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Starley and Sutton were
bicycle
builders.
The Rover name originated with the Rover safety cycle
so called because it was safe compared to the penny-farthings
of the day. Starley and Sutton, and others were experimenting
with safety cycles in the 1880's but the Rover of
1884 caught on and formed the basis of the car manufacturer
to be.
Rover
developed a reputation for respectable,
not very expensive cars.
- 4wd.sofcom.com/4WD.html
After WWII Rover saw a market for
a light Jeep-style of four wheel drive.
Building prototypes on Jeep chassis,
they eventually came up with the alloy-bodied
Land-Rover
released in 1948.
Always an innovative company, Rover's experiments with
gas turbine
power included racing a car in the
Rover became caught up in the first nationalised, then privatised, grouping of independent British motor companies - British Motor Corporation (BMC), British Leyland, and eventually the whole collection was called `Rover', the least tainted name left. In 1988 British Aerospace (BAe) acquired Rover Group which it sold in 1994 to BMW who never managed to make it profitable, although the Land Rover section did well.
2000 March:
The new
Rover 75 sedan
(right) made its Australian debut at
the Melbourne Motor Show in preparation for a launch
which was shortly called
2000 April: BMW announced it would break up and sell Rover Group, keeping the new Mini for itself. Ford bought Land Rover. An investment company, Alchemy, was to buy the remnants of the car section and trade as `MG', but the future remained uncertain as of April/May.
2000 May: The Phoenix group was successful in buying Rover and MG from BMW.
2001 March: MG Rover was back at the Melbourne Motor Show and a new range of MG cars was brought out in Geneva.
Go to the
MG,
history,
gas turbine
and
Land-Rover
pages
