence. In April 2005, Rover branded cars ceased to be produced when the MG Rover Group became insolvent.
BMW sold the Rover marque to Ford
in 2006 for approximately £6 million, heralding an option of first refusal to buy it as a result of its purchase of Land Rover
. Ford thus reunited the original Rover Company marques, primarily for brand-protective reasons, in preparation for divesting its Premier Automotive Group
subsidiary.
In March 2008, Ford reached agreement with Tata Motors
of India to include the Rover marque as part of the sale of their Jaguar Land Rover
operations to them, alongside related Daimler
and Lanchester
marques. Legally the Rover marque is the property of Land Rover under the terms of Ford's purchase of the name in 2006.
With no Rover vehicles currently in production, the marque is considered dormant.
manufactured by Starley & Sutton Co. of Coventry
, England, in 1883. The company was founded by John Kemp Starley
and William Sutton in 1878. Starley had previously worked with his uncle, James Starley (father of the cycle trade), who began by manufacturing sewing machines and switched to bicycle
s in 1869.
In the early 1880s, the cycles available were the relatively dangerous penny-farthing
s and high-wheel tricycles. J.K. Starley made history in 1885 by producing the Rover Safety Bicycle
—a rear-wheel-drive, chain
-driven cycle with two similar-sized wheels, making it more stable than the previous high-wheel designs. Cycling Magazine said the Rover had "set the pattern to the world"; the phrase was used in their advertising for many years. Starley's Rover is usually described by historians as the first recognisably modern bicycle
.
The words for "bicycle" in Polish
(Rower) and Belarusian
(Rovar, Ро́вар) are derived from the name of the company. The word ровер is also used in many parts of Western Ukraine.
In 1889, the company became J.K. Starley & Co. Ltd., and in the late 1890s, the Rover Cycle Company Ltd.
motorcycles from France in for experimental development. His first project was to fit an engine to one of his Rover bicycles. Starley died early in October 1901 aged 46 and the business was taken over by entrepreneur H. J. Lawson
.
The company developed and produced the Rover Imperial motorcycle in November 1902. This was a 3.5 hp diamond-framed motorcycle with the engine in the centre and 'springer' front forks which was ahead of its time. This first Rover motorcycle had innovative features such as a spray carburettor, bottom-bracket engine and mechanically operated valves. With a strong frame with double front down tubes and a good quality finish, over a thousand Rover motorcycles were sold in 1904. The following year, however, Rover stopped motorcycle production to concentrate on their 'safety bicycle' but in 1910 designer John Greenwood was commissioned to develop a new 3.5 hp 500 cc engine with spring-loaded tappets, a Bosch magneto and an innovative inverted tooth drive chain. It had a Brown and Barlow carburettor and Druid spring forks. This new model was launched at the 1910 Olympia show and over 500 were sold.
In 1913 a 'TT' model was launched with a shorter wheelbase and sports handlebars. The 'works team' of Dudley Noble
and Chris Newsome had some success and won the works team award.
Rover supplied 499 cc single cylinder motorcycles to the Russian Army
during the First World War
. The company began to focus on car production at the end of the war, but Rover still produced motorcycles with 248 cc and 348 cc Rover overhead valve engines and with J.A.P. engines, including a 676 cc V-twin. In 1924 Rover introduced a new lightweight 250cc motorcycle with unit construction of engine and gearbox. This had lights front and rear as well as a new design of internal expanding brakes.
Poor sales of their motorcycles caused Rover to end motorcycle production and concentrate solely on the production of motor cars. Between 1903 and 1924 Rover had produced more than 10,000 motorcycles.
In 1888, Starley made an electric car, but it never was put into production.
Three years after Starley's death in 1901, and H. J. Lawson's subsequent takeover, the Rover company began producing automobiles with the two-seater Rover Eight
to the designs of Edmund Lewis, who came from Lawson's Daimler
. Lewis left the company to join Deasy
in late 1905. He was eventually replaced by Owen Clegg, who joined from Wolseley
in 1910 and set about reforming the product range. Short-lived experiments with sleeve valve engines were abandoned, and the 12hp model was introduced in 1912. This car was so successful that all other cars were dropped, and for a while, Rover pursued a "one model" policy. Clegg left to join the French company Darracq
in 1912.
During the First World War
, they made motorcycle
s, lorries to Maudslay
designs, and, not having a suitable one of their own, cars to a Sunbeam design.
During 1928 Frank Searle
was appointed managing director to supervise recovery. Searle was by training a locomotive engineer with motor industry experience at Daimler and, most recently, had been managing director of Imperial Airways
. On his recommendation Spencer Wilks was brought in from Hillman
as general manager and appointed to the board in 1929. That year, Searle split Midland Light Car Bodies from Rover in an effort to save money and instructed Robert Boyle
and Maurice Wilks
to design a new small car.
This was the Rover Scarab
with a rear-mounted V-twin-cylinder air-cooled engine announced in 1931, a van version was shown at Olympia, but it did not go into production. During this time the Rover 10/25 was introduced, with bodies made by the Pressed Steel Company
. This was the same body as used on the Hillman Minx. Prior to this time Rover had been a great supporter of the very light Weymann
bodies that went suddenly out of fashion with the demand for shiny coachwork and more curved body shapes. Weymann bodies remained in the factory catalogue until 1933.
Frank Searle and Spencer Wilks set about reorganising the company and moving it upmarket to cater for people who wanted something "superior" to Fords
and Austins
. In 1930 Spencer Wilks was joined by his brother, Maurice, who had also been at Hillman as chief engineer. Spencer Wilks was to stay with the company until 1962, and his brother until 1963.
The company showed profits in the 1929 and 1930 years but with the economic downturn in 1931 Rover reported a loss of £77,529. 1932 produced a loss of £103,000 but a turn around following yet more reorganization resulted in a profit of £46,000 in 1933. The new assembly operations in Australia and New Zealand were closed.
Frank Searle left the board near the end of the calendar year 1931, his work done.
Building on successes such as beating the Blue Train for the first time in 1930 in the Blue Train Races
, the Wilks Brothers established Rover as a company with several European royal, aristocratic, and governmental warrants
, and upper-middle-class and star clients.
, the British government started a rearmament programme, and as part of this, "shadow factories" were built. These were paid for by the government but staffed and run by private companies. Two were run by Rover: one, at Acocks Green
, Birmingham, started operation in 1937, and a second, larger one, at Solihull
, started in 1940. Both were employed making aero engines and airframes. The original main works at Helen Street, Coventry, was severely damaged by bombing in 1940 and 1941 and never regained full production.
In early 1940, Rover was approached by the government to support Frank Whittle
in developing the gas turbine engine. Whittle's company, Power Jets
, had no production facilities; however, the intention was for Rover to take the design and develop it for mass production. Whittle himself was not pleased by this and did not like the design changes made without his approval, but the first test engines to the W2B design were built in an unused cotton mill in Barnoldswick
, Lancashire, in October 1941. Rolls-Royce took an interest in the new technology, and an agreement was reached in 1942 in which they would take over the engines and Barnoldswick works—and in exchange, Rover would get the contract for making Meteor
tank engines, which actually continued until 1964.
After the Second World War
, the company abandoned Helen Street and bought the two shadow factories. Acocks Green carried on for a while, making Meteor engines for tanks, and Solihull became the new centre for vehicles, with production resuming in 1947; it would become the home of the Land Rover
.
In 1950, designer F.R. Bell and chief engineer Maurice Wilks unveiled the first car powered with a gas turbine
engine, based upon the designs of Frank Whittle
's Power Jets
company. The two-seater JET1 had the engine positioned behind the seats, air intake grilles on either side of the car, and exhaust outlets on the top of the tail. During tests, the car reached top speeds of 88 mph (140 km/h), at a turbine speed of 50,000 rpm. The car ran on petrol, paraffin
, or diesel oil, but fuel consumption problems proved insurmountable for a production car. It is currently on display at the London Science Museum. Rover and the BRM Formula One team joined forces to produce the Rover-BRM
, a gas turbine-powered sports prototype that entered the 1963 24 hours of Le Mans
, driven by Graham Hill
and Richie Ginther
. It averaged 107.8 mph (173 km/h) and had a top speed of 142 mph (229 km/h).
Rover also ran several experimental diesel engine
projects in relation to the Land Rover
. The 2-litre, 52 hp diesel unit designed and built by Rover for its 4x4 had entered production in 1956 and was one of Britain's first modern high-speed automotive diesel engines. Experimental projects were undertaken to improve the engine's power delivery, running qualities, and fuel tolerances. British Army
requirements led to the development of a multifuel version of the 2.25-litre variant of the engine in 1962, which could run on petrol, diesel, Jet-A, or kerosene
. However, the engine's power output when running on low-grade fuel was too low for the Army's uses. Rover developed a highly advanced (for the time) turbodiesel
version of its engine in the mid 1960s to power its experimental '129-inch' heavy duty Land Rover
designs. This 2.5-litre engine used a turbocharger
built by Rover's gas turbine division as well as an intercooler
. This was one of the first times these features had been incorporated on such a small-capacity diesel unit, but they were not adopted.
