Greg wrote:
>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.
>
Rather than make a go at profitability, many observers had expected BMW
to strip what they wanted from Rover Group and sell off the rest. Which
is what they did. And (a rehash from yesterday) since BMW bought the
entire Rover group for #800,000,000 and sold just Land Rover for
#1,800,000,000, it was BMW -- not Ford -- which picked up Land Rover
from the bargain bin. Plus BMW got #10 for Rover later (!) -- and 4x4
technology for their hugely profitable X5 and X3, the MINI, kept a bunch
of capital investments ... and they get 'Triumph' too.
Here's an 'alternate history' link I posted yesterday featuring bonus
Triumph speculation at the end:
http://www.austin-rover.co.uk/index.htm?whydbbrf.htm
Steven Newell
Littleton, CO USA
'62 TR4 x 2 etc.
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