RDX60 the car that should have saved Rover! Longbridge Legacies at the British Motor Museum
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- čas přidán 14. 03. 2024
- When MG Rover crashed in 2005, there were new cars under development that could and should have seen the light of day and these new models could have saved the company, so there would still be an MG Rover now. Some of those prototypes came to light last year and are now on display at the British Motor Museum in the Longbridge Legacies display. With thanks to Tom Drives / @tomdrives for additional footage
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The RDX60 side profile looks a vauxhall signum
I agree. Also looks a little like the RR Evoque.
And the front and rear views. Looks like the headlights came from the VX parts bin.
Or a hyundai sonata.
I thought the same when seeing images but seeing it in person on the reveal evening at the museum it does look different to a Signum. Also because it its based on the MG ZT/ Rover 75 chassis its slightly longer at the front. As mentioned it did look like it was on the lines of a BMW 1 series idea.
It does but god don't it look great especially in that Green, I think Vauxhall nicked the design 😄and for the TF coupe so sweet, the mini not my taste but cool all the same.👍🤘
I am so glad you mentioned Tom//drives for kickstarting the movement to get these cars preserved. Thank you Matt.
I worked on the RDX 60 project. The company I worked for had the contract to supply the tooling and robots to build it. We had designed the production lines and fixtures required to put it into production. I think we had also done some prototype tooling to build cars for testing. Our shop floor in Shrewsbury was full of equipment for Rover. I remember coming into work to find out the project had been cancelled. I thought then as many in our industry did that this was the beginning of the end for Rover. They should have got the credit card out and pushed on. Would it have saved them in the long run ? Probably not without some big decisions being made.
On its own it wouldn’t have been enough, but the saloon could have won a Chinese deal and that would have been. A shame it all went down
@@furiousdriving They had some deep rooted problems. Far too big a head count for the number of vehicles being produced. It needed some savage cuts to save it. It also suffered from the British illness of short termism. We preferred to make money on the stock market and from rising property values than invest in a domestic automotive industry. The French and Italians had similar problems but valued their manufacturing industry more highly than we did. By the way I’m still in the same industry, we are busy kitting out Halewood for the new electric LandRover.
I’d agree with all that; hey, we might have completely grenaded our manufacturing industry, but we’ve got high property prices!
Austin Rover could never have been saved no matter what as the Government had decided it had to close down. All part of killing any industry with a large union membership that could bring pressure on same government by striking.
This his the very reason Britain no longer makes anything at all and why the mines were shut.
Put simply the Tory party always want to control the population at all costs.
Government should've nationalised it, as asset protection. But staunch adherence to political ideology and electioneering prevented it from ever happening.
As a result lots of people lost their jobs, Longbridge had it's heart cut out, yet more of Britain got consigned to the dustbin of history and China gained a cheap profitable manufacturer.
Someone decoded the RDX60's VIN and interestingly it started life as a silver MG ZT 190.
Thanks for this more in depth look at the Longbridge Legacies.
I'm glad these cars were saved for all to see and what might have been.
The rdx60 looks like a mix of the Renault Vel satis and the vauxhall signum
Interesting thing about the TF coupe is the mirrors are also the door handles! If memory serves me correctly, there are buttons underneath them. How cool!
It's great to see them in a museum finally. I last saw the TF and the Mini in Longbridge in '21 amongst a tonne of other cars including the 1st MGF, several other Minis and the 5,000,000th Rover. I hope that and the rest got saved too.
I think you’re right about the door buttons, like a tvr
I follow Tom Drives - he's posted a huge amount of info on this sort of stuff and other BL trivia - fantastic for the archives!
Amazing no "car vertical" advertising, as rare as these cars.
I did manage to see the RDX 15 years ago at Longbridge and always thought it looked better in the plastic/metal than in photos, the styling was very much of its time
some cars are like that
So glad you saved them . To show what might of been
I'm glad these prototypes have made the journey to this safe place! MG UK we're embarrassed into this and have never show any bother about their heritage...
Having seen these prototypes in the car park of the dealership, for the time they look interesting but not enough, they show boldness but the company didn't need boldness it needed stable platforms with a continued identity with some fresh ideas. The RDX60 looks quite striking but doesn't really strike as something I would have been desperate to grab if that ever got off the drawing board. But each to their own, some people love it!