The 1950s and '60s were fruitful years for the company. The Land Rover
became a runaway success (despite Rover's reputation for making upmarket saloons, the utilitarian Land Rover was actually the company's biggest seller throughout the 1950s, '60s, and '70s), as well as the P5 and P6 saloons equipped with a 3.5L (215ci) aluminium V8
(the design and tooling of which was purchased from Buick
) and pioneering research into gas turbine-fueled vehicles.
In 1967, Rover became part of the Leyland Motor Corporation (LMC), which already owned Triumph
. The next year, LMC merged with British Motor Holdings
(BMH) to become the British Leyland Motor Corporation
. This was the beginning of the end for the independent Rover Company, as the Solihull-based company's heritage drowned beneath the infamous industrial relations and managerial problems that beset the British motor industry throughout the 1970s. At various times, it was part of the Specialist Division (hence the factory designation SD1 for the first—and in the event, only—model produced under this arrangement), Leyland Cars, Rover-Triumph, and the short-lived Jaguar Rover Triumph.
In 1970, Rover combined its skill in producing comfortable saloons and the rugged Land Rover 4x4 to produce the Range Rover
, one of the first cars (albeit possibly inspired by the earlier Jeep Wagoneer and IH Scout) to combine off-road ability and comfortable versatility. Powered by the ex-Buick V8 engine, it had innovative features such as a permanent 4 wheel drive system, all-coil spring
suspension, and disc brake
s on all wheels. Able to reach speeds of up to 100 mi/h yet also capable of extreme off-road use, the original Range Rover design was to remain in production for the next 26 years.
The company's other major project at this time was the P8, a successor, styled by David Bache
, for the 3-litre
. The car's shape owed much to Detroit, with a front bumper concealed under a "bumperless" poyurethene nose, in a manner reminiscent of contemporary Pontiac
s, and a side profile reminiscent of a slightly chunkier Opel Rekord. Although the original brief was for the car to be no longer externally than a Rover 2000
, management changes led the project to be redefined as it progressed, and the P8 scheduled for launch at the 1971 London Motor Show was substantially larger than any existing Rover sedan, with the Rover V8 engine expanded for this application to 4.4 litres. The car followed the P6
in employing a steel frame structure with bolt-on steel or aluminium panels. The manufacturer was nevertheless short of cash and of focus at this time: the P8 was one of several new model projects subjected to a slipping time-line. By the revised launch date towards the end of 1972 the considerable development costs had been expended and pre-production prototypes had even undergone extensive testing in Finland
. Production capacity had been set aside for the P8 at the Solihull plant. However, an expenditure review in 1970 found the project subjected to criticism from Sir William Lyons
, by now an influential member of the British Leyland board: speculation has arisen that Lyons saw the car as a threat to future investment in the recently launched Jaguar XJ6. It later emerged that Rover's contender would not have been particularly cheap or easy to build, and the shrinkage of the European market for sedans of this size that followed the 1973 oil price shock
suggest that abandonment of the project in 1972 - even at the eleventh hour - may have been the right decision for British Leyland; but the P8 was not entirely ummourned nearly thirty years later. Some of the P8's styling cues turned up two years later on the Leyland P76
, and the driver's view of the instrument panel (albeit without the Austin Allegro
style "quartic" steering wheel that appears in one of the surviving pictures of it) would have been not entirely unfamiliar to the driver of a 1976 Rover 3500
.
As British Leyland struggled through financial turmoil and an industrial-relations crisis during the 1970s, it was effectively nationalized after a multi-billion-pound government cash injection in 1975. Michael Edwardes was brought in to head the company.
The Rover SD1
of 1976 was an excellent car, but was beset with so many build quality and reliability issues that it never delivered on its great promise. Following the closure of the Triumph
factory at Canley
, production of the Triumph TR7
and Triumph TR8
was moved to Solihull; but soon after, a savage programme of cutbacks in the late 1970s led to the end of car production at the Solihull factory, which was turned over for Land Rover production only. The TR7/8 model was discontinued while SD1 production moved to Cowley. All future Rover cars would be made in the former Austin
and Morris
plants in Longbridge and Cowley, respectively.
Motor Company of Japan. The result was a cross-holding structure, where Honda took a 20% stake in the company while the company took a 20% stake in Honda's UK subsidiary. The deal was thought to be mutually beneficial: Honda used its British operations as a launchpad into Europe, and the company could pool resources with Honda in developing new cars.
Austin Rover Group
was formed in 1982 as the mass-market car manufacturing subsidiary of BL, with the separate Rover Company becoming effectively defunct.
In the 1980s, the slimmed-down BL used the Rover brand on a range of cars codeveloped with Honda
. The first Honda-sourced Rover model, released in 1984, was the Rover 200, which, like the Triumph Acclaim
that it replaced, was based on the Honda Ballade
. Similarly, in Australia
, the Honda Quint
(known in Europe as the Quintet) and Integra
were badged as the Rover Quintet and 416i.
By 1986, Austin Rover had moved to a one-marque strategy, using only the Rover brand. Its parent, BL, was renamed as the Rover Group
, with the car division becoming Rover Cars.
In 1986, the Rover SD1 was replaced by the Rover 800
, developed with the Honda Legend
. The Austin range were now technically Rovers, though the word "Rover" never actually appeared on the badging. Instead, there was a badge similar to the Rover Viking shape, without wording. These were replaced by the Rover 400 and Rover 600, based on Honda's Concerto
and Accord
, respectively.
Rover exported Rover 800s, badged as Sterling
s, to the United States from 1987 to 1992.
.
, Riley, Mini
, Triumph
, and Austin-Healey
brands to BMW
, who had begun to see Rover-branded cars as potential major competitors. Under BMW, the Rover Group developed the Rover 75
as a retro-designed car influenced by the earlier Rover P4
and P5
designs.
In 2000, BMW split up the Rover Group, selling Land Rover
to the Ford Motor Company
for an estimated sum of £1.8-billion, retaining the MINI operations
, and selling the rest of the car business to the Phoenix Consortium, who established it as MG Rover. Interestingly, although BMW included ownership of the MG brand in the deal, they retained ownership of the Rover brand, licensing its use to the new MG Rover company for use on the ongoing car models that they had acquired.
A specially assembled group of businessmen, known as the Phoenix Consortium and headed by ex-Rover chief executive John Towers, established the MG Rover Group
from the former Rover Group car operations (acquired from BMW for a nominal £10 in May 2000) and continued to use the Rover brand under licence from BMW.
The year before its breakup, the Rover Group had sustained losses of an estimated £800-million. The four businessmen who took control of the newly formed MG Rover Group are reported to have received around £430-million in a dowry from BMW that included unsold stock.
The first new Rover-branded car to be launched after the formation of MG Rover was the estate version of the Rover 75
, which went on sale later in 2000. In 2003, MG Rover launched the CityRover, a badge-engineered Tata Indica that served as an entry-level model. Despite high initial expectations, sales were poor. Several concept cars intended to point the way towards a replacement for the Rover 25 and 45 were shown in the early 2000s, but no production model emerged.
MG Rover production ceased on 15 April 2005, when it was declared insolvent
. On 22 July 2005, the physical assets of the collapsed firm were sold to the Nanjing Automobile Group
for £53m. They indicated that their preliminary plans involved relocating the Powertrain engine plant to China while splitting car production into Rover lines in China and resumed MG lines in the West Midlands
(though not necessarily at Longbridge), where a UK
R&D
and technical facility would also be developed.
On 30 May 2007, Nanjing Automobile Group
claimed to have restarted production of MG TF sports cars in the Longbridge plant, with sales expected to begin in the autumn.
Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), who held the intellectual property of Rover 75 car design (bought for £67m before MG Rover collapsed) and was also bidding for MG Rover, announced their own version of the Rover 75 in late 2006. In July 2006, SAIC announced their intent to buy the Rover brand name from BMW
, who still owned the rights to the Rover marque. However, BMW refused their request, due to an agreement that Ford
had reached with them to be given first option on the brand when it acquired Land Rover
. Unable to use the Rover name, SAIC created their own brand with a similar name and badge, known as Roewe. Roewe was eventually launched in early 2007.
