(OT) Rover and Longbridge

Hi Fitzy, long time not spoken. I would echo what you have said, bit more relevant for me, my gf and I went up there the week before it all hit the fan. Her family basically all worked their at one time or other, but alas no more. It will hit the local up there badly, its not that great now, but it will just all go down hill. I was actually looking at maybe moving up there to Rednal, which is just up the road from Q gate that you see on the telly alot. Looks like it might be worth waiting for a bit?

Jon

Sad yes, but if the Alchemy offer had been accepted in the first place then Longbridge would have shut down and everybody generously paid off with BMW money a long time ago.... in fact, it would have been rebuilt as an industrial park by now and everybody who wanted new jobs would have them. No way that the MG Rover group as structured was ever going to be viable because it was too small to finance the replacement of its model line.

Hopefully the MG name will be saved as a niche marketer and motor sport participant, but even that is doubtful. There are very few assets left for anybody to purchase. Most of them have been cherry-picked by the Chinese, following in the footsteps of BMW.

Regards, David Betts snipped-for-privacy@minilist.org The Mini Gallery:

Wonder if MG will be taken over by Ford? They have worked hard to turn around jaguar and land rover and have recently produced an excellent product range for export (better if the pound wasnt so strong?) MG is very marketable with its heritage, like what BMW did with their mini using BMC heritage to sell it, which has worked of course, if anything boosting the BMW,probably would have sold anyway?

Jono

Some pictures from the rallies i attended at Longbridge...

The first rally on the 11th April:

The second was a gathering of old austins advertising the centenery celebrations.

The final one for us was the Gaydon to Longbridge convoy:

That was enough for me and the mrs to say our farewells to the factory.

Si.

Wow, Some excellent shots there Ash Thanks for showing them

Fitzy

Thanks Fitzy,

Just wish the circumstances had been better.

As you probably know there was a rally today (23rd April), in London. We decided not to attend this one, mainly due to the reliability of our main mini. After going from Redditch to Gaydon then back to Longbridge last week the poor old thing was beginning to have idling issues on Lowhill lane. Last thing I'd have wanted is our motor breaking down in the middle of London ! What an advert that would have been.

Ash

Fitzy wrote:

thanks for letting me see the sadness of yet another British car manufacture that bites the dust