Longbridge plant

1986 The state-owned vehicle manufacturerBLwas renamedRover Groupplc A new chairman,Graham Day, took over. He split the group into 6 divisions - includingLand Rover,Freight RoverandLeyland Trucks[1], andAustin Rover.[2]The eventual aim was to privatise the group. Preparations were made to privatize the last of the company's fringe activities, the computing operationIstelof Redditch[3] 1986 the Rover SD1 was replaced by the Rover 800, developed with the Honda Legend. By this timeAustin Roverhad moved to a one-marque strategy and was renamed simply 'Rover Group'. TheAustinrange were now technically 'Rovers', though the word Rover never actually appeared on the badging there was instead a badge similar to the Rover Viking shape, without wording. These were replaced by the 'Rover 400' and 'Rover 600', based onHonda's 'Concerto' and 'Accord'. This was to prove to be the turn-around point for the company, steadily rebuilding its image to the point where once again 'Rovers' were seen as upmarket alternatives toFordsandVauxhalls. 1987 Management buy-out ofLeyland BusandUnipart[4] 1987Leyland Trucksmerged withDAFasLeyland DAF[5] 1987 The government provided 680 million to cover the costs of restructuring. The continuing business units were performing very differently - soaring trading losses at theAustin Rovercar division butLand Roverwas trading profitably. 1987 Austin Rover returned to profit, the first since 1983; Land Rover was also profitable[6] 1988 After divesting its commercial vehicle and bus manufacturing divisions the company, by then consisting of the car manufacturing arm Austin Rover and Land Rover, was privatised by the sale of the company toBritish Aerospace (BAe). 1994 Acquired by the German vehicle manufacturerBMW. 1994 The takeover byBMWsaw the development of the 'Rover 75' 2000BMWsold parts of the Rover Group which were then known asMG Rover Group 2000 BMW retained the rights to the Rover name (and the associated portfolio of brands such as 'Mini',TriumphandAustin-Healey) after it sold the business, only licensing it to the Phoenix consortium while it was in control of 'Rover'. The BMW management knew that 'Rover' needed a new product lineup to be competitive withOpel/Vauxhall,Volkswagen,Fordand the other leading mainstream volume manufacturers. The '75' was the first part of this lineup. The MINI was the second. To replace both the 200 and the 400 with a more direct successor to the 1980s 200 was the 'Rover 55' (R30 project) intended to combat theOpel'Astra',Ford'Focus' andVolkswagen'Golf' in the competitive and lucrative European small family car segment. This high volume semi-premium vehicle was cancelled in 2000, just as the Rover group was sold. TheBMW1-Series is considered by some to be the result of this project.BMWhas the rights to the R30 project's engineering and design.
Mar 16th, 2021

Going to Pride if Longbridge and hope to have a see of old site
Apr 16th, 2023

Aug 2nd, 2022

The old MG Rover manufacturing plant.
Sep 7th, 2021