. This right was exercised on 18 September 2006. No Rover-branded cars were produced whilst Ford owned the brand, and in a further twist, Tata Motors now owns the brand that was used for the ill-fated CityRover
model, a rebadged Tata Indica
marketed by MG Rover under licence in the UK Market from 2003 to 2005.
operations to Tata Motors
, the Rover brand name was included in the deal.
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
in 1878. After developing the template for the modern bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
with its Rover Safety Bicycle of 1885, the company moved into the automotive industry
Automotive industry
The automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells motor vehicles, and is one of the world's most important economic sectors by revenue....
. It started building motorcycles
Rover (motorcycles)
The Rover Company was a British bicycle and motorcycle manufacturer before it began the manufacture of motor cars. Rover was established in 1878 by John Kemp Starley in Coventry to produce bicycles. The company developed and produced the Rover Imperial motorcycle in November 1902...
and Rover cars, using their established marque with the iconic Viking Longship, from 1904 onwards. Land Rover
Land Rover
Land Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
vehicles were added from 1948 onwards, with all production moving to the Solihull plant
Solihull plant
The Solihull plant is a car manufacturing factory in Lode Lane, Solihull, UK, now owned by Land Rover.The plant currently produces the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, Land Rover Discovery and Land Rover Defender vehicles.-History:...
after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Despite a state-controlled absorption by the Leyland Motor Corporation (LMC) in 1967 and subsequent mergers, nationalisation and de-mergers, the Rover marque retained its identity first as an independent subsidiary division of LMC, and then through variously named groups of British Leyland through the 1970s and into the 1980s.
The Rover marque became the primary brand of the then newly renamed Rover Group
Rover Group
The Rover Group plc was the name given in 1986 to the British state-owned vehicle manufacturer previously known as British Leyland or BL. Owned by British Aerospace from 1988 to 1994, when it was sold to BMW, the Group was broken up in 2000 with the Rover and MG marques being acquired by the MG...
in 1988 as it passed first through the hands of British Aerospace
British Aerospace
British Aerospace plc was a UK aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was in the Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire...
and then into the ownership of BMW Group
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
. Technological know-how gained from Honda
Honda
is a Japanese public multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles.Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume, producing more than...
and financial investment during the BMW ownership led to a revival of the Rover marque during the 1990s in its core midsize segment.
In 2000, BMW sold the Rover and related MG car activities of the Rover Group to the Phoenix Consortium
Phoenix Venture Holdings
Phoenix Venture Holdings , also known as the Phoenix Consortium, is a British company formed by four businessmen...
, who established the MG Rover Group
MG Rover Group
MG Rover was the last domestically owned mass-production car manufacturer in the British motor industry. The company was formed when BMW sold the car-making and engine manufacturing assets of the original Rover Group to the Phoenix Consortium in 2000....
at Longbridge
Longbridge plant
The Longbridge plant is an industrial complex situated in the Longbridge area of Birmingham, United Kingdom. It is currently owned by SAIC Group and is a manufacturing and research and development facility for its MG Motor subsidiary....
. BMW retained ownership of the Rover marque, allowing MG Rover to use it under licence. In April 2005, Rover branded cars ceased to be produced when the MG Rover Group became insolvent.
BMW sold the Rover marque to Ford
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
in 2006 for approximately £6 million, heralding an option of first refusal to buy it as a result of its purchase of Land Rover
Land Rover
Land Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
. Ford thus reunited the original Rover Company marques, primarily for brand-protective reasons, in preparation for divesting its Premier Automotive Group
Premier Automotive Group
The Premier Automotive Group , was a group within the Ford Motor Company which was formed in 1999 to oversee the business operations of Ford's high-end automotive marques....
subsidiary.
In March 2008, Ford reached agreement with Tata Motors
Tata Motors
Tata Motors Limited is an Indian multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Mumbai, India. Part of the Tata Group, it was formerly known as TELCO...
of India to include the Rover marque as part of the sale of their Jaguar Land Rover
Land Rover
Land Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
operations to them, alongside related Daimler
Daimler Motor Company
The Daimler Motor Company Limited was an independent British motor vehicle manufacturer founded in London by H J Lawson in 1896, which set up its manufacturing base in Coventry. The right to the use of the name Daimler had been purchased simultaneously from Gottlieb Daimler and Daimler Motoren...
and Lanchester
Lanchester Motor Company
The Lanchester Motor Company Limited was a car manufacturer based until 1930 at Armourer Mills, Montgomery Street, Sparkbrook, Birmingham, England. It operated from 1895 to 1955....
marques. Legally the Rover marque is the property of Land Rover under the terms of Ford's purchase of the name in 2006.
With no Rover vehicles currently in production, the marque is considered dormant.
Before cars
The first Rover was a tricycleTricycle
A tricycle is a three-wheeled vehicle. While tricycles are often associated with the small three-wheeled vehicles used by pre-school-age children, they are also used by adults for a variety of purposes. In the United States and Canada, adult-sized tricycles are used primarily by older persons for...
manufactured by Starley & Sutton Co. of Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
, England, in 1883. The company was founded by John Kemp Starley
John Kemp Starley
John Kemp Starley was an English inventor and industrialist who is widely considered the inventor of the modern bicycle, and also originator of the name Rover....
and William Sutton in 1878. Starley had previously worked with his uncle, James Starley (father of the cycle trade), who began by manufacturing sewing machines and switched to bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
s in 1869.
In the early 1880s, the cycles available were the relatively dangerous penny-farthing
Penny-farthing
Penny-farthing, high wheel, high wheeler, and ordinary are all terms used to describe a type of bicycle with a large front wheel and a much smaller rear wheel that was popular after the boneshaker, until the development of the safety bicycle, in the 1880s...
s and high-wheel tricycles. J.K. Starley made history in 1885 by producing the Rover Safety Bicycle
Safety bicycle
A safety bicycle is a type of bicycle that became very popular beginning in the late 1880s as an alternative to the penny-farthing or ordinary and is now the most common type of bicycle. Early bicycles of this style were known as safety bicycles because they were noted for, and marketed as, being...
—a rear-wheel-drive, chain
Bicycle chain
A bicycle chain is a roller chain that transfers power from the pedals to the drive-wheel of a bicycle, thus propelling it. Most bicycle chains are made from plain carbon or alloy steel, but some are nickel-plated to prevent rust, or simply for aesthetics. Nickel also confers a measure of...
-driven cycle with two similar-sized wheels, making it more stable than the previous high-wheel designs. Cycling Magazine said the Rover had "set the pattern to the world"; the phrase was used in their advertising for many years. Starley's Rover is usually described by historians as the first recognisably modern bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
.
The words for "bicycle" in Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
(Rower) and Belarusian
Belarusian language
The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
(Rovar, Ро́вар) are derived from the name of the company. The word ровер is also used in many parts of Western Ukraine.
In 1889, the company became J.K. Starley & Co. Ltd., and in the late 1890s, the Rover Cycle Company Ltd.
Rover motorcycles
In 1899 John Starley imported some of the early PeugeotPeugeot
Peugeot is a major French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën, the second largest carmaker based in Europe.The family business that precedes the current Peugeot company was founded in 1810, and manufactured coffee mills and bicycles. On 20 November 1858, Emile Peugeot applied for the lion...
motorcycles from France in for experimental development. His first project was to fit an engine to one of his Rover bicycles. Starley died early in October 1901 aged 46 and the business was taken over by entrepreneur H. J. Lawson
Harry John Lawson
Henry John Lawson, also known as Harry Lawson, was a British bicycle designer, motor industry pioneer, and fraudster. As part of his attempt to create and control a British motor industry Lawson formed and floated The Daimler Motor Company Limited in London in 1896. It later began manufacture in...
.
In 1913 a 'TT' model was launched with a shorter wheelbase and sports handlebars. The 'works team' of Dudley Noble
Dudley Noble
Dudley Noble, who started at the Rover Company in 1911 as a motorcycle tester and competition rider, became one of the British automobile industry’s pioneering publicists....
and Chris Newsome had some success and won the works team award.
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...
during the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. The company began to focus on car production at the end of the war, but Rover still produced motorcycles with 248 cc and 348 cc Rover overhead valve engines and with J.A.P. engines, including a 676 cc V-twin. In 1924 Rover introduced a new lightweight 250cc motorcycle with unit construction of engine and gearbox. This had lights front and rear as well as a new design of internal expanding brakes.
Poor sales of their motorcycles caused Rover to end motorcycle production and concentrate solely on the production of motor cars. Between 1903 and 1924 Rover had produced more than 10,000 motorcycles.
