Lost british Marques
craneboy
on 22 March 2010
Got into a discussion at work today about what actually happened to many of the marques originally encompassed under the bL umbrella ( austin, Morris, Wolseley..etc) & thought it might be a good topic for discussion here.
Presumably Rover inherited the rights to these trademarks..so where are they now? included in the sale to the chinese? (i think they also got MG) Retained by bMW?... they must belong to sombody. Perhaps at some point in the future the Mini plant might be churning out retro versions of Morris itals :-) any thoughts?
Comments
Auristocrat on 22 March 2010
think bMW retained marques like Riley and Wolseley. the chinese only got MG - the rights to Rover were sold to Ford as it was closely linked to Landrover. hence Saic and Nanking having to christen the replacement 75, etc as a Roewe.
Edited by Auristocrat on 22/03/2010 at 17:47
Marc on 22 March 2010
i think bMW retained most, if not all, of the old bL names. i know for a fact they own triumph and pretty sure they have Riley as well. a relaunched tR line would be great wouldn't it (but not with bMW price tags...)
the chinese only own Rover and MG iiRc.
this website will know :
Masses of reading there for the enthusiast.
Sofa Spud on 22 March 2010
oK, for those for whom the suspense is too much. 2 connections between Rolls-Royce Motors and british Leyland:
bL subsidiary Pressed Steel Fisher made the bodyshells for the RR Silver Shadow and bentley t saloons.
bL's Vanden Plas Princess R model had a Rolls-Royce engine specially developed for it and not fitted to any other vehicles.
Edited by Sofa Spud on 22/03/2010 at 22:14
Marc on 22 March 2010
Nice car the VP Princess R. Good example here :
http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/c141490/
check out the Stanley baker movie 'Robbery' - one gets hijacked at the start.
billy25 on 23 March 2010
looking at the pics, it appears to be a colomn mounted auto-box! - did things like that exist in the 60`s?
hbosken on 23 March 2010
Used to drive a VP 4 Litre R back in my youth - sheer luxury compared with the Rover 110 it replaced. So smooth and quiet - and it could shift - 0 to 60mph in about 13 seconds (fast in those days when the fastest Vauxhall VX4/90 did it in 16 seconds!)
Sofa Spud on 23 March 2010
also if i remember right the Princess R was part of a project which might have resulted in a small Rolls-Royce, but RR thought better of it. anyway the Princess R was not that much smaller than the Silver Shadow.
Edited by Sofa Spud on 23/03/2010 at 10:38
bintang on 23 March 2010
i seem to remember that it had square dashboard instruments, speedo etc., very ugly.
mike hannon on 23 March 2010
i thought the Princess R had the b6 4-litre RR engine left over from the unsuccessful austin champ army jeep project?
My boss had a new one in 1966 as his company car and loved it. he was heartbroken when the firm finally forced him to turn it in in 1973 and only gave him enough finance to replace it with a citroen DS23!
Lots of cars had column or fascia-mounted autobox selectors. My father's austin 2200 was one of them. all Mk ii Jaguar/Daimler autos had them iiRc and Daimlers had a column-mounted selector for their excellent fluid flywheel/wilson preselector transmissions.
>why do car brands get called marques?<
they were marques before they were brands. it dates from the days - before your time i guess? - when cars had character. ;-)
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