rover / scale 1/43 | thebiggarage

The company was formed in 1878 and began manufacturing the most famous car, the Land Rover from 1948, until it became its own brand.

Rover is a British automotive marque that was used for over a century, from 1904 to 2005. It was launched as a bicycle maker called Rover Company in 1878, before starting to manufacture autocars in 1904. The brand used the iconic Viking longship as its logo. The rights to the marque are currently part of Jaguar Land Rover, but no Rover vehicles are currently in production and the marque is considered dormant.

Headquarters Coventry, West Midlands, United Kingdom

rover 75 1999-2005

The Rover 75 is a car which was manufactured from 1998 to 2005 and sold under the British Rover marque. It is a large family car and came in four-door saloon and five-door estate body styles. Initially built only with front-wheel drive, a rear-wheel drive variant with a V8 engine was later sold. There was also an extended-wheelbase model. In 2001, MG Rover launched a badge engineered variant, the MG ZT. A coupé concept was built, but did not receive further development.

Rover 75s were manufactured by the Rover Group at Cowley, Oxfordshire for one year. After owner BMW sold Rover, the 75 was manufactured by the new MG Rover Group at their Longbridge site in Birmingham. The Rover 75 debuted at the Birmingham Motor Show, with deliveries commencing in February 1999. As the last large Rover saloon, production of all models ended in 2005 when MG Rover Group entered receivership.

The Rover 75 (and MG ZT derivative) were powered by a combination of Rover's own petrol and LPG K-Series and KV6 engines as well as Ford's Modular V8 and BMW's M47 diesel engine. The latter was designated M47R to identify the unit as a Rover special.

Initial sales of the Rover 75 failed to match the BMW 3 Series and Audi A4. The public unveiling of the car at the Birmingham Motor Show drew favourable reactions, but was unfortunately overshadowed by a press conference afterwards by BMW chairman, effectively suggesting that Rover was in crisis. Press reaction interpreted this as saying that BMW were unhappy with continuing financial losses and were intending to close Rover down. This undoubtedly scared off many prospective buyers, despite the very positive reaction to the car itself. Indeed, it did (and still does) hold up very well with the Jaguar S-Type that was unveiled at the same show. Rover's brand image also hurt the 75 against competitors despite its positive reception.

Sales picked up substantially during 2000, and it was Britain's fifth-most popular new car in the month of April of that year. It was still selling reasonably well at the time of MG Rover's bankruptcy in April 2005, and a small number of unsold 75s were still in stock as of early-2007, as Nanjing Automobile was preparing to reopen Longbridge.

Rover 75 (youtube.com)