The 1960s brought changes to the ever-more competitive motor industry, with smaller companies struggling to survive against increasingly popular foreign brands. Rover bought Alvis, maker of luxury cars and military vehicles, in 1965, but was itself absorbed into Leyland, which had made its name and money making trucks, and which also by now owned Standard Triumph. The grand merger came in 1968, with the alliance of Leyland and BMC - which included Austin, Morris and MG - to form the giant British Leyland conglomerate. Rover was designated as an upper-echelon brand, though a replacement for the stately P5 (finally discontinued in 1973) was not developed. A prototype called P8 was made, but it was thought to be too close competition for the Jaguar XJ6, a fellow British Leyland model. A mid-engined coupe, the P6BS, was also canned, but one distinctive, upper-crust vehicle did make it into production in 1970: the Range Rover. It was quickly obvious that this model was not being bought by Rover's intended customers, farmers looking for a dual-purpose vehicle. Autocar noted in 1972 that "one sees more and more Range Rovers in the hands of people whose lives are far removed from farming or the land" and that it was serving well as a versatile car for affluent families; "there is clearly, too, a market as a second car among people who prefer not to use anything so vulnerable and costly as their Rolls-Royces and Bentleys to carry sporting gear or tow horseboxes." Some things hardly change.
The SD1, which replaced the P6 in 1976, was far more accessible. Initially offered only with the Buick V8, this model looked far more radical than its engineering actually was, and it also embraced the new trend for tailgated 'fastback' hatchbacked family/executive cars. The range later featured Rover's first diesel production model, though the company had been interested in diesel back before the First World War, and had invited Dr. Rudolph Diesel himself to Coventry in 1913. (Diesel's death has never been fully explained, but he was not on the ship when Dudley Noble went to meet him at Harwich, and was presumed to have been lost overboard). The SD1 was also Rover's most successful car competitively, winning a second TT race for the brand; fuel-injected Vitesse models dominated the British Saloon Car Championships in 1983 and '84, winning the European Touring Car Championships in 1986. SD1s also won the 1983 and 1984 Scottish Rally Championships, and a works team with driver Tony Pond took a Group A win in the 1985 Open Championships.
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| SD1: iconic Rover which took several Touring Car trophies |
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Rover's motorsport programme was always hampered by a lack of cash, however. British Leyland had run into well-documented financial difficulties in the early '70s, leading to its nationalisation in 1975. Under the chairmanship of Michael Edwardes, developing a new small mass-market car became a priority. Edwardes was responsible for the tie-up with Honda and the joint development of the front-wheel drive 200-series models, also sold as the Honda Concerto, and launched in 1984. At the other end of the range, work started on a new executive car which became the 800-series, launched in 1986 with either Honda's V6 or Rover's own new 2.0-litre, 16-valve engine.
1986 also brought a new company chairman, Graham Day, who re-named the company Rover Group and took over the task of re-privatising it. With brands such as Jaguar sold off, the remaining Rover Group was sold to British Aerospace in 1988. The various model ranges were rationalised, with some former Austin models - Metro, Mini - rebranded as Rovers. A second-generation 200, again jointly developed with Honda, debuted in 1989, and its saloon-bodied sister model, the 400, followed in 1990. These ranges featured an all-new and much-praised 1.4-litre K-series engine. A new 800 (1992) was acclaimed as the long-awaited successor to the stately P5, and the 600 (1993) pitched into the upper-medium sector. The 800 and 600 were both built on a new production line at the former Austin plant at Cowley, Oxford.