Early Rover cars
Three years after Starley's death in 1901, and H. J. Lawson's subsequent takeover, the Rover company began producing automobiles with the two-seater Rover Eight
Rover 8
The Rover 8 was a name given to three early models of car from the British Rover car company. The original one, produced between 1904 and 1912, was the first production Rover car...
to the designs of Edmund Lewis, who came from Lawson's Daimler
Daimler Motor Company
The Daimler Motor Company Limited was an independent British motor vehicle manufacturer founded in London by H J Lawson in 1896, which set up its manufacturing base in Coventry. The right to the use of the name Daimler had been purchased simultaneously from Gottlieb Daimler and Daimler Motoren...
. Lewis left the company to join Deasy
Siddeley-Deasy
Siddeley-Deasy was a British automobile, engine and aircraft company based in Coventry in the early 20th century. It was central to the formation, by merger and buy-out, of the later Armstrong Sideleley Motor and Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft companies....
in late 1905. He was eventually replaced by Owen Clegg, who joined from Wolseley
Wolseley Motor Company
The Wolseley Motor Company was a British automobile manufacturer founded in 1901. After 1935 it was incorporated into larger companies but the Wolseley name remained as an upmarket marque until 1975.-History:...
in 1910 and set about reforming the product range. Short-lived experiments with sleeve valve engines were abandoned, and the 12hp model was introduced in 1912. This car was so successful that all other cars were dropped, and for a while, Rover pursued a "one model" policy. Clegg left to join the French company Darracq
Darracq
Automobiles Darracq S.A. was a French motor vehicle manufacturing company founded in 1896 by Alexandre Darracq.Using part of the substantial profit he had made from selling his Gladiator bicycle factory, Alexandre Darracq began operating from a plant in the Parisian suburb of Suresnes...
in 1912.
During the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, they made motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
s, lorries to Maudslay
Maudslay Motor Company
The Maudslay Motor Company was a British vehicle maker based in Coventry. It was founded in 1902 and continued until 1948 when it was taken over by the Associated Equipment Company and along with Crossley Motors the new group was renamed Associated Commercial Vehicles Ltd.-Early history:The...
designs, and, not having a suitable one of their own, cars to a Sunbeam design.
Restructure and re-organization
The business was not very successful during the 1920s and did not pay a dividend from 1923 until the mid 1930s. In December 1928 the chairman of Rover advised shareholders that the accumulation of the substantial losses of the 1923-1928 years together with the costs of that year's reorganisation must be recognised by a reduction of 60% in the value of capital of the company.During 1928 Frank Searle
Frank Searle (businessman)
Frank Searle CBE, DSO, MIME was a British transport entrepreneur, a locomotive engineer who moved from steam to omnibuses, the motor industry and airlines.-Personal:...
was appointed managing director to supervise recovery. Searle was by training a locomotive engineer with motor industry experience at Daimler and, most recently, had been managing director of Imperial Airways
Imperial Airways
Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long range air transport company, operating from 1924 to 1939 and serving parts of Europe but especially the Empire routes to South Africa, India and the Far East...
. On his recommendation Spencer Wilks was brought in from Hillman
Hillman
Hillman is a British automobile marque created by the Hillman Motor Car Company, founded in 1907. The company was based in Ryton-on-Dunsmore, near Coventry, England. Before 1907 the company had built bicycles...
as general manager and appointed to the board in 1929. That year, Searle split Midland Light Car Bodies from Rover in an effort to save money and instructed Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle FRS was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as English, Irish, or Anglo-Irish, his father having come to Ireland from England during the time of the English plantations of...
and Maurice Wilks
Maurice Wilks
Maurice Cary Ferdinand Wilks was an automotive and aeronautical engineer, and by the time of his death in 1963, was the chairman of the Rover Company, a British car manufacturer...
to design a new small car.
This was the Rover Scarab
Rover Scarab
The Rover Scarab was a convertible four seater intended to sell at £85, and had a V twin engine of only 839 cc, which was rear mounted. Despite the engine position, the Scarab had a conventional radiator grill at the front. The other 1930s rear engined cars all had a down-curved grill-less front...
with a rear-mounted V-twin-cylinder air-cooled engine announced in 1931, a van version was shown at Olympia, but it did not go into production. During this time the Rover 10/25 was introduced, with bodies made by the Pressed Steel Company
Pressed Steel Company
The Pressed Steel Company Limited was a British car body manufacturing company founded at Cowley near Oxford in 1926 as a joint venture between William Morris, the Budd Corporation and an American bank. Today at what was the company's Cowley plant, the BMW new MINI is assembled, this site is...
. This was the same body as used on the Hillman Minx. Prior to this time Rover had been a great supporter of the very light Weymann
Weymann Fabric Bodies
Weymann Fabric Bodies is a patented design system for fuselages for aircraft and superlight coachwork for motor vehicles. The system used a patent-jointed wood frame covered in fabric...
bodies that went suddenly out of fashion with the demand for shiny coachwork and more curved body shapes. Weymann bodies remained in the factory catalogue until 1933.
Frank Searle and Spencer Wilks set about reorganising the company and moving it upmarket to cater for people who wanted something "superior" to Fords
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
and Austins
Austin Motor Company
The Austin Motor Company was a British manufacturer of automobiles. The company was founded in 1905 and merged in 1952 into the British Motor Corporation Ltd. The marque Austin was used until 1987...
. In 1930 Spencer Wilks was joined by his brother, Maurice, who had also been at Hillman as chief engineer. Spencer Wilks was to stay with the company until 1962, and his brother until 1963.
The company showed profits in the 1929 and 1930 years but with the economic downturn in 1931 Rover reported a loss of £77,529. 1932 produced a loss of £103,000 but a turn around following yet more reorganization resulted in a profit of £46,000 in 1933. The new assembly operations in Australia and New Zealand were closed.
Frank Searle left the board near the end of the calendar year 1931, his work done.
Building on successes such as beating the Blue Train for the first time in 1930 in the Blue Train Races
Blue Train Races
The Blue Train Races were a series of record-breaking attempts between automobiles and trains in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It saw a number of motorists and their own or sponsored automobiles race against the Le Train Bleu, a train that ran between Calais and the French Riviera...
, the Wilks Brothers established Rover as a company with several European royal, aristocratic, and governmental warrants
Royal Warrant
Royal warrants of appointment have been issued for centuries to those who supply goods or services to a royal court or certain royal personages. The warrant enables the supplier to advertise the fact that they supply to the royal family, so lending prestige to the supplier...
, and upper-middle-class and star clients.
Second World War and gas turbines
In the late 1930s, in anticipation of the potential hostilities that would become the Second World WarWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the British government started a rearmament programme, and as part of this, "shadow factories" were built. These were paid for by the government but staffed and run by private companies. Two were run by Rover: one, at Acocks Green
Acocks Green
Acocks Green is an area and ward of south Birmingham, England. It is named after the Acock family who built a large house in the area in 1370. Acocks Green is one of the four wards making up Yardley formal district...
, Birmingham, started operation in 1937, and a second, larger one, at Solihull
Solihull
Solihull is a town in the West Midlands of England with a population of 94,753. It is a part of the West Midlands conurbation and is located 9 miles southeast of Birmingham city centre...
, started in 1940. Both were employed making aero engines and airframes. The original main works at Helen Street, Coventry, was severely damaged by bombing in 1940 and 1941 and never regained full production.
In early 1940, Rover was approached by the government to support Frank Whittle
Frank Whittle
Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS was a British Royal Air Force engineer officer. He is credited with independently inventing the turbojet engine Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS (1 June 1907 – 9 August 1996) was a British Royal Air...
in developing the gas turbine engine. Whittle's company, Power Jets
Power Jets
Power Jets Ltd was a United Kingdom company set up by Frank Whittle for the purpose of designing and manufacturing jet engines.-History:Founded on January 27, 1936, the company consisted of Whittle, Rolf Dudley-Williams, James Collingwood Tinling, and Lancelot Law Whyte of investment bankers O T...
, had no production facilities; however, the intention was for Rover to take the design and develop it for mass production. Whittle himself was not pleased by this and did not like the design changes made without his approval, but the first test engines to the W2B design were built in an unused cotton mill in Barnoldswick
Barnoldswick
Barnoldswick is a town and civil parish within the West Craven area of the Borough of Pendle in Lancashire, England just outside the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town is built in the shadow of Weets Hill, and Stock Beck, a...
, Lancashire, in October 1941. Rolls-Royce took an interest in the new technology, and an agreement was reached in 1942 in which they would take over the engines and Barnoldswick works—and in exchange, Rover would get the contract for making Meteor
Rolls-Royce Meteor
The Rolls-Royce Meteor was a British tank engine of the Second World War.It was developed from the Rolls-Royce Merlin aero-engine by W. A. Robotham and his chassis design and development division at Belper, as they were not involved in aero-engine work...
tank engines, which actually continued until 1964.
