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250 Posts
I can clarify this for all of you. Back in the 1970's British Leyland was the third biggest car maker in the world with some of the worlds most prestigious brand names under it's control. However the company blew itself apart in spectacular style (I'm not going to go into why as it would take too long to explain), Anyway by the 1990's it was owned by British Aerospace and with the exception of Jaguar had bee kept together as one company. So at this point British Aerospace owned the following brands (many of which were dormant*):
Wolseley*
Morris*
Austin*
Triumph*
Riley*
MG
Rover
Land Rover
Princess*
Sterling*
Austin America*
MINI
BMW then bought the entire car company off British Areospace, made some bad decisions and bailed out, but crucially it split the company up as follows
MG Rover Group owned the foollowing brands:
MG
Morris*
Austin*
Wolseley*
Princess*
Austin America*
Sterling*
BMW Kept:
Triumph*
Rover (but licensed the brand to MG Rover)
Riley*
MINI
Ford bought from BMW:
Land Rover
When BMW sold Land Rover to Ford (for lots of money) Ford insisted that BMW keep Rover and license it to MG Rover. This was to ensure that MG Rover didn't make a rival 4x4. However if reports are true that SAIC have bought Rover than Rover may now be able to make a 4x4. Nanjing bought all the assets of MG Rover but did not get the Rover brand. So it owns all the brands of MG Rover and all the tooling, plus 100 years of car making History in the UK. Does this help? Basically Nanjing have possibly done one of the greatest deals in Automotive history and if they develop the right products then they have much MUCH better brands than any other Chinese maker. Important if you want to sell cars in Europe and the USA!
Wolseley*
Morris*
Austin*
Triumph*
Riley*
MG
Rover
Land Rover
Princess*
Sterling*
Austin America*
MINI
BMW then bought the entire car company off British Areospace, made some bad decisions and bailed out, but crucially it split the company up as follows
MG Rover Group owned the foollowing brands:
MG
Morris*
Austin*
Wolseley*
Princess*
Austin America*
Sterling*
BMW Kept:
Triumph*
Rover (but licensed the brand to MG Rover)
Riley*
MINI
Ford bought from BMW:
Land Rover
When BMW sold Land Rover to Ford (for lots of money) Ford insisted that BMW keep Rover and license it to MG Rover. This was to ensure that MG Rover didn't make a rival 4x4. However if reports are true that SAIC have bought Rover than Rover may now be able to make a 4x4. Nanjing bought all the assets of MG Rover but did not get the Rover brand. So it owns all the brands of MG Rover and all the tooling, plus 100 years of car making History in the UK. Does this help? Basically Nanjing have possibly done one of the greatest deals in Automotive history and if they develop the right products then they have much MUCH better brands than any other Chinese maker. Important if you want to sell cars in Europe and the USA!
