Kristi is right. BMW bought up the Rover Group about 3-4 years ago, and with it came all the brands that had been merged into what was British Leyland - Rover, Triumph, Austin, Morris, MG, Mini, Land Rover, Austin-Healey, Wolsey, Riley, Standard.
They sold it all again a year ago, for #10, after losing a huge amount of money. The Rover and MG brands were sold to a group who now run MG Rover as an independant company. Land Rover was sold to Ford (for serious money - that part was worth something, particularly with the new Range Rover almost ready). Mini was retained by BMW, so they could sell the new Mini. All the other brands were included in the sale to MG Rover, except, interestingly, Triumph and Riley. No-one knows for sure why BMW insisted on keeping those (and they did insist, at one point it was close to a deal-breaking issue), and BMW won't say. I hadn't heard about BMW retaining the Rover brand and leasing it to MG Rover - that's an interesting one. For those in the US who won't have seen all this, but might care, MG Rover have been doing a stunning job of re-juvenating the company. The dull Rover saloon cars have also been made available as MGs with serious power and handling improvements, including the 75 (biggest saloon) being converted to rear-wheel-drive and a sodding great V8 fitted. The MGF (open-top 2-seater descendant of the MGB) has just been face-lifted, and there are plans for a SERIOUS high-performance convertible based on a design by a bankrupt Italian company (Qvale) that MG Rover bought the remnants of. They are racing in the top national saloon car championship with some success, and raced at Le Mans last year and will be back again this year. They are trying damn hard with a company that one of the greatest car giants in the world flogged for #10 as a dead loss, and I hope they succeed. They deserve to. And if they don't start selling the MG TF (as the MGF has been renamed) in the States they are fools, as I'm sure it would help their cause. Richard & Daffy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Important Notice: The information in this email is confidential and may be legally-privileged. If you have reason to believe you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it is prohibited and may be unlawful and you are requested to contact the sender urgently and dispose of this email -----------------------------------------------------------exp. /// [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list /// Send admin requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] /// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool /// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive /// Send list postings to [EMAIL PROTECTED] /// Edit your replies! If they include this trailer, they will NOT be sent.
