Description
Author: Mike Gould, Hardbound, 208 Pges, ISBN: 9781847979391, 1St Edition, 2015
- The Rover Group
The Rover Group - Company and Cars is a comprehensive history of the company and .a guide to its products. Centring on the period of the official existence of the Rover Group, the book also examines the events leading up to its formation in 1986 and its controversial aftermath, following its dismemberment in 2000.
The book is backed by first-hand accounts from Rover employees, as well as a foreword by Jon Moulton, the man behind several bids to acquire elements of the company. Including production histories and full specification guides to its cars, The Rover Group is a compelling insider's account of one of the most controversial periods in the British motor industry.
With over 250 historical and original illustrations, the book covers:
The beginnings of Rover and its place in British Leyland
Land Rover's expansion in the 1980s and how it led to the foundation of the Rover Group
Rover under British Aerospace and the sell-off to BMW
Rover's struggle under German management and BMW's disposal of the Group
The aftermath of Rover's collapse - MG Rover, Land Rover, and MINI
The Rover Group cars - covering the Leyland legacy cars, Honda derivatives, the Rover 75, the vehicles behind Land Rover's success and other key models
The history of the British motor industry is a long and troubled one. At its core is the story of the Rover Group, a company that went from public to private ownership in the hands of both UK and German management, yet continued an inexorable spiral of decline until its dramatic sell-off in 2000. Yet from its ruins emerged two of Britain's most successful manufacturing businesses — foreign-owned, but a fragment of the country's booming motor industry of decades past.
The Rover Group — Company and Cars not only details the development and specifications of the cars produced by the group during its official life from 1986 to 2000, but also outlines how the company evolved. It draws on newly published sources to examine the subsequent fate of its successors, including MG Rover, a venture that kept the Longbridge plant running until the acrimonious collapse in 2005. The events leading up to the creation of the Rover Group are also covered, revealing how its predecessor, British Leyland, went from being one of the country's top five companies to a national laughing stock.
Author Mike Gould has the unrivalled attribute of being a first-hand witness as the story unfurled. Starting with the Rover Company in 1972, his career from Cost Analyst working on classics such as the Rover SDI, Triumph TR7 and Range Rover, to Public Relations Manager helping with the Ford takeover of Land Rover, meant that he was at the heart of the action for over thirty years. He includes with his own account material from leading personalities of the company.
With a foreword by financier Jon Moulton (involved in the attempt of Land Rover's managers to buy the company in the 1980s and who led the Alchemy Partners bid to buy MG in 2000), Rover Group is a compelling insider's story of one of the most complex and controversial episodes in the last days of the British motoring industry.
Author Mike Gould's working life has been spent in and around the motor industry. His career included over thirty years at British Leyland, the Rover Group and Land Rover, encompassing a variety of roles. He's been writing about the industry too, as Editor of Land Rover World and Range Rover World, and now as a contributor to Land Rover Owner International. His books include the Land Rover Scrapbook and Range Rover - The Anniversary Guide, for Porter Press.
Mike lives in Abingdon-on-Thames, former home to MG, with his wife, Jenny and two West Highland White Terriers.