Sure i seen recently the Vin Number of the RDX60 comes back as a ZTT.
You can see the Vauxhall look in the side profile, the alloys look like vectra/signum, front end the same and as you say the interior, but i do like the look of the RDX60 especially in this colour.
Its a shame the damage had been done this could have saved Rover quite possibly.
Good to meet you Matt! Great video
Thanks, and great to meet you too!
Uv done well young Man good job 👍🏼👍🏼
Thank you. This is such an enjoyable video. These prototypes deserved to be saved.
Definitely, they were abandoned too long
Came here for the RDX60, stayed to drool at that TF Coupe, I always wondered why they didn't offer a coupe, what a stunning little car!
There is Vauxhall throughout that - right down to the steering wheel!
Silver MGF Coupe is fantastic!
Just on the Mini - they weren't Weber carbs they were fuel injection bodies. The idea of a 16 valve Mini did actually survive and there are quite a few 1275 (and bigger) engines running around with BMW 16 valve twin cam heads on. Specialist Components and Force Racing do the conversion kits. I built an 8 valve twin cam on a 1098 small block and the fuel injection trumpets stick out just like that Mini!
It was lovely to meet you (very briefly) when queuing for sausage and mash! 😊
You too!!
The MG TF GT is absolutely fantastic, I'd have bought one of those and stuck my fingers up at every MX5 I blew past on the motorway shouting "YOU'VE BOUGHT THE WRONG CAR".
Re. the Mini, Bad Obsession Motorsport say “hold my beer!”
Didn't realise you were allowed a special reveal before everyone else saw the reveal that night. I thought it was a excellent evening and it was interesting seeing the cars. Plus the food was good as well. I came up with a theory on the green interior parts in the RDX60 that they were parts that may become leather or cloth colour coded panels.
Excellent video, pleased you were able to film it! I was supposed to be at the event but after being stuck in traffic on the M6 for nearly three hours had to turn around and go home.
Great to see this episode from you as one of my highlights ( amongst many ) of Rustival was having access to the workshop and seeing the Rover/MG prototype, with the MGF Coupe at the rear. If only that had made production I would definitely have one now sitting beside my MGF.
It would be cool to take a signum and RDX60 it
I think all you need is the front grill and some porsche back lights and some black paint
The RDX60 is quite handsome from the rear even if the front is a trifle generic. It’s squatter and more purposeful than the MG6 and it’s more interesting looking than the Vauxhalls people draw comparison to. Excellent work sir. That synchronised reveal was a nice touch.
Great work putting this together. The RDX60 is fascinating… such a mix of promise and desperation in one car. A metaphor for Rover at that time I guess.
4:41 This one guy in Melbourne single handily outdid Rover with his WRX powered MINI.
Seeing these concepts makes the MG/Rover failure all the more painful. I’m in love with that TF GT. Although I could never have owned one (unless it were to come to the USA), it’s a stunner, and with the V6 it would have been a stellar performer. The RDX 60 is a lovely thing as well. “For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “It might have been!”
The TF GT was to be built in Ardmore OK and proposed to be for the US market.
@@jaspal666 Interesting! I didn't know that.
@@gryfandjane google “Ardmore MG” to find more. I tried to post a link but it was scrubbed.
Very interesting video thanks Matt, starting exploring the museum for an hour or two after Rustival but didn't have time to see everything, will definitely have to go back to see the rest and check these cars out
It shouts Vauxhall Signum to me as others have already said. I did not even know about this prototypes existence.
It's great that these cars have been preserved and a shame some of them didn't go into production. For example, the MG TF GT could have been considered a Porsche Cayman rival for a fraction of the price.
glad the mini hot rod is still about, tried to find some info on it a while back and there was nothing on it since 1997
Wow Matt you definitely know the people in the know and have connections in high places to get such touchy - feely closeness 😁 hope you took the obligatory selfie’s with each car , really interesting video 👌🏻.
Great video, not seen these cars before and really should get along and see them
Utterly fascinating. Thanks for posting.
