The Last Days of Rover

I remember filming this doco, it was a sad shoot when we realised how bad things really had been. The unions really shot them selves in the foot.

Had 3 75's 2 great 1 troublesome, absolutely gorgeous car couldn't believe I was driving something so simply gorgeous.

I have got a rover 75 connoisseur se estate that’s our daily driver, had it for 10 years it was previously owned by my dad. It’s done 140,000 miles it’s one of the comfiest cars I have had. And keeps running fine absolutely brilliant car can’t fault it.

I really wish MG Rover where producing cars today. I think some of the comments on the video are unfair - take an aim at BMW as well - not allowing Rover to produce an MG version of the 400 and 200 in the mid-1990s (when they were released in 2001, they were very successful, particularly the MG ZR - Britain's best selling hot-hatch). The stripping of Land/Range Rover and Mini from Rover Group and over-pricing the 200 and 400 - and dare I say, keeping the aged 800 alive all the way until 1999!

20 years on and the classic car market has not taken these cars to its hearts. the 75 in 2020 can be picked up on ebay for £1400 for a good one. a daily driver for £600. The P6 on the other hand....

The Rover 75 is a future classic. 10 years from now us Brits will look at it and wish we had one.

The rovers from the Honda era were very well build. And they were not style for a victorian horror writer with a top hat, like that 75 BMW came up with. Rover should had kept cars in the style of the SD1, but then with Honda reliability.

@FrightfulAccountant Another reason why the Rover 75 failed was because people remembered Rover and British Leyland's design failures (such as both the SD1 and the Rover 800) all too well. By the time the 75 came out Rover (like General Motors) had already done so much damage to it's public image, to the point where most people did'nt care. The 75 was also priced to compete with BMW, Mercedes, Lexus and others. If the 75 was sold at a cheap price, Rover would still be here today...

My first car was a Rover 75 - not one of those talked about here but a 1950 P4 model. It was a car of very high quality, conservative in its engineering but superb in its construction. That quality continued through the P5 and P6 models. I bought a P6 3500 model and was very pleased with it. Then came the SD1 model - my mother bought one on the strength of my experience. It was an appalling car, very poorly put together - for example, a sun visor fell off as my mother drove it home from the dealer. Her experience was not unique and by the time of the Honda Legend/Rover Vitesse model, the reputation of Rover was such that it was well and truly outsold by the Honda. Rovers then disappeared from the market here until the new 75 was introduced. Some neighbours bought one and their experience was as bad as my mother's some 30 years earlier. They were not alone and Rover very quickly went from the market here, with no attempt at a further revival.

i got my first car the other day. its a rover 45, and i'm proud to drive something british, with honda reliability. I will be buying rovers for as long as they are in existance, and considering that MG is on its way back, rover could easily rise again.

I love my rover 75, nervous as i am about its reliability in the future, presently its a pleasure to drive. Fangled computer engineering is going to make diy maintenance a bit more tedious, hopefully not insurmountable for an amateur

despite the fact that the Mini became a massive sales success globally, even the Americans buy it by the million and their car magazines gave it lots of awards

How convenient they 'forgot' to mention BMWs chairman torpedoing the 75 on its launch by telling the world rover was over this killing the car the day it was born

"BMW had effectively replaced rover as the supplier of executive cars for the middle classes" THAT was the problem, not the krauts kicking their arses but that the idea of rover being a comparable marque to BMW being alien to me, a 25 yr old. Granted I'm not a proper petrol-head, but that was the issue. They'd driven that brand into the ground.

I'm miss it!!

I bet the German or French Governments would not let this happen to its car industry

@supertrix101 Rover always had the image of a luxury brand. The SD1 3500 vitesse was priced to compete the BMW M5... The Rover 200 indeed was the first 'sensible' car the offered, but still it was priced higher then the Honda Civic it was derived from. The Rover 800 had some problems with the first series, but after that it became a real bullet proof car. Both the honda and the K engines seemd to last forever. and the 600 was a big succes on the continent!

Ive had many rovers mgs now drive a mg zr facelift its a great car

Love the dapper chapper at 2:39

Rebadging foreign cars sounds like Holden Australia rebadging GM Korea Daewoo cars.