. New life as a part of a first class company? - 1994

1994 should have been the end of this story. The story might have ended like this. BMW was a relatively low volume car maker producing a narrow range of excellent premium quality cars. Its strategy was to use the brands that Rover Cars owned – namely Rover, Range Rover, Mini, MG – perhaps even Riley – to build a range of smaller cheaper premium small and medium cars, sports models and 4x4s - without compromising the power of the BMW brand.

The new Mini and Range Rover models look very similar to the original Mini and Range Rovers. But they are not. They are totally new and beautifully engineered German cars disguised as English ones. In the case of Range Rover BMW built a complete new factory in order to leave behind forever the production problems of the old Land Rover factory.

2008-05-08