ram / scale 1/43 / the collection

The team was formed in 1975 by Mike Ralph and John Macdonald, with RAM derived from their names.

RAM Racing was a Formula One racing team which competed during the racing seasons of 1976 to 1985. The team entered other manufacturers' chassis from 1976 to 1980, then ran March's team from 1981 to 1983, only entering a car entirely their own in 1984 and 1985.

1983 saw the RAM name make itself onto the chassis for the first time, with Dave Kelly's RAM March 01 design.

Mike Ralph and John Macdonald bought a pair of Brabham BT44B Formula One cars, and entered the 1976 World Championship, running Loris Kessel and Emilio de Villota for the Spanish Grand Prix, where neither qualified. However, both Kessel and another pay-driver, Patrick Nève, qualified for the Belgian Grand Prix, with Jac Nellemann, Damien Magee, Lella Lombardi and Bob Evans all making appearances in the cars. There were few finishes, and the pay-drivers meant the team were frequent non-qualifiers.

The team planned to enter a single updated RAM 03 for the 1986 season, but the funds could not be found, and the team folded over the winter of 1985.

Headquartered, United Kingdom

ram 03 s4t

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.