Rover redux - Shanghai Auto building Rovers in China
Shanghai Automotive and SAIC Motor have announced that the two companies are setting up a $457.6 million
joint venture to produce Shanghai Auto cars based on MG Rover technology. The new cars will be the first to be
developed under the Shanghai Auto brand.
Shanghai Auto, General Motors' principal Chinese partner, was
beaten out by Nanjing Automobile in its bid to buy MG Rover outright, but it does own the rights to build the Rover 25
and 75 models. The joint venture aims to produce 120,000 cars annually, starting this year with cars based on the Rover
75 (shown above).
[Source: Automotive News]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DaEMoN 10:13PM (2/25/2006)
The automobile market is slowly shifting towards orient. Chinese cars are cheap and just as good as ours, it seems. I would say that I find it positive. Competition in market never did hurt anyone, did it? Now, the problem is wether or not people play fair..
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Bo 10:22PM (2/25/2006)
All that is is a Kia Amanti with a BMW ripoff nose.
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donald douglas 11:38PM (2/25/2006)
please kia could only wish they had that car, this car is a well built screamer ! and alot better than kia products ! ok the front end looks horribly tacked on, but other than that id love to own one ! and yet the rover saga keeps getting deeper and deeper, and now gm is in bed with rover (kinda) hell might as well be seeing gm sold the right's to the old 3.4 v-6 to rover years ago and built a killer v-8 off that mold.
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MacroEQ 11:57PM (2/25/2006)
"All that is is a Kia Amanti with a BMW ripoff nose." The car was designed by BMW when BMW owned Rover, hence the similar looks.
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s 12:21AM (2/26/2006)
U idiot that Rover design was around before there was a Kia Amanti.
The US is full of idiots. No wonder GM & Ford can operate in the black.
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joe 1:03AM (2/26/2006)
Hey s, if English is your second language and you want to start a flame war over US car manufacturers, you may want to proof what you write...
"No wonder GM & Ford can operate in the black.
Jackass....why don't you try staying on topic...
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Graham 3:00AM (2/26/2006)
Heh, ok...
The nose on the 75 is unfortunate, but it's an evolution of the Rover front end from the 80s and much older models. It has nothing to do with BMW, though the above incarnation does look similar.
GM is not in bed with Rover. A company that GM partners with in China to build some models locally is going to use some rover technology to build its own models.
The Rover V8 is an old Buick engine that they bought outright 40 years ago or so. I'm not sure if it was found in any models of the 75, but it was found in Land Rover models until quite recently. And of course the Rover models have bits of BMW and Honda tech in them... so it's a huge pile of incest regardless. :) As to what _vehicles_ Rover has left, as far as I know they're left with the MG TF, which is an ancient mid engined roadster. All their other stuff is now owned by someone else.
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Eilir 8:59AM (2/26/2006)
The Rover 3.5 V8 (not V6, not 3.4, Donald Douglas) was a re-engineered version of the Buick original design. This engine was used in Rover P6 and SD1 models as well as Land Rover models and used by numerous niche producers such as TVR and Marcos.
The Rover 75 was a front wheel drive car designed under BMW ownership of Rover and used 1.8 litre 4 cyl engines, normal and turbo aspirated and 2.0 and 2.5 litre V6s of wholly Rover design. The car was also available in MG trim as the MG ZT.
However, there was a V8 powered version of the car produced between the sell-off of the company by BMW and the closure of the business. This used the Ford V8 as fitted to the current Mustang in a totally re-engineered REAR wheel drive chassis. Externally the car looked almost identical to the FWD models. Shortly after this car went into production the company folded. Rights to the Rover 75 and smaller Rover 25 models had already been purchased by SAIC. Nanjing subsequently purchased the rights to the Rover 45 and MG versions.
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s 12:31PM (2/26/2006)
JOE i can say whatever the fuck I want, jackass.
Obviously you can't read English all, motherfucker. I was comment on the fool (like you) who don't know what the fuck he's talking about.
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Gunnar Heinrich 1:10AM (2/27/2006)
Rover needs an entirely new sedan other than the old 75 to successfully play in any market outside of the PRC. Otherwise it's going to be the same story with a different owner.
http://www.automobilesdeluxe.blogspot.com
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james walker 4:46AM (4/04/2006)
This is a great development ans it will ensure the survival of a great icon.
Shanghai et alia must however remember that the Rover is a unique brand and a rebadged euro BMW etc is not what is needed --draw on the great tradition of Rover to create an icon
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james walker 4:46AM (4/04/2006)
This is a great development ans it will ensure the survival of a great icon.
Shanghai et alia must however remember that the Rover is a unique brand and a rebadged euro BMW etc is not what is needed --draw on the great tradition of Rover to create an icon
Reply