Rover 75 and MG ZT E-Book

James Taylor

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

From the moment of its launch in 1998, the Rover 75 caught the public's imagination. Here, at last, was a car that felt like traditional Rovers and had been designed in Britain. Rover 75 and MG ZT charts the evolution of the models from the early 1990s onwards including full production histories and comprehensive specification details. Contents include: the development and production of the Rover 75 under BMW in the 1990s; becoming the MG Rover Group - from BMW to Phoenix Venture Holdings; expanding the Rover 75 with Longbridge Rover Salooons and Tourers; the MG models of the new millennium - the ZT and ZT-T; monogram 75, the five-millionth Rover; a facelift for the cars with the new V8 engines; moving production to China and the end of the MG Rover Group. Illustrated with 267 colour photographs, this is essential reading for motoring enthusiasts and fans of the Rover brand.

Leseprobe

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ROVER 75 AND MG ZT

The Complete Story

James Taylor

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2014 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2014

© James Taylor 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 686 4

CONTENTS

Timeline

Introduction and Acknowledgements

CHAPTER 1

CONTEXT

CHAPTER 2

CONCEPT, DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: 1993–98

CHAPTER 3

THE COWLEY CARS

CHAPTER 4

EXPANDING THE OPTIONS

CHAPTER 5

MG MODELS

CHAPTER 6

FACELIFT

CHAPTER 7

THE V8 MODELS

CHAPTER 8

AWAY FROM THE MAINSTREAM

CHAPTER 9

OUTSIDE THE UK

CHAPTER 10

NOT QUITE BRITISH

Appendix I: Vehicle Identification, Production Figures and Production Milestones

Appendix II: Engine Identification

Appendix III: R40 Model Availability

Index

TIMELINE

1998

October

Rover 75 announced at British International Motor Show

1999

April

First production Rover 75s built

June

Rover 75 on sale in UK

2000

February

Rover 75 Design Theme at Geneva introduces a more sporty look

May

Rover Cars sold to Phoenix Venture Holdings

June

Estate derivative announced for future production

August

All production transferred from Cowley to Longbridge

September

Rover Cars renamed MG Rover Group Ltd

November

Announcement of MG X10 derivative for future production

2001

February

Rover 75 Tourer shown at Geneva, and MG derivative promised; MG V8 models promised

May

Tourer production begins

July

MG XPower 500 unveiled, but not for series’ production

First MG ZT derivatives available

September

Monogram personalization scheme announced at Frankfurt Motor Show; ZT XPower 385 unveiled;

MG ZT-T derivatives on sale

2002

February

MG ZT 180 Sports Auto introduced

March

Monogram cars available

July

Approved LPG conversions for 1.8-litre manual cars

October

New CDTi engine joins CDT diesel MG ZT 160 and ZT-T 160 now with 1.8-litre turbocharged engine

2003

July

Five-millionth Rover is a Monogram 75

September

MG ZT 260 V8 introduced

2004

January

Facelifted Rover and MG cars introduced

March

Rover 75 V8 announced

November

Rover 75 Coupé concept vehicle unveiled

2005

April

Production of all models ends as MG Rover is closed down

INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For me, the 1998 Rover 75 was something of a revelation. As a long-time enthusiast of traditional Rovers, I had somewhat lost heart when the marque had switched to building Honda derivatives in the early 1980s and then, in 1986, Rover became the generic badge for anything and everything produced by what was left of British Leyland. The 1994 takeover by BMW promised something new, but with Rover playing second fiddle to another car maker, how could the Rover we had once known ever resurface?

Then along came the ‘new’ 75. I remember seeing it for the first time at the 1998 Motor Show, and being very impressed with its curvaceous lines and those striking headlamps. It looked right, and it looked like a Rover. Perhaps the Rover marque was going to have real meaning once again.

It was summer 2000 when I finally got to drive one – a press-fleet 2.5-litre Club SE in Arden Green pearlescent, registered W471 CJW – and I was hugely impressed. This, I was convinced, was a Rover for the times. If build quality held up, it was a certain winner.

