Don't Stop Me Now by Jeremy Clarkson

Author:Jeremy Clarkson [Clarkson, Jeremy]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Automobiles, Humor / General
ISBN: 9780718153465
Publisher: MICHAEL JOSEPH
Published: 2007-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

MG ZT 260

When the announcement came through that TVR had been sold to a 12-year-old Russian boy, there was a sense in the land that Britain’s motor industry was no longer coughing up blood. It was dead.

But aren’t we forgetting something? Ooh, it’s on the tip of my tongue. I know there’s something… Why yes, of course. Rover! The still-intact tailfin of the crashed airliner that is British Leyland.

Oh, it may have been stripped of the Mini and Land Rover, and the rights to use names such as Riley and Wolseley, which BMW now owns. But it still has Longbridge. It still has thousands of employees. It is still a player.

But only by the skinny skin skin of its teeth. Sales are in free-fall, with the number of Rovers sold this year down by 19 per cent and the number of MGs down by 6 per cent.

The problem is that the line-up of cars on sale is now even older than the people who buy them. The 45, for instance, was launched when Rameses III was on the throne, and the MGTF is still painted with woad. And while MG Rover has so far spent £100 million developing a new mid-range car, which looks rather good, that’s only one-tenth of what’s really needed these days.

The company already had one tie-up with the Indians to produce the truly ghastly and massively overpriced CityRover, and now details are emerging of a new co-production deal with the Chinese. There’s even some speculation that the romantically handled Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) might buy Rover, though God knows why.

As SAIC already has tie-ups with Volkswagen and General Motors, this would be a bit like Chelsea signing George Best. If the Chinese want British engineering skills, they could simply employ some British engineers. And if they want a base in the European Union, why buy Longbridge, which is in Birmingham and has a main road running through the middle of it? Why not simply build a brand new factory in, oh I don’t know, St Tropez?

Of course, I don’t own a short-sleeved shirt, or a set of golf clubs, or a freemason’s robe, or a blue British Airways loyalty card, and this means I don’t know anything about business. I’m here only to talk about the cars Rover makes, which brings me to the driver’s door of its latest offering: the MG Nutter Bastard Head-Butt Sister Shagger.

It’s a familiar-looking door because it’s exactly the same as the one you’ll find on a Rover 75. In fact, apart from a bit of tweakery here and a bit of chicken wire there, it is pure 75 – a car named for the average age of the people who buy it.

Inside, it’s much the same story. You have that familiar and enormous steering wheel and a sense that you’ve somehow found yourself in a Harvester theme pub. It’s all mock-Tudor this and half-timbered that.

At this point you will probably climb out again and buy an Audi instead. But

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