MG Rover's brave new future

According to Oldaker, the addition of a fixed-head MG could well suit the brand’s marketing aspirations. Sales of Audi’s TT coupé account for around 50 per cent of the model’s total volume, he says, and are especially popular in hotter climates. A fixed-head MG TF, aspirationally styled and cheaply engineered, could help to bring its hard-pressed manufacturer a handy volume of incremental sales. Rover 75 Coupé

For all the reinvention of Rover’s core values in the marque’s 100 years of widely disparate ownership, the things that matter – ‘Britishness’, a certain understated elegance and an exceptionally comfortable cabin – have remained remarkably unmolested.

That’s why this new concept for a Rover 75 Coupé works surprisingly well. The car, conceived and built by designer Stevens’ in-house team in the same flurry of extreme productivity that has lately produced the MG GT and the MG SV-R, cleverly demonstrates how convincing – and perhaps how saleable – Rover’s original values remain.

The task, MG Rover bosses decided, was to mark Rover’s first 100 years with a stylish new design that would sit confidently with renowned Rovers of the past like the P4, the handsome P5 Coupé (Rover 3500), the innovative P6 (the Rover 2000) and the bold Rover SD1 hatchback. The way to do that, Stevens decided, was to produce an unashamedly beautiful car, rather than an aggressive one.

‘I want people to turn away for a moment from post-modern brutalism and enjoy the Coupé’s elegant and timeless lines,’ said Stevens. ‘The true character of a Rover comes from its ability to present a cosseting environment with comfort and refinement as high priorities. Those values should be conveyed in the form and detailing of the car’s exterior, and that’s what we’ve tried hard to do.’

The prototype is closely based on a standard steel-bodied Rover 75 saloon. Its wheelbase and overall length are unaltered, yet it looks surprisingly small and taut, and impressively well-proportioned for a relatively long-wheelbase two-door. The prototype is built entirely in steel, with lengthened doors and a roof and which integrates neatly into a new, large rear window, ahead of the standard saloon’s bootlid. Though it appears to be pillarless, the Coupé incorporates a stock saloon B-pillar (taken from the 75 production line) to make sure its windows work and its doors anchor securely into production-quality doorlocks. As with the MG GT, Stevens knows the car will only stand a chance of production if it can be easily manufactured.

The car incorporates Rover’s controversial corporate grille from the V8, which extends downwards below the front number plate. Its front and rear bumpers are standard. Subtle brightwork has been designed to surround the side windows, and the countersunk styling line along the side, just below the waistline, has been raised a little at the rear to cope with the steeply raked rear screen and the fact that the Coupé’s overall height is about 50mm lower than the saloon’s. The seats will be lowered a little, too, so that a production version would offer the same front and rear passenger space as a saloon. The coupé rides about 20mm lower than the saloon, but is otherwise standard underneath. Chunky but restrained 19in five-spoke alloy wheels, described as ‘not too radical’ by Stevens, fill the arches, and twin exhausts emphasise the fact that it could be built either as a front-wheel-drive car or with the rear-drive layout of the Rover V8 and MG ZT260.

Given the relatively low volumes expected of the car, the rear-drive application seems more likely in production, though MG Rover bosses admit the Coupé is less likely to find its way into production than the MG GT. But Stevens insists on the value of the coupé exercise, whatever its production future. ‘Heritage is a great strength for a marque as it gives you terms of reference, something to build on for the future,’ he said.

MG SV-R ‘Club Sport’

MG’s second anniversary offering is this thundering SV-R, a ‘Club Sport’ version of the carbon-bodied, V8-engined SV Coupé launched early this year in 4.6-litre 320bhp form. The SV-R has a 5.0-litre, 385bhp version of the same four-cam Ford V8. It also has bigger brakes, lowered and stiffened suspension, 20in wheels, a distinctly urgent shade of metallic orange and an all-black leather interior. The car’s official price has been announced at £89,250, but each car in production is likely to be different, so the actual cost will depend greatly on the depth of specification.

The idea behind the SV-R, MG bosses have said, is to stress this rapid MG’s credentials as a track-day car, and to emphasise the car’s potential in racing codes like the British GT championship. The company’s manufacturer, MG Sport & Racing, whose HQ is outside MG Rover’s Longbridge HQ, is believed to have several racing teams interested in campaigning an SV-R in 2005. In road-going form, the car runs a 0-60mph time of around 5.0sec, and tops 175mph flat out. The SV began life as a de Tomaso in Italy, but when that company ran into trouble it was taken over by Qvale, who put it into production it for a short time in 2000 as the Qvale Mangusta. Then MG Rover bought Qvale, and the car began a difficult four-year process of re-skinning and rethinking before emerging earlier this year as the MG SV, the fastest and biggest-capacity production MG ever built.