After the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the company abandoned Helen Street and bought the two shadow factories. Acocks Green carried on for a while, making Meteor engines for tanks, and Solihull became the new centre for vehicles, with production resuming in 1947; it would become the home of the Land Rover
Land Rover
Land Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
.
Experimental cars
Gas turbine
A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of internal combustion engine. It has an upstream rotating compressor coupled to a downstream turbine, and a combustion chamber in-between....
engine, based upon the designs of Frank Whittle
Frank Whittle
Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS was a British Royal Air Force engineer officer. He is credited with independently inventing the turbojet engine Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS (1 June 1907 – 9 August 1996) was a British Royal Air...
's Power Jets
Power Jets
Power Jets Ltd was a United Kingdom company set up by Frank Whittle for the purpose of designing and manufacturing jet engines.-History:Founded on January 27, 1936, the company consisted of Whittle, Rolf Dudley-Williams, James Collingwood Tinling, and Lancelot Law Whyte of investment bankers O T...
company. The two-seater JET1 had the engine positioned behind the seats, air intake grilles on either side of the car, and exhaust outlets on the top of the tail. During tests, the car reached top speeds of 88 mph (140 km/h), at a turbine speed of 50,000 rpm. The car ran on petrol, paraffin
Paraffin
In chemistry, paraffin is a term that can be used synonymously with "alkane", indicating hydrocarbons with the general formula CnH2n+2. Paraffin wax refers to a mixture of alkanes that falls within the 20 ≤ n ≤ 40 range; they are found in the solid state at room temperature and begin to enter the...
, or diesel oil, but fuel consumption problems proved insurmountable for a production car. It is currently on display at the London Science Museum. Rover and the BRM Formula One team joined forces to produce the Rover-BRM
Rover-BRM
The Rover-BRM was a prototype gas turbine-powered racing car, jointly developed in the early 1960s by the British companies Rover and British Racing Motors .Rover had already been working with gas turbines for road vehicles since World War II...
, a gas turbine-powered sports prototype that entered the 1963 24 hours of Le Mans
24 Hours of Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the world's oldest sports car race in endurance racing, held annually since near the town of Le Mans, France. Commonly known as the Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency, race teams have to balance speed against the cars' ability to run for 24 hours without sustaining...
, driven by Graham Hill
Graham Hill
Norman Graham Hill was a British racing driver and two-time Formula One World Champion. He is the only driver to win the Triple Crown of Motorsport — the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Indianapolis 500 and Formula One World Championship.Graham Hill and his son Damon are the only father and son pair both to...
and Richie Ginther
Richie Ginther
Paul Richard "Richie" Ginther was a racecar driver from the United States. During a varied career, the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix saw Ginther take Honda's first Grand Prix victory, a victory which would also prove to be Ginther's only win in Formula One...
. It averaged 107.8 mph (173 km/h) and had a top speed of 142 mph (229 km/h).
Rover also ran several experimental diesel engine
Diesel engine
A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...
projects in relation to the Land Rover
Land Rover Series
The Land Rover Series I, II, and III are off-road vehicles produced by the British manufacturer Land Rover that were inspired by the US-built Willys Jeep...
. The 2-litre, 52 hp diesel unit designed and built by Rover for its 4x4 had entered production in 1956 and was one of Britain's first modern high-speed automotive diesel engines. Experimental projects were undertaken to improve the engine's power delivery, running qualities, and fuel tolerances. British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
requirements led to the development of a multifuel version of the 2.25-litre variant of the engine in 1962, which could run on petrol, diesel, Jet-A, or kerosene
Kerosene
Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin or paraffin oil in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and South Africa, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid. The name is derived from Greek keros...
. However, the engine's power output when running on low-grade fuel was too low for the Army's uses. Rover developed a highly advanced (for the time) turbodiesel
Turbodiesel
Turbodiesel refers to any diesel engine with a turbocharger. Turbocharging is the norm rather than the exception in modern car and truck diesel engines...
version of its engine in the mid 1960s to power its experimental '129-inch' heavy duty Land Rover
Land Rover
Land Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
designs. This 2.5-litre engine used a turbocharger
Turbocharger
A turbocharger, or turbo , from the Greek "τύρβη" is a centrifugal compressor powered by a turbine that is driven by an engine's exhaust gases. Its benefit lies with the compressor increasing the mass of air entering the engine , thereby resulting in greater performance...
built by Rover's gas turbine division as well as an intercooler
Intercooler
An intercooler , or charge air cooler, is an air-to-air or air-to-liquid heat exchange device used on turbocharged and supercharged internal combustion engines to improve their volumetric efficiency by increasing intake air charge density through nearly isobaric cooling, which removes...
. This was one of the first times these features had been incorporated on such a small-capacity diesel unit, but they were not adopted.
Golden years
Land Rover
Land Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
became a runaway success (despite Rover's reputation for making upmarket saloons, the utilitarian Land Rover was actually the company's biggest seller throughout the 1950s, '60s, and '70s), as well as the P5 and P6 saloons equipped with a 3.5L (215ci) aluminium V8
Rover V8 engine
The Rover V8 engine is a compact V8 internal combustion engine with aluminium cylinder heads and cylinder block, originally designed by General Motors and later re-designed and produced by Rover in the United Kingdom...
(the design and tooling of which was purchased from Buick
Buick
Buick is a premium brand of General Motors . Buick models are sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, and Israel, with China being its largest market. Buick holds the distinction as the oldest active American make...
) and pioneering research into gas turbine-fueled vehicles.
Mergers to form British Leyland
Triumph Motor Company
The Triumph Motor Company was a British car and motor manufacturing company. The Triumph marque is owned currently by BMW. The marque had its origins in 1885 when Siegfried Bettmann of Nuremberg initiated S. Bettmann & Co and started importing bicycles from Europe and selling them with his own...
. The next year, LMC merged with British Motor Holdings
British Motor Holdings
British Motor Holdings Limited was a British motor company known until 14 December 1966 as British Motor Corporation Limited .-History:...
(BMH) to become the British Leyland Motor Corporation
British Leyland Motor Corporation
British Leyland was a vehicle manufacturing company formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd . It was partly nationalised in 1975 with the government creating a new holding company called British Leyland Ltd which became BL Ltd in 1978...
. This was the beginning of the end for the independent Rover Company, as the Solihull-based company's heritage drowned beneath the infamous industrial relations and managerial problems that beset the British motor industry throughout the 1970s. At various times, it was part of the Specialist Division (hence the factory designation SD1 for the first—and in the event, only—model produced under this arrangement), Leyland Cars, Rover-Triumph, and the short-lived Jaguar Rover Triumph.
In 1970, Rover combined its skill in producing comfortable saloons and the rugged Land Rover 4x4 to produce the Range Rover
Range Rover
The Range Rover is a large luxury four-wheel drive sport utility vehicle produced by British car maker Land Rover. The model, launched in 1970, is now in its third generation...
, one of the first cars (albeit possibly inspired by the earlier Jeep Wagoneer and IH Scout) to combine off-road ability and comfortable versatility. Powered by the ex-Buick V8 engine, it had innovative features such as a permanent 4 wheel drive system, all-coil spring
Coil spring
A Coil spring, also known as a helical spring, is a mechanical device, which is typically used to store energy and subsequently release it, to absorb shock, or to maintain a force between contacting surfaces...
suspension, and disc brake
Disc brake
The disc brake or disk brake is a device for slowing or stopping the rotation of a wheel while it is in motion.A brake disc is usually made of cast iron, but may in some cases be made of composites such as reinforced carbon–carbon or ceramic matrix composites. This is connected to the wheel and/or...
s on all wheels. Able to reach speeds of up to 100 mi/h yet also capable of extreme off-road use, the original Range Rover design was to remain in production for the next 26 years.
The company's other major project at this time was the P8, a successor, styled by David Bache
David Bache
David Ernest Bache was a British car designer. For much of his career he worked with Rover.-Early life:Bache was born in Worcestershire, the son of Aston Villa and England footballer Joe Bache...
, for the 3-litre
Rover P5
The Mark II version of the P5 was introduced in 1962. It featured more power from the same 3.0 L engine and an improved suspension, while dropping the glass wind deflectors from the top of the window openings which also, on the front doors, now featured "quarterlight" windows .The most...
. The car's shape owed much to Detroit, with a front bumper concealed under a "bumperless" poyurethene nose, in a manner reminiscent of contemporary Pontiac
Pontiac
Pontiac was an automobile brand that was established in 1926 as a companion make for General Motors' Oakland. Quickly overtaking its parent in popularity, it supplanted the Oakland brand entirely by 1933 and, for most of its life, became a companion make for Chevrolet. Pontiac was sold in the...
s, and a side profile reminiscent of a slightly chunkier Opel Rekord. Although the original brief was for the car to be no longer externally than a Rover 2000
Rover P6
The first P6 used a 2.0 L engine designed specifically for the P6. Although it was announced towards the end of 1963, the car had been in "pilot production" since the beginning of the year, therefore deliveries were able to begin immediately. Original output was in the order of . At the...
