This is a nice piece, Leon....thank you
Sterling Experience: I saw my first Sterling when Linda and I took a chief
engineer out to dinner in Coventry in 1989. (a "Coventry" company related to
Jaguar, but produced rough terrain forklift trucks) He was driving a new
Sterling and I was quite impressed with it.
I bought a well used one, a few years ago, and quickly found that it was a
marvelous car with an engine like a Swiss Watch. The rest of it was truly
crap. What a missed opportunity for Rover. MY Sterling met my expectations,
however, as I had no expectations. It sure was nice to drive.
BTW, I have mixed feelings about the revival the Triumph badge. Not really
sure how I feel. It has both positive and negative implications, depending on
the configuration of the vehicles produced and the resulting successes or
failures.
Thanks again, Leon.
Joe Alexander
<< From 'AUTOCAR' Magazine, (British Weekly colour magazine: influential)
Issue: Weds 1st March 2000.
News Page (pg.11)
Headline: "Rover may be a Triumph"
Exclusive:
BMW may axe the Rover name and start building Triumph-badged family cars.
A senior source at BMW claims it is lost for ideas on what more it can do to
reverse Rover's image problem, especially in the UK.
BMW also believes Rover has insurmountable image problems in the lucrative
US
market as a result of the unpopularity of the Sterling model in the early
'90's.
BMW has invested 3 billion GBP into Rover since buying the British car maker
in 1994 for 800 million GBP and is set to continue investing 600 million GBP
a year.
Sales slumped by 25,000 in the UK last year and soon-to-be released
financial
figures for 1999 will show that Rover has overtaken the previous year's 600
million GBP loss.
Many senior BMW officials feel that the Rover name is now irretrievably
damaged and that the best course is a damage limitation exercise that will
see out the current Rover 75, 45 and 25 models.
BMW has already decided to remove any Rover links from the launch of the
vital all-new Mini next year, which will be sold in BMW dealerships abroad.
"We believe the Mini will be a big success, our Land Rover products are
enjoying record sales and the MG name remains very strong, but we just can't
seem to change the Rover image despite our new models being excellent cars,"
says the senior BMW source.
The source confirmed the Triumph name is seen as a brand with a positive
reputation after the sporting TR and popular Dolomite and Vitesse models.
The
Acclaim, the last Triumph car, was a joint venture with Honda and enjoyed
moderate success.
BMW has been impressed at the recent revival of the Triumph mototcycle
company.
Leading auto-industry academic Professor Garel Rhys of Cardiff University
Business School, agrees the Triumph name has potential.
"It's the last piece of ammunition BMW has on the name front and it's
probably a more realistic name for a family car range than Rover."
Rhys claims the real damage to Rover was done by the attack on the UK car
maker's productivity and quality by BMW's then boss, Bernd Pischetsreider,
on
the same day Rover launched the 75. However, Professor Rhys believes BMW
should accept some blame for Rover's decline - and that the brand could
still
be saved. He highlights the success VW has had with the Skoda brand as how
people's perception of a manufacturer can change.
by Ken Gibson. >>
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