Description
Author: Graham Robson, Hardbound, 176 Pages, ISBN: 9780850592795 - First Edition, September 1977 **SECOND-HAND BOOK IN EXCELLENT UNREAD CONDITION***
Too many motoring histories concentrate on the cars and not on the people, on the successes without admitting the failures, and on the good times to the exclusion of the bad. The Rover Story is not one of those. Written with the full co-operation of British Leyland, it celebrates a century of progress, from the Starley family's Coventry-made bicycles of the 1870s to the sleek cars and world-famous Land-Rovers of today.
No previous historian has delved so deeply into the company's records. Graham Robson has not relied on press releases and cuttings, but has talked to many people connected with Rover cars since the 1930s. Rover have laid bare all their secrets — prototypes that might have been, strange turbine cars never before seen in public, and the traumas of multi-million pound decisions.
This is not a soulless chronology of products and profits. It tells the fascinating story of the gifted (and the not so gifted) men who directed the company's fortunes, of their vision, and of their occasional lapses.
Graham Robson explains how a cheap small car could have bankrupted Rover in the 1930s, and how a rugged cross-country vehicle probably saved them in the 1940s. He also analyses the company's impressive record of technical achievement, especially in gas turbine technology, and describes the character and great achievements of the managers and talented engineers who have meant so much to Rover.
But this is not an intricate public relations exercise. It is a deeply probing, truthful, and mostly affectionate look at one of the greatest names in the British motor industry.
Graham Robson has been a self-confessed motoring and motor sport enthusiast for a good many years.
From 1957, as a graduate at Jaguar Cars, to the early 1970s, when he was Chief Engineer — Product Proving at Chrysler, he was much involved with motor cars and the Midlands. A spell as the manager of Triumph's racing and rally team was followed by work with Autocar magazine. Recently he became a freelance motoring writer and historian, and has several books to his credit.
