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Should Austin Rover have become Triumph instead of Rover?


garethj

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As far as the Montego was concerned, the fact that it still existed largely unchanged from launch by the time they rebranded it as a Rover (or not, I can't ever remember seeing one with a Rover badge either) was the problem. Typically for BL, when it came to do a new model they raided the corporate piggy bank, went through the pockets of all their trousers, dug down inside the couch and found the budget would stretch not to an entirely new model, or even a decent sheetmetal reskin, but only to some new wheeltrims and lamps.
The Montego was a pretty good car when it was launched in 1983, it compared well to the Sierra and Cavalier Mk2 but by the time it finally died in the mid 90s it was hopelessly outclassed compared  to the Mondeo and Mk3 Cav, not to mention the Primera, Passat, Accords of the day.

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BL want to make a sports car aimed at the US market so it makes sense to build a factory on a west facing port, Liverpool for example. It shuts within a few years but despite that 35 years later JLR make a success of building Ewoks for export to America in a factory a mile up the road. 

 

I did discuss this in this thread...

.... but the cum guzzling, fuck knuckle admins at the time decided to move the thread (without my knowledge) off the main board to die in the off topic section.

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6 minutes ago, Spiny Norman said:

As far as the Montego was concerned, the fact that it still existed largely unchanged from launch by the time they rebranded it as a Rover (or not, I can't ever remember seeing one with a Rover badge either) was the problem. Typically for BL, when it came to do a new model they raided the corporate piggy bank, went through the pockets of all their trousers, dug down inside the couch and found the budget would stretch not to an entirely new model, or even a decent sheetmetal reskin, but only to some new wheeltrims and lamps.
The Montego was a pretty good car when it was launched in 1983, it compared well to the Sierra and Cavalier Mk2 but by the time it finally died in the mid 90s it was hopelessly outclassed compared  to the Mondeo and Mk3 Cav, not to mention the Primera, Passat, Accords of the day.

The Rover 600 appeared back in 1993.

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Rover was actually doing pretty well in the early 90s by all accounts in terms of both sales and image, thanks largely to their tie-up with Honda. The badge was garnering a reputation of capable, somewhat upmarket yet still affordable cars and it all seemed to be going comparatively swimmingly, especially compared to the bad old days of the 70s/80s. The R8 200/400 spearheading this new image, netting Rover a slice of the fleet market that they were after, with the 600 being well received too and the 800 being a decent seller once they'd ironed out the kinks. I'm not sure a Triumph badge would have fared any better or worse here.

I think the problem came when Honda buggered off. They'd learnt from Rover how to make a car for the European market, but Rover hadn't learnt much about design or engineering from Honda despite ample opportunity to do so. So when the next volley of home-grown models came around, it went about as well as you'd expect. The old BL traits of resting on laurels, not learning or innovating, and keeping older designs going for far too long (I'm looking at you, Rover 100...) were still present, and I reckon they would have been present regardless of what badge they were flogging the cars under. I know despite strong sales they were still struggling for money, so they might have been better dropping the Maestro/Montego/100 and just focusing on a few core ranges until things picked up.




TL:DR version of all that fucking waffle up there: No, I don't think a Triumph badge would have helped, cos the badge wasn't really the problem.

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And then of course, the Triumph badge's own image by the mid 80s... wasn't great, probably even further down the U-bend than Rover's. The TR7 hadn't been an especially sparkling success, and the Acclaim, the pioneer for the Honda collaboration, was considered by many to be an unsuitable car for the Triumph badge. It was an entirely adequate car on its own merits though, maybe it would have done better with a less sporting name attached to it?

So maybe the opposite question could be posed, would Triumph's final car have done better if it had been badged a Rover?

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10 minutes ago, warren t claim said:

IMHO the rot set in with the Rover 75 and trying to sell nostalgia  to a mass market. Rover were always a forward thinking brand, the P6 and SD1 were trail blazing cars so nailing some wood onto a 75 was a retro step,

The 75 was, IMO, a fundamentally sound car - but as you say, the wrong product at the wrong time. As the world was barrelling toward the millenium and manufacturers looking to the future for their styling cues, with Ford getting all New Edge-y for example, the 75 came along with a retro vibe that just wasn't what people were looking for. The world wanted cars that looked forward, not like a cross between an 18th century drawing room and a Sopwith Camel.

And again, a Triumph badge wouldn't have altered that. Shame, as they were (and still are) decent cars.

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Just now, Soundwave said:

The 75 was, IMO, a fundamentally sound car - but as you say, the wrong product at the wrong time. As the world was barrelling toward the millenium and manufacturers looking to the future for their styling cues, with Ford getting all New Edge-y for example, the 75 came along with a retro vibe that just wasn't what people were looking for. The world wanted cars that looked forward, not like a cross between an 18th century drawing room and a Sopwith Camel.

And again, a Triumph badge wouldn't have altered that IMO. Shame, as they were (and still are) decent cars.

See also Jaguar S Type.

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7 hours ago, Soundwave said:

TL:DR version of all that fucking waffle up there: No, I don't think a Triumph badge would have helped, cos the badge wasn't really the problem.

I’m not really talking about just the badge, but the outlook of the car design and how it’s positioned.

Rover was aiming at prestige (that they couldn’t really back up) but they might have been better binning all that and having an eye on what customers were actually buying from other manufacturers.

