'I mean, Britain's been slapped around for the last 30 years, you know, what with Arthur Scargill, the striking miners, Ford's gonna close Halewood and so on and so forth. So Britain is used to being in constant economic turmoil. Remember all the bloody-mindedness of the unions before we got Margaret Thatcher on board?
'But Britain is now the sort of country that's sort of gotten its act together. It's nicely attuned to the new realities of the world after losing its indigenous motor industry, such as the Rootes Groups and the British Leylands. They're all gone.'
And so, he reminds me, is Rover. I optimistically ask Lutz if GM had considered buying the deeply troubled Midlands firm when it was recently up for grabs?
'No thank you. It's with the Chinese now and, frankly, it was a headache we at GM just didn't need. Right now we have priorities other than buying automobile companies.'
I guess that a hard-nosed, global auto industry guy working for the largest motor manufacturer on the planet is about to tell me that in the big, bad, highly competitive world of countless manufacturers, car buyers wouldn't even notice, never mind care that Rover has gone. But his comments on the subject pleasantly surprise me.
 |
| Bob is a lifelong MG fan, and has owned a MGA |
'I'd shed a tear for Rover because I like Rover cars. I've always liked them. To me it was the secret British brand that non-posers bought into. You could argue that a Jaguar was a bit more ostentatious, but a Rover 3-litre was a truly elegant, high-quality, best-of-British car.
'And, of course, I'm a lifelong MG fan, having owned numerous TAs, TBs, TCs and MGAs.'