I think that had MG Rover survived 2005 and launched the RDX60 & MG TF GT, they still would probably have failed as the 2009 recession was only a few years away
It was over in the 90s
I think the fact you didn't show the engine on the MGF-FT GT sums up why it probably was never made. Access to the engine on the normal MGF was difficult enough as it was, I shudder to think how hard it would have been to work on with that roof on the car. Surely the rear window was removable?
Fantastic Matt, 👍 so TWR folding played it part in the fall of River too
Fascinating, thank you!
Great Matty the RDX60 now in safe hands😎😎😎😎
Great video Matt. Definitely a sense of Vauxhall Signum there. It's even the right colour, but I would say that!
If MG don’t want it it would look good in your garage!
What are you talking about, twin webbers on the mini. Its clearly ITB's with injectors.
Came here to say this.
Correct? Possibly.
Rude? Definitely.
@@materialstwit A presenter that doesn't know his arse from his elbow - Certainly.
Fascinating video thanks
The car that the RDX60 most reminds me of is the Fiskar Ocean at least in the rear half.
The YouToob channel that was the leading light in rescuing these cars was Tom//Drives.
He was, and is credited below
Great video, the RDX60 looks very like the early Vectra C (front end and inside)...amazing stuff. Best wishes.
Rdx60 has a sort of megane and focus c pillar treatment.. Where it wraps around and the shut lines meet...
Glad to see them safe for now. The RDX, being a last chance design, isn’t too attractive. It reminded me of contemporary Opels too….
It is very much of its time, lots of early 00's styling cues and the breath of fresh air MGR needed, although apparently not as pretty as the design Peter Stevens wanted them to pick
It's a Wful looking car
Would buyers have rejected the look compared to the stylish and sleek 75?
I've always questioned whether MGR had enough finance because us enthusiasts had spent the 10 years prior discussing how much the Mondeo cost, what the Chrysler Cloud Cars cost (Stratus), and we had an understanding that automotive was not a cheap industry.
Great video.
The MGTF Coupe looks very Audi TT esque from the side profile.
The RDX60 looks like a Vauxhall Signum from the front, and you're right is very Vauxhall like throughout. Did the Signum come out before or after this prototype was built?
The RDX60 lights look familiar
Yipee I'm here again, and I feel your Rover 75 pain.
thanks, would be nice to have that fixed
This just saddens me cos we could have had this car on the road. this is why i hate museums there's so many things that can still be useful and yet we just dump them in a building gathering dust.
Remember the mini being in mini magazine back in the day when I had my Tahiti. Nice to see
It is good to see these late prototypes properly preserved at last. Whether the RDX60 would have saved the company or not will always be rather debatable. Personally, I am not convinced that using the depressingly dull Mk2 Vectra as a design template was really the direction Rover should have been pursuing.
Very interesting, thanks for bringing this to us. It still irks me that MG-Rover was allowed to die ☹
still pumping out proper content unlike hubnut who think content is watch us go to the shops great video oh i wish rover was still here
Or a barnfind Daewoo, just out for views and reddies now. Shame because he was fun now clickbait
Easy now! No need. These guys are mates. Hubnut has made it perfectly clear he has more of his usual content coming.
Keyboard warriors......
@@damianfuller74 calm down 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@damianfuller74I was so much of a keyboard warrior I unsubbed from his channel
There is some truth in what you say..😆😂, but then Hubnut and clan are eccentrics..so um that in itself makes it kinda interesting.
It's the one channel on YT where any mechanical work videoed by Ian I have to look away.
The mini is great but the others are awful, like that city rover thing they were pumping out at the time. Sad demise of a once great british marque. Is that the best they could do
I totally agree with you
@asa1973100 thank you I can't stand bmw but those things are awful
The TF GT❤❤❤
Almost lifelong fan of MG in the US. I heard the car was to be built in Oklahoma I was on board!
I had hopes!
