I seem to remember reading in the book "Triumph Cars in America" by Michael
Cook the story that BMW bought LR in 1993 (along with several other British
marques including Triumph) from the remains of BMC and tried to make LR
profitable and eventually gave up and sold it to Ford in 2000. In fact, the
chairman of BMW at the time (guy named Pischetsrieder) lost his job over this
and other poor management decisions. According to the book, BMW kept many of
the other former BMC marques (including Triumph) which is how they were able to
develop and market the new Mini.
Unfortunately, I don't have the book with me at work to verify my memory.
And my memory isn't always flawless.... ;-)
As an interesting sidenote, as far as I know, BMW still owns the Triumph
marque and theoretically could resurrect it ala Mini.
-Greg
Dave1massey@cs.com wrote:
Correct me if I am wrong but I thought Ford bought Land Rover before BMW bought
the remains so BMW never owned L-R per se. Ford has since discontinued
production of the old aluminum (aluminium) block Rover (nee GM) V8 and is
migrating to something fresher (and already in the Ford stable). Bad news for
us TR8 owners.
It's a two edged sword supporting the old stuff. On the one hand you don't
want a reputation that you don't support your older models but supporting them
keeps them on the road longer cutting into new sales. Tough call.
Dave
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