My next surprise came many years later when I discovered how quickly the Rover 75, and its later MG derivatives, had attracted an enthusiast following. I had always promised myself that I might write about the 75 family one day, and to that end I had built up a file of useful material. Thinking that interest might be sufficient to warrant a book by 2020 or thereabouts, I was very pleasantly surprised to be constantly asked by enthusiasts when I was going to get on with the job. My publisher was keen, too, and asked me to write this book during 2012.

Sadly, it was not possible to consult the full records for Rover 75 manufacture; although MG Motor UK handed these over to the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust in September 2012, the records were not available for consultation when I was writing this book. Nevertheless, it is possible to obtain build details of individual cars through membership of the Rover 75 & MG ZT club, and copies of the MG records exist with the MG Owners’ Club and MG Car Club.

Rover 75 sales catalogue from 1999.

Nevertheless, a great deal of information had already been compiled by dedicated enthusiasts, and several of them gave me access to what they had. Other people with an even closer connection to the cars cared enough to help, too.

From Rover Cars itself, Geoff Upex and Richard Woolley recalled the design stages of the 75; Ian Elliott remembered preparing the initial press-release and several subsequent ones; Steve Fussell told me about selling the cars through a franchised dealership; and Glenn Smith found what he could for me about the Australian end of the operation. Fellow writers chipped in, too: Boris Schmidt ferreted through the archives of the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung in Germany to see what he and his colleagues had written about the cars when they were new, and MG historian David Knowles added both information and photographs.

From the enthusiast community, David Morgan was a huge help on Rover 75 matters, and Richard Bryant found some gems in his collection of sales literature. On the MG side, I am very grateful to Roger Parker for sharing his knowledge and photographs. Tony Cope provided a great deal of information about the Roewe end of the business, gained from his visits to China. Reebs (webmaster at www.the75and ztclub.co.uk) generously allowed me to make use of his extensive research, and Ian Dowdeswell at Brooklands Books allowed me to plunder that company’s massive library of magazine articles.

Even so, I am deeply conscious that much information about the Rover 75 and MG ZT models has still to be unearthed. I sincerely hope that more will surface in the future, so that any shortcomings this book contains can be corrected, if there is a further edition.

James TaylorOxfordshire, July 2013

Note on Measurements

During the period covered by this book, Rover quoted engine power in PS and torque in Nm. For the benefit of readers not used to these measures, conversions into bhp and lb ft, respectively, are provided.Please note that the original manufacturer’s figures are those in PS and Nm.

CHAPTER ONE

CONTEXT

The Rover 75 holds a special place in the history of Rover cars, and not only because it was the last completely new model to carry the Rover name. Its task was to revitalize the Rover marque, which had been gradually losing the respect of public and media alike in the 1990s with its competent but uninspired derivatives of Japanese Honda designs, and it fulfilled that task admirably. Nearly a decade after the last Rover 75 was built, few people have anything negative to say about it – and that is a huge accolade for any car.

Nevertheless, the trail that led from the original Rover Company to the Rover Cars responsible for the design and development of the 75 was a convoluted one. The reality is that the original Rover Company had ceased to exist more than a quarter of a century before the 75 was introduced in 1998. However, it had left a formidable legacy in the public mind (even though this had become somewhat tainted in the 1970s and 1980s), and there can be no question that the new Rover 75 inherited at least the UK public’s expectations of the Rover name and carried them forward with dignity.

Recognizably the ancestor of the modern bicycle, this is the Rover Safety Cycle, made by the Starley Company.

The Rover 75 was introduced as the marque’s flagship car at a time when Rover belonged to the German BMW company – the first and only time that Rover had been foreign-owned. While the car was still relatively new, BMW tired of Rover’s business problems and sold the company, splitting the car division from the Land Rover side and selling them separately. Rover’s new owners, Phoenix Venture Holdings, reorganized the business to make more of the MG marque that they had also purchased, and named the new company MG Rover. Central to their plans were MG derivatives of the existing Rover saloons, and so the 75 was accompanied from mid-2001 by a reworked sister model called the MG ZT. Both were still in production when MG Rover collapsed in 2005, so bringing to an end more than 120 years of the Rover name.