, management changes led the project to be redefined as it progressed, and the P8 scheduled for launch at the 1971 London Motor Show was substantially larger than any existing Rover sedan, with the Rover V8 engine expanded for this application to 4.4 litres. The car followed the P6
Rover P6
The first P6 used a 2.0 L engine designed specifically for the P6. Although it was announced towards the end of 1963, the car had been in "pilot production" since the beginning of the year, therefore deliveries were able to begin immediately. Original output was in the order of . At the...
in employing a steel frame structure with bolt-on steel or aluminium panels. The manufacturer was nevertheless short of cash and of focus at this time: the P8 was one of several new model projects subjected to a slipping time-line. By the revised launch date towards the end of 1972 the considerable development costs had been expended and pre-production prototypes had even undergone extensive testing in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. Production capacity had been set aside for the P8 at the Solihull plant. However, an expenditure review in 1970 found the project subjected to criticism from Sir William Lyons
William Lyons
Sir William Lyons , known as "Mr. Jaguar", was with fellow motorcycle enthusiast William Walmsley, the co-founder in 1922 of the Swallow Sidecar Company, which became Jaguar Cars Limited after the Second World War....
, by now an influential member of the British Leyland board: speculation has arisen that Lyons saw the car as a threat to future investment in the recently launched Jaguar XJ6. It later emerged that Rover's contender would not have been particularly cheap or easy to build, and the shrinkage of the European market for sedans of this size that followed the 1973 oil price shock
1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...
suggest that abandonment of the project in 1972 - even at the eleventh hour - may have been the right decision for British Leyland; but the P8 was not entirely ummourned nearly thirty years later. Some of the P8's styling cues turned up two years later on the Leyland P76
Leyland P76
The Leyland P76 is a large car that was produced by Leyland Australia, the Australian subsidiary of British Leyland. Featuring what was described at the time as the "standard Australian wheelbase of 111 inches", it was intended to provide the company with a genuine rival to large local models like...
, and the driver's view of the instrument panel (albeit without the Austin Allegro
Austin Allegro
The Austin Allegro is a small family car manufactured by British Leyland under the Austin name from 1973 until 1983. The same vehicle was built in Italy by Innocenti between 1974 and 1975 and sold as the Innocenti Regent...
style "quartic" steering wheel that appears in one of the surviving pictures of it) would have been not entirely unfamiliar to the driver of a 1976 Rover 3500
Rover SD1
Rover SD1 is both the code name and eventual production name given to a series of large executive cars made by British Leyland or BL through its Specialist, Rover Triumph and Austin Rover divisions from 1976 until 1986....
.
As British Leyland struggled through financial turmoil and an industrial-relations crisis during the 1970s, it was effectively nationalized after a multi-billion-pound government cash injection in 1975. Michael Edwardes was brought in to head the company.
Rover SD1
Rover SD1 is both the code name and eventual production name given to a series of large executive cars made by British Leyland or BL through its Specialist, Rover Triumph and Austin Rover divisions from 1976 until 1986....
of 1976 was an excellent car, but was beset with so many build quality and reliability issues that it never delivered on its great promise. Following the closure of the Triumph
Triumph Motor Company
The Triumph Motor Company was a British car and motor manufacturing company. The Triumph marque is owned currently by BMW. The marque had its origins in 1885 when Siegfried Bettmann of Nuremberg initiated S. Bettmann & Co and started importing bicycles from Europe and selling them with his own...
factory at Canley
Canley
Canley is a suburban neighbourhood located in southwest Coventry, England. Canley became part of Coventry as a result of successive encroachment of the latter's boundaries between 1928 and 1932, having historically been part of the Stoneleigh parish....
, production of the Triumph TR7
Triumph TR7
The Triumph TR7 is a sports car manufactured from September 1974 to October 1981 by the Triumph Motor Company in the United Kingdom. It was initially produced at the Speke, Liverpool factory, moving to Canley, Coventry in 1978 and then finally to the Rover plant in Solihull in 1980...
and Triumph TR8
Triumph TR8
The Triumph TR8 is an eight-cylinder version of the "wedge-shaped" Triumph TR7 sports car, designed by Harris Mann, and manufactured by British Leyland , through its Jaguar/Rover/Triumph division. Because of its outstanding performance, the TR8 was often dubbed the "English Corvette"...
was moved to Solihull; but soon after, a savage programme of cutbacks in the late 1970s led to the end of car production at the Solihull factory, which was turned over for Land Rover production only. The TR7/8 model was discontinued while SD1 production moved to Cowley. All future Rover cars would be made in the former Austin
Austin Motor Company
The Austin Motor Company was a British manufacturer of automobiles. The company was founded in 1905 and merged in 1952 into the British Motor Corporation Ltd. The marque Austin was used until 1987...
and Morris
Morris Motor Company
The Morris Motor Company was a British car manufacturing company. After the incorporation of the company into larger corporations, the Morris name remained in use as a marque until 1984 when British Leyland's Austin Rover Group decided to concentrate on the more popular Austin marque...
plants in Longbridge and Cowley, respectively.
Rover and Honda
In 1979, British Leyland (or as it was now officially known, BL Ltd.) began a long relationship with the HondaHonda
is a Japanese public multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles.Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume, producing more than...
Motor Company of Japan. The result was a cross-holding structure, where Honda took a 20% stake in the company while the company took a 20% stake in Honda's UK subsidiary. The deal was thought to be mutually beneficial: Honda used its British operations as a launchpad into Europe, and the company could pool resources with Honda in developing new cars.
Austin Rover Group
Austin Rover Group
The Austin Rover Group was a British motor manufacturer. It was formed in 1981 as the mass-market car manufacturing subsidiary of British Leyland...
was formed in 1982 as the mass-market car manufacturing subsidiary of BL, with the separate Rover Company becoming effectively defunct.
In the 1980s, the slimmed-down BL used the Rover brand on a range of cars codeveloped with Honda
Honda
is a Japanese public multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles.Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume, producing more than...
. The first Honda-sourced Rover model, released in 1984, was the Rover 200, which, like the Triumph Acclaim
Triumph Acclaim
The Triumph Acclaim was a front-wheel drive medium-sized family car made by British Leyland from 1981 to 1984. It was based on the Honda Ballade and used a Honda-designed engine, but met United Kingdom component-content requirements...
that it replaced, was based on the Honda Ballade
Honda Ballade
The Honda Ballade was a subcompact automobile built by Honda of Japan. It began as a four-door version of the Civic in 1980. The Ballade was developed at the same time the Honda Vigor appeared, which was a higher content Honda Accord...
. Similarly, in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, the Honda Quint
Honda Quint
The Honda Quint is a subcompact car manufactured by Honda Motor Co. Ltd. of Japan. It was introduced in 1980 in Japan as an upscale Honda Civic 4-door hatchback, and joined the Honda Prelude, Honda Ballade, and Honda Vigor at the then newly established Japanese dealership sales channel called Honda...
(known in Europe as the Quintet) and Integra
Honda Integra
The Honda Integra is a compact luxury performance coupe made by Honda during the years 1985 to 2006. The sporty front wheel drive car is able to house five passengers with a two door hatch or four door sedan available.The Integra was on Car and Driver magazine's annual Ten Best list six times, in...
were badged as the Rover Quintet and 416i.
The Rover brand name lives on
Rover Group
The Rover Group plc was the name given in 1986 to the British state-owned vehicle manufacturer previously known as British Leyland or BL. Owned by British Aerospace from 1988 to 1994, when it was sold to BMW, the Group was broken up in 2000 with the Rover and MG marques being acquired by the MG...
, with the car division becoming Rover Cars.
In 1986, the Rover SD1 was replaced by the Rover 800
Rover 800
The Rover 800 series is an executive car introduced by the Austin Rover Group in 1986 and also marketed as the Sterling in the United States. Co-developed with Honda, it was a close relative to the Honda Legend and the successor to the Rover SD1....
, developed with the Honda Legend
Honda Legend
The Honda Legend is a mid-size luxury car made by the Japanese automaker Honda. It was the result of Project XX, a joint agreement started in November 1981 with the Austin Rover Group of Great Britain and was mechanically related to the Rover 800 series....
