What should a car company do when facing financial peril? Spend a fortune re-engineering one of its models from front- to rear-wheel drive, of course.
At least that’s what MG did in 2003, creating the 260 version of the ZT saloon and estate. With a budget of £30m, it hired engineering expert Prodrive to adapt the Rover offspring and fit it with a 256bhp 4.6-litre V8 from the Ford Mustang.
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Before the British BMW M3 rival went on sale, MG decided to generate some publicity by making the ZT-T the world’s fastest estate, hiring the So-Cal Speed Shop to create a record-breaker. It received a Roush-tuned 765bhp 6.0-litre racing V8, a Nascar gearbox, racing brakes and a parachute at the back.
“Literally, we can’t see the car for dust,” reported Autocar. “The only proof we have that the MG is flying is the scream of the small-block Ford, clearly audible even though it’s now nearly a mile away. The speed comes over the PA: 181.521mph.”
Doubts over the future of MG Rover were gathering – so much so that we doubted if the ZT would appear at Bonneville in August. It did, breaking the record at 225.609mph.
That, though, would prove to be MG Rover’s last hurrah.
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...although it did mean that normal ZT-Ts sold surprisingly well and even in diesel form the bright red versions on big rims were driven pretty quickly.
BMW did for MG Rover by messig up the Rover Group in the first place. The 75 was great, but it was a niche model designed not to compete much with the market-leading car...the 3-series.
If BMW had made a Rover-badged Golf-sized hatchback on the same platform first and got the volume out of it, the company would have survived better. Rover had this idea already with the R8 etc, and with a potential SD1 successor on the Maestro/Montego platform, so it was nothing new. As it was, BMW stripped-out the more profitable Land Rover and Mini lines, leaving MGR with a limited range that was never going to have the most popular segments available to it. At least the Rover Group survives in JLR. Lest we forget what the R stands for...