| Bye Bye Rover
While we are all debating Fiat going bust, Rover has just gone under.
After years of mismanagement, Rover started to turn out good cars with the help of Honda who taught them a lot. The UK government sold Rover to British Aerospace. British Aerospace bit the hand that fed them (Honda) and sold Rover onto BMW. BMW could not cope with the management and the lack of technology after Honda pulling out and decided to sell.
A VC was to buy out ROver, slim it down and make sports cars but the government intervened and negotiated a deal where four partners would buy the company for 10 pounds (yes - you read correct), preserve all jobs with the help of BMW giving an interest free loan of 500 million pounds. These guys proceeded to strip the company of its assets and starve investment in new models hence the result. They were hoping that the Chinese would invest in the new models for them but the chinese have seen through all of this and pulled out (may be they will wait till Rover is totally dead before buying the assets for nothing and shipping it back !)
BMW went on to invest more into Mini and and new engine plant and is going from strength to strength.
Think about it - at least Fiat is putting a lot into new models
Thank god BMW and Ford rescured the Mini, Land Rover and Jag brands. These were all owned by Rover during the 70's. | 