Volkswagen did something similar in the late ‘60s, the 411 was very good if you judged it against the Beetle, but customers didn’t just have VW to choose from and it didn’t compare well against cars from other manufacturers.

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I'm not sure if the problem with the 75 was the styling, more the market position.  It replaced the 600 and the (by then ancient) 800.  The 800 had been seen as a competitor to the Granada but as Mondeo size cars had grown so much in the intervening 15 years the 75 was definitely now in this segment and it's biggest competitor was the 3 series, it's now in house rival. So it's no surprise that BMW wanted them to build a car for driving to the golf club rather than something appealing to 25-35 year olds.

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I suppose as well,apart from a modern body,by the late seventies, everything was there to make a Triumph 3 series equivalent. The slant 4 engine, which Saab was able to do great things with over a long period. Also the 2.3 and 2.6 sixes which died with the SD1, the five speed gearbox as well. And Triumph had used semi trailing arm rear suspension since the early sixties. Suppose again FWD was seen as the way forward and who would have predicted that a mid sized RWD BMW would eventually outsell FWD offerings from "non premium" makers by some measure. In fact if you'd suggested it 40 years ago, you'd d have been laughed at. 

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I agree with the others who have said that it wouldn't have made a jot of difference whether a reheated Honda Ballade with an interior by Berni Inns was called a Rover or a Triumph.  I work for a company with a similar ethos to the old Austin/MOWOG/Nuffield/Leyland quagmire, which essentially is that it is better to amalgamate than to compete.  If you can't beat the opposition in a fair fight, buy them out. 

It works on paper: all of a sudden the respective boards of MG and Triumph are no longer having to worry about whether the Much ADO16 About Nothing is outselling the two-door Toldyaso, and the moguls can settle down to port, cigars and wife-swapping.  It does not work in practice; each company cedes some of its attributes and values to the parent, and removal of key competitors fosters laziness amongst management.  Both companies end up worse.  

Consumers are a fickle lot too, and capricious.  If the merger results in MG badges on the Triumph Toldyaso, half will complain; if Triumph badges end up on the Much ADO, the other half will pipe up.  Die hard supporters of each marque will claim their respective favourite has been damaged, even if they didn't much like it before the amalgamation.  

Often, being too big results in poor commercial practices and management decisions.  A bean counter will realise that the Much ADO's steering wheel is 25 pence cheaper than the Toldyaso's, so will order it fitted to all future cars, despite it being too big for the Toldyaso's cabin and rendering it impossible to shut the driver's door.  Another bean counter will notice that Triumph save circa £1 million a year on Hydrolastic units because they don't buy any.  He will fail to account for the fact that the Toldyaso uses coil springs instead and will stipulate that all Much ADOs must now have no suspension at all.  And on it goes.  

Rover, over; Triumph Schmiuph.  BL were too big, too unwieldy and too arrogant to be able to take the fight to their real competitors.  As Warren said earlier, the Sierra and Cavalier weren't much better than a Montego, but that wasn't the point.  People thought the Fords and Vauxhalls were superior, and that's all that mattered.  Back in the eighties dropping the kids at school in a Fiesta meant nothing whatsoever, dropping them off in a Maestro meant that they got bullied.  It's all a matter of perception.  

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Some interesting points in this thread. Former BL factories are still producing vehicles, which is more than can be said for Ford plants. Or Rootes/Chrysler/Talbot/Peugeot. Vauxhall have fared better with 2 plants making vans, I believe. By the time BL was formed in 1968,the three others of the "big four" were becoming European companies, able to make the same vehicles in different countries with shared development costs and the ability to bring them in from abroad if demand exceeded supply. Or if production was held up by industrial action. Or shut factories altogetherThe first European Ford was the Transit of 1965.The last truly British ones were the Mk4 Zephyr and Zodiac along with the Mk2 Cortina of 1966.Vauxhall started a bit later with the Bedford CF van/Opel Blitz,but by 1978,Viva HC and FE Victor/VX having bit the dust, the job was done. Chrysler were a bit slower and followed a more convoluted route with various stopgap models. BL needed to join forces with another European maker ASAP to get these advantages, which of course never happened. In a way, despite being "too big", it was too small. Rover and Triumph were both well regarded brands, meeting with their rival 2000 models. Triumph having smaller stuff plus of course the sports cars. Rover having a bigger car as well, plus the 4WD models. The rabbit hole of Aronline has endless essays and debates on what might have been. All fascinating stuff. My brief foray into BMW life did make me think, though. 

 

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On 8/13/2022 at 4:18 PM, Dobloseven said:

I suppose as well,apart from a modern body,by the late seventies, everything was there to make a Triumph 3 series equivalent. The slant 4 engine, which Saab was able to do great things with over a long period. Also the 2.3 and 2.6 sixes which died with the SD1, the five speed gearbox as well. And Triumph had used semi trailing arm rear suspension since the early sixties. Suppose again FWD was seen as the way forward and who would have predicted that a mid sized RWD BMW would eventually outsell FWD offerings from "non premium" makers by some measure. In fact if you'd suggested it 40 years ago, you'd d have been laughed at. 

The 2.3/2.6 straight six engines where prone to camshaft seizures due to a poor oil feed while the 2.0/2.5 triumph straight six was prone to thrust washers falling out of main bearing mounts & fuel injection pumps failing on the 2.5pi version so it was six of one & half doz of the other.

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