Thread: Rover... remember them?

Being from near Birmingham in England I am quite interested in the future of Rover. While the company might now belong to China it is still at least part English... sort of! Well it's the most english mass produced car available.

As you might recall Rover was 'rescued' by the Phoenix consortium for £1 many moons ago. Of course instead of rescuing the company they ended up draining it dry and the Chinese waiting until it went bump before they purchased it.

I'm currently in China and have been here for the past five months. We're here for another month. Anyway I have seen around half a dozen Rover 75's buzzing around here. They look exactly like the ones you used to get in England, the only difference is that the badge is now Nanjing automobile instead of the well known rover badge.

There are actually lots of chinese car companies here. However very few of them export their products because they have a fairly poor reputation, especially abroad.

So my question is would you buy a Rover car now you know it's built in China by a Chinese company? I really like china but many Chinese would much prefer to buy a foreign car rather than a chinese brand.

Many more Chiense companies are starting to buy foreign car companies. Geely (another chinese car maker) is currently in the process of purchasing Volvo.

I do believe that china will become the worlds next superpower, but I think they should invest more in their own designs rather than simply copying other peoples. There are a few fantastic companies in China which do innovate. However many car companies (BYD, Geely, etc...) simply copy other designs.

Let me now what you think

Andrew

Ah yes, the Rover...I remember them when I lived in England, all over the place and sort of an upper middle class car. Never owned one when I lived there, but they seemed very nice.

Here in the states we are losing brands right and left due to poor sales and competition from Japan. So goes economics...