Rover (car)
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The Rover Six in a 1910 advertisement - £155 |
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1936 Rover 10 |
Rover was a British
automobile manufacturer and later a
marque based at the
Longbridge plant in
Birmingham. In recent years it was part of the
MG Rover Group. However, in April 2005, production stopped when the company became
insolvent. In July 2005 the
Nanjing Automobile Group acquired the assets, with plans to resume production in China, and possibly also at Longbridge, in 2006.
The first
Rover was a
tricycle 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 formerly worked with his uncle James Starley (father of the cycle trade) who began in manufacturing sewing machines and switched to
bicycles in 1869.
In the early 1880s the cycles available were the relatively dangerous
penny-farthings 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 wheeled designs. Cycling Magazine said the Rover had 'set the pattern to the world' and the phrase was used in their advertising for many years. Starley's Rover is usually described by historians as the first recognisably modern bicycle. In 1888 Starley made an electric car, but it never was put into production.
In 1889 the company became J. K. Starley & Co. Ltd and in the late 1890s, the Rover Cycle Company Ltd. Three years after Starley's death in 1901, the Rover company began producing automobiles with the two-seater Rover Eight to the designs of Edmund Lewis who came from
Daimler. During the
First World War they made
motorcycles, lorries to
Maudsley designs and not having a suitable one of their own, cars to a
Sunbeam design. Bicycle and motorcycle production continued until the
Great Depression forced the end of production in 1925. The business was not very successful during the 1920s and did not pay a dividend from 1923 until the mid 1930s. In 1929 when there was a change of management with
Spencer Wilks coming in from
Hillman as general manager. He set about reorganising the company and moving it up market to cater for people who wanted something "superior" to
Fords and
Austins. He was joined by his brother
Maurice, who had also been at Hillman, as chief engineer in 1930. Spencer Wilks stayed with the company until 1962 and his brother until 1963. After automobile production resumed in 1947, following the
Second World War, the company began producing the
Land Rover.
In 1950, designer F. R. Bell and Chief Engineer Maurice Wilks unveiled the first car powered with a
gas turbine engine. 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 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 a gas turbine powered coupe, which 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).
The 1950s and 60s were fruitful years for the company, with the
Land Rover becoming a runaway success (despite Rover's repuation for making up-market saloons, the utiliarian 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 fuelled vehicles. In 1967, Rover became part of the
Leyland Motor Corporation, which merged with the
British Motor Holdings to become
British Leyland. This was the beginning of the end for the traditional Rover, 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. The
Rover SD1 of
1976 was an excellent car, but was beset with so many build quality and reliability issues that it never delivered its great promise. 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. All future Rover cars would be made in the former
Austin and
Morris plants in Longbridge and Cowley, respectively.
In the 1980s, the slimmed down BL used the Rover badge on a range of cars co-developed with
Honda. The first Honda-sourced 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 and
Integra were badged as the
Rover Quintet and
416i.) In 1986, the SD1 was replaced by the
Rover 800, based on the
Honda Legend. By this time Austin Rover had moved to a one-marque strategy and renamed itself simply "Rover Group". The
Austin Maestro and
Montego, now badged as Rovers (though the word 'Rover' never actually appeared on the badging, just a version of the Viking badge), were replaced by the Rover 400 and Rover 600, based on Honda's
Concerto and
Accord.
This was to prove to be the turn-around point for the company, steadily rebuilding its image to the point where once again Rovers were seen as upmarket alternatives to Fords and Vauxhalls. The 1994 takeover by
BMW saw the development of the
Rover 75, before the infamous de-merger in 2000. BMW retained the rights to the Rover name after it sold the business, only licencing it to the new company owners and has said that Ford has the right of first refusal to it if it is sold because of their ownership of Land Rover.
The company continued as the
MG Rover Group but production ceased on
July 7 2005, when it was declared
insolvent. In July 2005 the entire company was sold to the
Nanjing Automobile Group, who 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.
Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation who were also bidding for MG Rover, plan to release their own version of the Rover 75 in late 2006, because they do not own the rights to the name it will not be badged as a Rover.
In
Polish (
Rower) and
Belarusian (
Rovar, Ро́вар) the word for
bicycle is derived from the name of this company.
* Pre-War
** 1904-1912
Rover 8** 1906-1910
Rover 6** 1906-1910
Rover 16/20** 1912-1923
Rover 12** 1919-1925
Rover 8** 1924-1927
Rover 9/20** 1925-1927
Rover 14/45** 1927-1932
Rover Light Six** 1927-1947
Rover 10** 1929-1932
Rover 2-Litre** 1930-1934
Rover Meteor (16HP/20HP (12/15 kW))** 1931-1940
Rover Speed 20** 1932-1933
Rover Pilot/Speed Pilot** 1932-1932
Rover Scarab** 1934-1948
Rover 12** 1934-1948
Rover 14/Speed 14** 1936-1948
Rover 16* Compact
** 1984-1999
Rover 200 (213/214/216)** 1999-2005
Rover 25** 2003-2005
Rover Streetwise* Midsize
** 1948-1949
Rover P3 (60/75)** 1949-1964
Rover P4 (60/75/80/90/95/100/105/110)** 1963-1976
Rover P6 (2000/2200)** 1976-1986
Rover SD1 (2000/2300/2400/2600)** 1990-1998
Rover 400 (414/416/418/420)** 1999-2005
Rover 45* Large
** 1958-1973
Rover P5 (3-Litre/3.5-Litre)** 1963-1976
Rover P6 (3500)** 1976-1986
Rover SD1 (3500/Vitesse)** 1993-1999
Rover 600 (618/620/623)** 1986-1998
Rover 800 (820/825/827) and
Sterling** 1998-2005
Rover 75* Small
** 1980-1993
Rover Metro** 1994-1998
Rover 100** 2003-2005
CityRover*
Austin Rover Group*
MG Rover Group*
Nanjing Automobile Group*
Portuguese Mg-Rover Club
