Hope the lights flip down and there’s hidden rockets and machine guns
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My God, somebody please shoot that thing and end it’s suffering.
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There are some truly awful cars here.
Check out the Rover 75 coupe.
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I did some work on that including feasibility proving through the existing body framing station, and door press and clinch/ assembly tooling design and integration. Helped build the prototypes too in the prototype shop I set up from scratch for them in Longbridge.
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Cos I’d fallen out with BMW in a very permanent and terminal way, and I needed a contract to pay the bills.
It was better than waiting by the phone for Porsche or Ferrari to call…
Thats so cool! I had a Rover 75 once. Really enjoyed it. Took it to Cz and back.
The Rover 35 and 55 cars got tantalisingly close to production. Would have been interesting to see what they looked like! 
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I worked on both and I’m afraid they didn’t get past full design sign off and outline feasibility, let alone kick off for tooling design and order.
The 35 was particularly frustrating as it effectively became the BMW 1 series after a bit of skin restyling and badge engineering, but alas the small matter of about £2bn overall development and factory costs meant that Rover just didn’t have the finances to take what was clearly a winner forward.
The 55 was less developed and apart from mule prototypes it hadn’t had anywhere near the detailed design work and validation done as the 35 (everything was drawn and simulated, packaged and tolerance stacked), but the spec and features looked pleasingly ambitious.
It was about this time I’d convinced BMW to give me my own body development factory unit and a few million quid to develop and prove out a composite closures (doors, bonnet, tailgate) manufacturing cell. I had prototyped the tooling, borrowed and reprogrammed the robots and sourced the sample panels etc when I fell out with them over the R50 (Mini) and some other stuff.
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That’s really interesting. Thanks for sharing; it is interesting that Rover were going to adopt a RWD platform. A real shame Bernd Pitschrieder put the kibosh on Rover at the launch of the '75…
With Mini, the 35 and 55 as well as the 75, they’d have had a world class range. As long as they used the Hams Hall manufactured engines of course.
I’ve long been fascinated by Body Engineering. Here’s an old Fisher Bodies video:
High volume body engineering and assembly tooling design was my first career, but even though I walked away to do other things just over 15 years ago it feels like another lifetime.
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The automotive equivalent of drawing genitalia with a permanent marker on the Mona Lisa.
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I’m not against the paint, all about creativity and nice to see something different, but those wheels are gash.
If that monstrous lump of plastic was removed from the hatchback window, it would actually be quite nice.
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I think the only problem i have is with the paint, its just a bit Maxpower magazine for me.
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Interesting that it’s different things that wind people up - wheels, paint, window ‘ornament’. I reckon it’s the combination of all 3 that really spoils it, but I’m with jim that the rear window is the clincher.
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I like that
Probably the only but that’s stock.
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Hah! Dunno what that says about Citroens stylists back then
The cars still look right even now
I just associate pearlescent paint with 2000s TVRs
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