. The Austin range were now technically Rovers, though the word "Rover" never actually appeared on the badging. Instead, there was a badge similar to the Rover Viking shape, without wording. These were replaced by the Rover 400 and Rover 600, based on Honda's Concerto
Honda Concerto
The Honda Concerto was an automobile produced by Honda from 1988 to 1994. Like its predecessor, the Honda Quint and Honda Ballade sedan , it shared its platform with a Rover product, namely the Rover 200 and Rover 400...
and Accord
Honda Accord
The Honda Accord is a series of compact, mid-size and full-size automobiles manufactured by Honda since 1976, and sold in a majority of automotive markets throughout the world....
, respectively.
Rover exported Rover 800s, badged as Sterling
Sterling (car)
Sterling was a brand name of automobile marketed in the USA by ARCONA, Austin Rover Cars Of North America under the name Sterling Motor Cars, a division of the Rover car company of the UK...
s, to the United States from 1987 to 1992.
British Aerospace ownership of the brand name
In 1988, the Rover brand went back into private hands when the Rover Group was acquired by British AerospaceBritish Aerospace
British Aerospace plc was a UK aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was in the Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire...
.
BMW ownership of the brand name
The Honda partnership proved to be the turnaround point for the company, steadily rebuilding its image to the point where once again, Rover-branded cars were seen as upmarket alternatives to Fords and Vauxhalls. In 1994, British Aerospace sold the Rover Group, including the Rover, Land RoverLand Rover
Land Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
, Riley, Mini
Mini
The Mini is a small car that was made by the British Motor Corporation and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The original is considered a British icon of the 1960s, and its space-saving front-wheel-drive layout influenced a generation of car-makers...
, Triumph
Triumph Motor Company
The Triumph Motor Company was a British car and motor manufacturing company. The Triumph marque is owned currently by BMW. The marque had its origins in 1885 when Siegfried Bettmann of Nuremberg initiated S. Bettmann & Co and started importing bicycles from Europe and selling them with his own...
, and Austin-Healey
Austin-Healey
Austin-Healey was a British sports car maker. The marque was established through a joint-venture arrangement, set up in 1952 between Leonard Lord of the Austin division of the British Motor Corporation and the Donald Healey Motor Company, a renowned automotive engineering and design...
brands to BMW
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
, who had begun to see Rover-branded cars as potential major competitors. Under BMW, the Rover Group developed the Rover 75
Rover 75
The Rover 75 is an executive car produced initially by the Rover Group at Cowley, Oxfordshire, UK, and later by MG Rover at their Longbridge site in Birmingham, UK...
as a retro-designed car influenced by the earlier Rover P4
Rover P4
The Rover P4 series was a group of saloon automobiles produced from 1949 through to 1964 designed by Gordon Bashford. The P4 designation is factory terminology for the group of cars and was not in day-to-day use by ordinary owners, who would have said simply that they had a "Rover 90" and so on.The...
and P5
Rover P5
The Mark II version of the P5 was introduced in 1962. It featured more power from the same 3.0 L engine and an improved suspension, while dropping the glass wind deflectors from the top of the window openings which also, on the front doors, now featured "quarterlight" windows .The most...
designs.
In 2000, BMW split up the Rover Group, selling Land Rover
Land Rover
Land Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
to the Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
for an estimated sum of £1.8-billion, retaining the MINI operations
MINI (BMW)
Mini is a British automotive marque owned by BMW which specialises in small cars.Mini originated as a specific vehicle, a small car originally known as the Morris Mini-Minor and the Austin Seven, launched by the British Motor Corporation in 1959, and developed into a brand encompassing a range of...
, and selling the rest of the car business to the Phoenix Consortium, who established it as MG Rover. Interestingly, although BMW included ownership of the MG brand in the deal, they retained ownership of the Rover brand, licensing its use to the new MG Rover company for use on the ongoing car models that they had acquired.
MG Rover licensing of the brand name
MG Rover Group
MG Rover was the last domestically owned mass-production car manufacturer in the British motor industry. The company was formed when BMW sold the car-making and engine manufacturing assets of the original Rover Group to the Phoenix Consortium in 2000....
from the former Rover Group car operations (acquired from BMW for a nominal £10 in May 2000) and continued to use the Rover brand under licence from BMW.
The year before its breakup, the Rover Group had sustained losses of an estimated £800-million. The four businessmen who took control of the newly formed MG Rover Group are reported to have received around £430-million in a dowry from BMW that included unsold stock.
The first new Rover-branded car to be launched after the formation of MG Rover was the estate version of the Rover 75
Rover 75
The Rover 75 is an executive car produced initially by the Rover Group at Cowley, Oxfordshire, UK, and later by MG Rover at their Longbridge site in Birmingham, UK...
, which went on sale later in 2000. In 2003, MG Rover launched the CityRover, a badge-engineered Tata Indica that served as an entry-level model. Despite high initial expectations, sales were poor. Several concept cars intended to point the way towards a replacement for the Rover 25 and 45 were shown in the early 2000s, but no production model emerged.
MG Rover production ceased on 15 April 2005, when it was declared insolvent
Insolvency
Insolvency means the inability to pay one's debts as they fall due. Usually used to refer to a business, insolvency refers to the inability of a company to pay off its debts.Business insolvency is defined in two different ways:...
. On 22 July 2005, the physical assets of the collapsed firm were sold to the Nanjing Automobile Group
Nanjing Automobile Group
Nanjing Automobile is a state-owned enterprise with a history that dates from 1947, making it the oldest of the Chinese automobile manufacturers, although the comparatively younger First Automobile Works was the first to actually make cars.The group's products have included cars, trucks, and...
for £53m. They indicated that their preliminary plans involved relocating the Powertrain engine plant to China while splitting car production into Rover lines in China and resumed MG lines in the West Midlands
West Midlands (county)
The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...
(though not necessarily at Longbridge), where a UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
R&D
Research and development
The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
and technical facility would also be developed.
On 30 May 2007, Nanjing Automobile Group
Nanjing Automobile Group
Nanjing Automobile is a state-owned enterprise with a history that dates from 1947, making it the oldest of the Chinese automobile manufacturers, although the comparatively younger First Automobile Works was the first to actually make cars.The group's products have included cars, trucks, and...
claimed to have restarted production of MG TF sports cars in the Longbridge plant, with sales expected to begin in the autumn.
Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), who held the intellectual property of Rover 75 car design (bought for £67m before MG Rover collapsed) and was also bidding for MG Rover, announced their own version of the Rover 75 in late 2006. In July 2006, SAIC announced their intent to buy the Rover brand name from BMW
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
, who still owned the rights to the Rover marque. However, BMW refused their request, due to an agreement that Ford
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
had reached with them to be given first option on the brand when it acquired Land Rover
Land Rover
Land Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
. Unable to use the Rover name, SAIC created their own brand with a similar name and badge, known as Roewe. Roewe was eventually launched in early 2007.
Ford Motor Company ownership of the brand name
Ford had first option to purchase the Rover brand name if MG Rover ceased trading, a right that had been negotiated when the Land Rover brand was bought from BMWBMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
. This right was exercised on 18 September 2006. No Rover-branded cars were produced whilst Ford owned the brand, and in a further twist, Tata Motors now owns the brand that was used for the ill-fated CityRover
CityRover
The Rover CityRover is a hatchback car model offered by MG Rover Group in the UK market. Launched in the Autumn of 2003, the car was a rebadged version of the Indian Tata Indica. With a length of , it was considered either a large city car or a small supermini...
model, a rebadged Tata Indica
Tata Indica
The Tata Indica is a hatchback automobile range manufactured by Tata Motors of India. It is the first passenger car from Tata Motors and is also considered India's first indigenously developed passenger car. , more than 910,000 Indicas were produced. The annual sales of Indica has been as high as ...
marketed by MG Rover under licence in the UK Market from 2003 to 2005.
Tata Motors' ownership of the brand name
As part of Ford's agreement to sell their Jaguar and Land RoverLand Rover
Land Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
operations to Tata Motors
Tata Motors
Tata Motors Limited is an Indian multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Mumbai, India. Part of the Tata Group, it was formerly known as TELCO...
, the Rover brand name was included in the deal.
Launched under the independent Rover Company pre-merger (1904–67)
- 1904–12 Rover 8Rover 8The Rover 8 was a name given to three early models of car from the British Rover car company. The original one, produced between 1904 and 1912, was the first production Rover car...
- 1906–10 Rover 6Rover 6The Rover 6 was the second car model made by the British Rover car company. It was sold from 1906 until 1912.The first car made by Rover, the Rover 8, which was sold alongside the 6, had been of unorthodox construction with its backbone chassis...
- 1906–10 Rover 16/20
- 1912–23 Rover 12Rover 12The Rover 12 was a name given to several medium sized family cars from the British Rover car company between 1905 and 1948.-Rover 10-12 :The first Rover 12 was the third car the company made and was launched in 1905...
- 1919–25 Rover 8Rover 8The Rover 8 was a name given to three early models of car from the British Rover car company. The original one, produced between 1904 and 1912, was the first production Rover car...
