The future of Rover seems not very optimistic. The 200 and 400 will be facelifted and renamed to 25 and 45 this year but they can hardly negate the sales fall without an aggressive price cut. The 75 is not likely to take too much sales from the market segment dominated by BMW 3-series, Audi A4 etc. The new Mini will be launched in the year 2000 but it won t have the breakthrough as its predecessor. The earliest possible savour will be a single model replacing the 25 and 45, which is not going to appear until 2002. 

Since the Honda era in late 80 s, the group tried to emphasis retro styling, "British prestige image", wood and leather to avoid competition with the mainstream Ford, Vauxhall (Opel), Renault and PSA etc. In other words, all Rover models were over-priced. However, the image policy didn t work as the overall quality of Rover s cars did not match with price suggested. Some fundamental change of product strategy must be made.

The Rover line started life in 1904 to produce medium price cars. Before that it was a bicycle and motorbike maker. The production rate remained low during the pre-war years - even in its best year, 1939, it produced just 11,000 cars. After the war, it introduced the first civilian 4x4, Land Rover. That was 1948. Within 10 years of production, the 250,000 Land Rovers rolled off the production line and became one of the most important model for Rover. 

Another main contributor to the group was Morris, which produced the first car in its name in 1913. Like Austin, Morris i cars were famous of cheap and simple, the most notable is the post-war model Minor, which was the best ever selling British car in then. MG is the short write of Morris Garage, which was a sports car maker turned from a garage in 1925. It made low price, light weight sports cars out of Morris iparts. Models such as TC, Midget, MGA and MGB stormed the world from the mid-40 is to the early 70 is, helped Britain securing the top spot of world-wide sports car market. 

Austin cooperated with sports car specialist Healey to introduce a line of sports cars under the name of Austin-Healey, most notable are Austin-Healey 100 and 3000. 

Now come the amalgamation. Austin merged with Morris in 1952 to form BMC (British Motor Corporation), easily became the largest British car maker. In 1959, it introduced one of the all time great, Mini, in both the Austin and Morris badges. Until today over 5.3 million Mini were produced. In later years, racing expert John Cooper even modified it into Mini Cooper and won the 64 Monte Carlo Rally. Meanwhile, the sports car subsidiary of both brands, Austin-Healey and MG (they were once rival), were produced in the same factory side by side. To avoid internal competition, the Autsin-Healey received greater engine and were pushed upmarket. The MG remained to produce mass roadsters, from MGA to MGC. 
 

The most successful model - Mini

Under the leadership of Labour Party s government, the group was nationalised while Jaguar and Daimler were sold off. In the 70 s, British Leyland dropped the Morris name and used the sports car name Triumph to market saloons also. The TR-series sports cars still survived until 1981, by then the saloon division had already lost too much money and was transformed to assemble Honda Civic under license. However, the group soon realised the Rover brand could make the Honda-based cars look more expensive, so the Triumph died away. 

In the 80 s, Leyland truck quit the group so that the latter was renamed to Austin Rover, which showed 2 of the most important brand names of the group. The Austin produced cheaper cars such as Metro (developed from Mini), Maestro and Montage. Rover made more modern and prestige cars out of Honda Concerto (Rover 200 and 400), Accord (600) and Legend (800). The Japanese car maker had minority share in Rover but a take over was not considered.  

By the mid-90 s, all the outdated Austin models phased out and the brand became effectively dead. The group was therefore called simply "Rover Group", which built just Rover and Land Rover. Later, the launch of MGF revived the MG brand while the Mini started marketing as a separate brand. This is still carry on today. 

The link with Honda faded out since 1994 as BMW took over the group.