Future Classic Friday: Rover 75

Here’s a potted story for you, entitled 'Rover, the BMW Years'. It may not be what many enthusiasts of the late, lamented British marque want to hear, but it’s a simple truth. BMW Group did not kill Rover.

Indeed, if proof were needed that the German company tried its best to bring its ‘English Patient’ back from the brink, the Rover 75 is it. It was the controversy surrounding the 75’s 1998 British Motor Show debut that started the rock-throwing in BMW’s direction, after the company’s then boss, Bernd Pischetschreider, used the launch press conference to fire a warning shot to the British government to help stem more than £600m of losses.

Rover was on the sticky end of an extremely strong pound at the time, making exports unprofitable. It was also the UK’s biggest exporter, so it’s easy to see how the business model didn’t add up. BMW asked for government investment to keep Rover afloat, the car industry became a huge political football, and less than 18 months later the Germans packed their bags and left, taking the new Mini with them.

A very similar story has just unfolded in Australia, with GM, Ford and Toyota all closing factories that had produced cars there for decades. The Australian domestic car industry is dead, and the story is the same – the overseas investors asked for money, the domestic government made it a policy issue, and now the factories have fallen dormant.

It wasn’t BMW that killed Rover. It was simple economics, on top of decades of poor management.

It’s ironic, then, that the once proud British marque produced what was probably its best ever car as its last ever new car developed from the ground-up. The 75 was a truly, truly fabulous machine – well made, elegant, great to drive and exquisitely styled. It was a perfect amalgam of what Rover’s designers and chassis engineers were always exceptionally good at, with some German quality principles applied. And aside from the boardroom politics that blighted its entire life, the ‘car people’ within the Rover Group and their German colleagues absolutely nailed it.

In 1999, when it went on sale, the Italian media described the Rover 75 as the most beautiful car ever made. Enzo Ferrari may well have been turning in his grave, but they had a point. Chief stylist Richard Woolley’s delicate lines were unashamedly retro, but at the same time contemporary, while the interior managed to combine the gentleman’s club aura of the 1950s Rover that bore the same name, but in a thoroughly modern context. While other cars from the same era have aged quite badly, the 75 hasn’t – largely by virtue of the fact that it looked like an antique when it first came out. And we don’t mean that as an insult.

It drove brilliantly, too. The base model used Rover’s 1.8-litre K-series engine, which wasn’t the car’s finest feature, but further up the range were a choice of the smooth KV6 (best served in 2.5-litre form) or the BMW-sourced 2.0-litre CDT, which had made the BMW 3-series every fleet manager’s company car of choice thanks to its excellent economy, low emissions and driver-focused performance, even in moderate power outputs.

Those first 75s were great cars, and even after BMW pulled out and production of the 75 transferred from Cowley (which BMW kept to make the Mini) to Longbridge, it was still a capable and elegant car that was competitive in its class.

It was less so towards the end. With the exception of some interesting anomalies such as the 75 Limousine and V8, the ill-advised 2004 facelift also saw a significant drop in build standards, but by then the writing was already on the wall for Rover. The Viking longship was a sinking one, and even its former masthead wasn’t enough to keep the company afloat.

The rest, as they say, is history. But history at least appears to be being kind to the 75. The sheer number of survivors shows how well made they were, especially the earlier cars, and there’s already a large and passionate following for them among the classic car fraternity.

Time, then, to cast aside old prejudices and celebrate the Rover 75 for what it actually was – a great British car created by passionate designers and engineers as a showcase of the very best they could do. And, whisper it, they’d never have been able to do it without BMW…

• Read our Rover 75 review and buyer's guide
• How many Rover 75s survived? Find out
• Find a Rover 75 for sale