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SO..anyone going to buy a Chinese "Rover"?

Gucci

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Couldn't quite believe last week's Auto Express...Rover comes back to UK...in actual fact it's a Chinese version 'Roewe' I think is the spelling....IT'S AN INSULT. Our car industry was the business once upon a time. I hope the Chinese versions fall on deaf wallets. :mad:
 
Dont knock em mate, believe it or not but China is the biggest growing economy in the world followed by India. These people work hard for wages we wouldn't touch and they dont do half jobs either on any of their products, at least they are keeping the Rover brand alive even though it might under a chinese brand.
 
Consider the Japanese motor industry 40 years ago. It was a laughing stock.

Now however its a globally renowned world player that has raised the bar for quality and reliability, especially in small cars.

Anyone who thinks China won't get to the same high standards has been on the rice wine.

All that said, I wouldn't want a Chinese Rover any more than I'd want a British one and I'd rather drive a Fiesta than any kind of Lexus. ;)
 
The Chinese will do a much better job with their car industry than we did, because they won't tolerate greedy self-serving union leaders calling stoppages for not having the right teabags or not having scented hand cream in the toilets. They'll be lined up against the wall and shot, which is what we should have done to them, along with the BL bosses for thinking in-group competition was a good thing.
 
SD1, MG Montego Turbo.... got scalded in the past, so once bitten never forgiven! Big NO!

Mercedes are like Manna from heaven comparing them with past cars!
 
Couldn't quite believe last week's Auto Express...Rover comes back to UK...in actual fact it's a Chinese version 'Roewe' I think is the spelling....IT'S AN INSULT. Our car industry was the business once upon a time. I hope the Chinese versions fall on deaf wallets. :mad:

I don't see the name change as an insult. They are the ones that kept the business going . . rather than letting it go down the pan as it did in the UK. They can call it whatever they like . . I wouldn't go around hoping that they fail . . if any thing I hope they do well, they taking a failing British business and are attempting to turn it around and get the cars out of the doors again.
. . personally their cars are not for me though . .
 
Most of the things we buy now are manufactured at least in part in China and if anything, quality and reliability are both improving.
 
I totally agree that the Chinese will make better use of the Rover, but call it a Rover..not an imitation. Yes the unions have a lot to answer for, and the british work mentality leaves a lot to be desired in many areas. I used to date a German girl :rock: (gorgeous) and she was stunned at how much chit chat there is at her work place..."what are you doing? We're supposed to be working?" TOTALLY different work ethic. Bit dull I guess, but look at their car industry.

p.s she actually was dignosed with depression (hopefully nothing to do with me!) :confused:
 
I totally agree that the Chinese will make better use of the Rover, but call it a Rover..not an imitation.

They can't call them Rover. The name is owned by BMW and only licensed to the consortium that ran the company into the ground. That was part of the reason they started making so many MGs they didn't have to pay BMW a licence every time they made one!

When the administrators sold it to the Chinese they didn't buy the name, hence Roewe.

MG is owned by SAIC and therefore will be properly branded when it relaunches.

We will probably never see a new car with a Rover badge.
 
They can't call them Rover. The name is owned by BMW and only licensed to the consortium that ran the company into the ground. That was part of the reason they started making so many MGs they didn't have to pay BMW a licence every time they made one!

When the administrators sold it to the Chinese they didn't buy the name, hence Roewe.

MG is owned by SAIC and therefore will be properly branded when it relaunches.

We will probably never see a new car with a Rover badge.

I thought Ford recently bought the Rover name to stop the chinese making 4x4's and calling them Land Rover's:D
 
Pigs ear... silk purse!!!

The MGF was fundamentaly flawed, unless you liked banging your head on the roof frame if you were anywhere near 6':mad:

The test will be when they do their own car.

Read a report that people from the far east were caught at a motor show taking "samples" with scalpels from Merc, BMW and Audi dash boards. These people are very serious at taking on the big european players.
 
I totally agree that the Chinese will make better use of the Rover, but call it a Rover..not an imitation. Yes the unions have a lot to answer for, and the british work mentality leaves a lot to be desired in many areas. I used to date a German girl :rock: (gorgeous) and she was stunned at how much chit chat there is at her work place..."what are you doing? We're supposed to be working?" TOTALLY different work ethic. Bit dull I guess, but look at their car industry.

p.s she actually was dignosed with depression (hopefully nothing to do with me!) :confused:
I guess then that you have never worked in Germany. Having spent a long time working with Germany and other countries and the last ten years working in Germany for German companies (now in Luxembourg but for a German company) and married to a German, I can only say that is far from correct. Germans work strict hours doing strict jobs, limited overtime and around 1 million excuses not to work, besides until last year so much social featherbedding the old time British Union leaders would have been amazed. What is it at VW - a 21 hour week on the production line? It is a highly regulated working environment unlike Britain which completely lacks regulation and where people work long hours and often take short lunch breaks besides working weekends - a situation where the works council would have the particular manager involved hung out to dry.
It all works because they are highly process driven, a management technique completely lacking in the old time British car industry management strata which singularly failed to manage their companies in terms of producing well designed cars, that were reliable and that people wanted. Please tell me how the Unions were in any way to blame for that. Would you not when working for a company e.g. British Leyland, where the management were so incompetent, they produced a string of completely useless Dodo' despite the fact that they had a captive home market and foreign markets that were begging for anything half decent, react against that management, as did the unions?. Or the recent Rover, where the management were so greedily lining their own pockets that it was embarrassing for anybody to try and help them survive.
And if you want a laugh based on this, watch the German version of The Office 'Stromberg' which refelects many of teh practices that I have seen.
 
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I guess then that you have never worked in Germany. Having spent a long time working with Germany and other countries and the last ten years working in Germany for German companies (now in Luxembourg but for a German company) and married to a German, I can only say that is far from correct. Germans work strict hours doing strict jobs, limited overtime and around 1 million excuses not to work, besides until last year so much social featherbedding the old time British Union leaders would have been amazed. What is it at VW - a 21 hour week on the production line?
Can mostly agree with you Bonzo, except in the last 12 years I have seen my industry go from the style you indicate to the AngloAmerican ethos of late working, long hours, poor lunch breaks. Its sad to see a pretty German lady coming in at 8am working till 11pm, not married (has no time), falsely pressured to work hard and long, but its happening here!
 
SOME PICS:

roewe-75_2.jpg


roewe-75_6.jpg


roewe-75_4.jpg


I quite like it.... its still a 75 though and i think the shape has had its day in the UK......
 
I thought Ford recently bought the Rover name to stop the chinese making 4x4's and calling them Land Rover's:D
Sort of my understanding too. IIRC when BMW sold Land Rover to Ford, it was built into the contract that BMW would own the Rover brand but Phoenix Consortium could use it, and should BMW ever sell the Rover brand name then Ford would have first dibs on it given that they would own Land Rover.

I wish them every success. I suspect the Chinese currently have the drive to do great things in much the same was that Great Britain once did - GB just let it slide, where as the Chinese are just entering centre stage league.

I would like to think that we could put the Great back into Britain, but I think the reality is that economies have a life cycle, just as civilisations have in the past - they become great and then fade away for fairly natural reasons. The Incas, Romans, Greeks, Chinese (last time around), etc.

Maybe one day GB will be on the up again?!
 
Nice. I like the interior...
 

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