- 1924–27 Rover 9/20
- 1925–27 Rover 14/45
- 1927–32 Rover Light SixRover Light SixThe Rover Light Six was a mid-size formal saloon produced from 1927 through to 1932 by the Rover Company of Coventry.- Overview :The Rover Light Six was one of the first Rover cars manufactured under the aegis of Spencer and Maurice Wilks who introduced new management practices and engineering...
- 1927–47 Rover 10Rover 10The Rover 10 was a small family car from the British Rover car company produced between 1929 and 1947.-Rover 10/25:The 1933 10 was really a new car with new chassis and new 1389 cc engine. It was the first car to be developed by Rover after the Wilks brothers Spencer and younger brother...
- 1929–32 Rover 2-Litre
- 1930–34 Rover Meteor 16HP/20HP
- 1931–40 Rover Speed 20
- 1932–33 Rover Pilot/Speed Pilot
- 1932–32 Rover ScarabRover ScarabThe Rover Scarab was a convertible four seater intended to sell at £85, and had a V twin engine of only 839 cc, which was rear mounted. Despite the engine position, the Scarab had a conventional radiator grill at the front. The other 1930s rear engined cars all had a down-curved grill-less front...
- 1934–47 Rover 12Rover 12The Rover 12 was a name given to several medium sized family cars from the British Rover car company between 1905 and 1948.-Rover 10-12 :The first Rover 12 was the third car the company made and was launched in 1905...
- 1934–47 Rover 14/Speed 14
- 1937–47 Rover 16Rover 16The Rover 16 was a medium-sized family car produced by the British Rover car company between 1937 and 1940 as a successor to the Rover Speed 16...
- 1948–78 Land Rover (I/II/III)Land Rover SeriesThe Land Rover Series I, II, and III are off-road vehicles produced by the British manufacturer Land Rover that were inspired by the US-built Willys Jeep...
—In 1978, BL established Land Rover LimitedLand RoverLand Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
as a separate subsidiary; it took over Land Rover production. - 1948–49 Rover P3 (60/75)Rover P3The Rover P3 car produced by the Rover company in 1948 and 1949 was very much an interim model.For the post-war market Rover had a new engine that had been in preparation since the late 1930s with overhead inlet and side exhaust valves. It was made in two version for the car, the "60" had a...
- 1949–64 Rover P4 (60/75/80/90/95/100/105/110)Rover P4The Rover P4 series was a group of saloon automobiles produced from 1949 through to 1964 designed by Gordon Bashford. The P4 designation is factory terminology for the group of cars and was not in day-to-day use by ordinary owners, who would have said simply that they had a "Rover 90" and so on.The...
- 1958–73 Rover P5 (3-Litre/3.5-Litre)Rover P5The Mark II version of the P5 was introduced in 1962. It featured more power from the same 3.0 L engine and an improved suspension, while dropping the glass wind deflectors from the top of the window openings which also, on the front doors, now featured "quarterlight" windows .The most...
- 1963–76 Rover P6 (2000/2200/3500)Rover P6The first P6 used a 2.0 L engine designed specifically for the P6. Although it was announced towards the end of 1963, the car had been in "pilot production" since the beginning of the year, therefore deliveries were able to begin immediately. Original output was in the order of . At the...
Launched under the Rover Company as a BLMC/BL subsidiary (1967–86)
- 1970–78 Range RoverRange RoverThe Range Rover is a large luxury four-wheel drive sport utility vehicle produced by British car maker Land Rover. The model, launched in 1970, is now in its third generation...
—In 1978, BL established Land Rover LimitedLand RoverLand Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
as a separate subsidiary; it took over Range Rover production. - 1976–86 Rover SD1 (2000/2300/2400/2600/3500/Vitesse)Rover SD1Rover SD1 is both the code name and eventual production name given to a series of large executive cars made by British Leyland or BL through its Specialist, Rover Triumph and Austin Rover divisions from 1976 until 1986....
- 1984–99 Rover 200 (211/213/214/216/218/220)
- 1985–89 Rover 416i—Australian market
Pre-existing models rebranded under the Rover Group (1986–2000)
- Mini/Supermini cars
- 1986–2000 Rover MiniMiniThe Mini is a small car that was made by the British Motor Corporation and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The original is considered a British icon of the 1960s, and its space-saving front-wheel-drive layout influenced a generation of car-makers...
—Originally called the Austin Seven/Morris Mini Minor in 1959, but renamed Rover Mini in 1986. - 1990–98 Rover Metro, Rover 100 (111/114/115)Rover MetroThe Metro is a supermini car that was produced by the Austin Rover Group division of British Leyland and its successors. It was launched in 1980 as the Austin miniMetro. It was intended to complement the Mini, and was developed under the codename LC8....
- 1986–2000 Rover Mini
- Family cars
- 1989–94 MaestroAustin MaestroThe Austin Maestro is a compact-sized 5-door hatchback car that was produced from 1983 to 1994, initially by the Austin Rover subsidiary of British Leyland , and from 1988 onwards by its successor, Rover Group. The car was produced at the former Morris plant in Cowley, Oxford. It was initially...
—Never branded a Rover but sold through brand. - 1989–94 MontegoAustin MontegoThe Austin Montego is a British mid-size saloon car that was produced by the Austin Rover subsidiary of British Leyland , and its successors, from 1984 until 1994. The Montego was the replacement for the Morris Ital, to give British Leyland a modern competitor for the Ford Sierra and Vauxhall...
—Never branded a Rover but sold through brand.
- 1989–94 Maestro
Rover-branded models launched under the Rover Group (1986–2000)
- Family cars
- 1992–98 Rover 200 Coupe (216/218/220/220 Turbo)
- 1990–2000 Rover 400 (414/416/418/420)Rover 400The second generation 400 Series, codenamed Theta or HH-R, was launched in the summer of 1995 as a hatchback and later a saloon. This time it was based on the Honda Domani, which had been released in Japan in 1992, and was sold as part of the European Honda Civic range in five-door hatchback form...
- 1993–99 Rover SK1, Rover 600 (618/620/623 and 620ti)Rover 600The Rover 600 Series is a compact executive car produced by the British car maker Rover from 1993 to 1999.The Rover 600 exterior was designed by Rover, a re-skin of the Tochigi-developed Honda Accord, also built in the UK by Honda in Swindon...
- Executive cars
- 1986–98 Rover 800 (820/825/827 and Vitesse)Rover 800The Rover 800 series is an executive car introduced by the Austin Rover Group in 1986 and also marketed as the Sterling in the United States. Co-developed with Honda, it was a close relative to the Honda Legend and the successor to the Rover SD1....
and SterlingSterling (car)Sterling was a brand name of automobile marketed in the USA by ARCONA, Austin Rover Cars Of North America under the name Sterling Motor Cars, a division of the Rover car company of the UK... - 1998–2005 Rover RD1, Rover 75Rover 75The Rover 75 is an executive car produced initially by the Rover Group at Cowley, Oxfordshire, UK, and later by MG Rover at their Longbridge site in Birmingham, UK...
- 1986–98 Rover 800 (820/825/827 and Vitesse)
Rover-branded models launched under MG Rover (2000–05)
- Mini/Supermini cars
- 2003–05 CityRover
- Family cars
- 2000–05 Rover 25
- 2000–05 Rover 45
- 2003–05 Rover StreetwiseRover StreetwiseThe Rover Streetwise was a small car made by MG Rover. It was based on the Rover 25, but had an increased ride height and chunkier bumpers. The car was marketed by Rover as an 'urban on-roader'.Production ended in April 2005 due to the bankruptcy of MG Rover....
- Van
- 2003–05 Rover Commerce
See also
- Austin Rover GroupAustin Rover GroupThe Austin Rover Group was a British motor manufacturer. It was formed in 1981 as the mass-market car manufacturing subsidiary of British Leyland...
- Rover GroupRover GroupThe Rover Group plc was the name given in 1986 to the British state-owned vehicle manufacturer previously known as British Leyland or BL. Owned by British Aerospace from 1988 to 1994, when it was sold to BMW, the Group was broken up in 2000 with the Rover and MG marques being acquired by the MG...
- MG Rover GroupMG Rover GroupMG Rover was the last domestically owned mass-production car manufacturer in the British motor industry. The company was formed when BMW sold the car-making and engine manufacturing assets of the original Rover Group to the Phoenix Consortium in 2000....
- Nanjing Automobile GroupNanjing Automobile GroupNanjing Automobile is a state-owned enterprise with a history that dates from 1947, making it the oldest of the Chinese automobile manufacturers, although the comparatively younger First Automobile Works was the first to actually make cars.The group's products have included cars, trucks, and...