Finding A Home For Rover

We all know that the MG ZT was developed from the Rover 75, but that fact was of major importance to Graeme Campbell, who reads MG Enthusiast as a kind of honorary MG owner!

I’ve never owned an MG, which might seem a strange comment in a magazine dedicated to the famous marque, but I am a long-standing devotee of the catalogue of companies who became locked together through BMC, British Leyland, Austin Rover and finally MG-Rover. Long before I was old enough to drive, I visited many showrooms with my late father, accompanied him on many test drives and drove sales staff nuts by taking most of their car brochures to form a large collection which I still own.

I have therefore test driven by proxy most of the BLMC range from the humble Mini to the stunning Rover 3500 SD1 and the rally-winning Triumph Dolomite Sprint. In between there has been the Allegro, Marina, Wolseley Six, Princess, Rover P6 and an MGB GT. My dad went on to own and drive all these – apart from the MG as it lost out to the Dolomite Sprint! And during all this, I was fascinated by the soap opera that was British Leyland, which even back in the 1970s seemed to be on a voyage of tragic self destruction in spite of how impressive the large showroom at Taggarts (main BLMC Lanarkshire dealership) seemed to be.

Dad eventually gave up on British Leyland, as did I until something started to stir in the 1990s when the company had transformed into the Rover Group and was owned by BMW. There was some rumour of a new car, not a Ronda but a real Rover that would hark back to the days of the P5. It sounded interesting. Then I saw one, or more accurately a bunch of them as three Rover 75s in tight formation overtook me at speed on the A92 in Fife. This was 1999, and my immediate reaction was: ‘Wow! What a great looking car.’