But we know😢
Definitely a Vauxhall! Desperation from rover i imagine? Shame. Great insight. Cheers
Lo Matt. Brilliant history update. You forgot to mention the labour issues that all Uk car makers had to go through. I was /am a big admirer of what MG. Were all about. Also bear in mind the British but not only the British cars of this era were mainly Rust Buckets. BTW i include the mighty Fords of this Era. 😂
LOVE ❤ that mini, but the MGTF GT looks incredible, even now it looks absolutely superb. I love the hard top. Kind of looks like the MR2. They’ve made the TF look sophisticated. I really wish that went into production
It is my beliefe that nothing could have saved Rover as it was a sacrefice made to the EU to improve Mercedes standing just as Britains Ford was unloaded to Valencia, Spain . Hence the new vehicles, Fiesta and Granada.
The RDX60 does very much look like a Vauxhall Signum with the rear axle moved backwards. The C post styling is very unresolved, which makes me think it's an earlier prototype rushed to become a roller, which would fit with the state of Rover at the time. The MGTF GT would have been quite appealing, a manual V6 mid-engined sportscar? With some (much needed) interior improvements, could have been a cut-price Lotus Evora
Managed to shoehorn an Allegro 1580, into a clubman many years ago. Didn't end well. That was back at the end of the 80's. My mate who could weld and fabricate took many beers to finish it in the end. It never worked well but did drive....sort of.
I also had a friend had a mini with a allegro engine. Don't know if it still had the original mini carburettors it just didn't go that well really. Didn't sound as strained as his other mini's we were not very mechanical minded to figure it out.
The UK AND the car people living there need to get OVER the fact of "What might have been" and start building what they WISH. Unfortunately they all seem to be locked in the past.
As for the younger generations. GB cars are nonexistant.
I agree that it rdx60 looks like what became the vauxhall/ opel Singma and there definitely missed a trick not piting the MG TF GT into production
Great video
It's such a shame they never got them into production, they definitely would have sold well
If ever anybody needed to know how bad rover had become the RDX60 sums it up front end from a vectra side looks like a cross between a jeep and a Mitsubishi rover built its reputation on luxury class vehicles not that dross very sad to see
Not sure if it would’ve been enough to save MG Rover but would’ve been a path they could’ve taken that would/could eventually take them to the salvation of the brand. That 45 platform could’ve even been used to produce a crossover
MG-Rover (along with the previous incarnations throughout the decades) has a history of making poor leadership decisions along with industrial action and government policies. Ultimately it was the decades of lack of investment in new product development and arguably crazy tight launch dates for any new models or updates where cars were launched long before they were ready both in reliability and quality. This is old news of course but seeing what 'might' have been is hard to swallow. Anyway Matt it's great to see what was possible design wise, many thanks for sharing.
I wonder how much of the RDX 60 concept kick-started the Chinese Roewe 550 project?
Zero
Hard to see RDX60 being a success, it’s too similar to the Vectra C inside and out and given Rover still considered themselves a premium manufacturer (CityRover being a great example of this) it would probably have cost more than the larger, almost certainly better engineered and more reliable Vectra. It’s not a good looking vehicle, nor was the 1 Series but that was RWD and had a genuinely prestigious badge. A shame, but I don’t think this would have made any difference to the fate of MG Rover. The MGTF GT is a lovely looking thing though. Perhaps if the RDX looked like a four door TF GT…
Weird that a company would forsake its history like that
That's just Vauxhall Signum. MG and Rover had one glaring problem during their existence and that was the lack of originality and a huge reliance on the tech of other companies and lacklustre quality which is just unacceptable when most of the stuff was taken from other car makers anyway.
So glad to see that car looking better than it was when I saw it on the other channel
It is a real shame that we never saw, we will never see that car as a full production model, such is the fate of what was MG Rover
3 interesting vehicles indeed & what might have been 👍👍👍
Still think the Rover 75 is the best styled Rover that they ever did. Only because I own one.
The p5b coupe is the best the sd1 also but that was Leyland rubbish
If only 🙁. My first thought was Vauxhall !
It would be good to see replicas of that Mini in rally events.
I cant help but think to go back to a traditional Rover grill after the SDI was a mistake, you can only go so far with a retro car.
Interestingly no such grills on these cars...nor of course on the SD1!.
the RDX60 looks like a vauxhall Astra and vectra beating car with hints of both and Mondeos of the time. interesting the back looks slightly like newer vauxhall Astras released well after this was conceived. front lights are very 2005 vectra.
"vauxhall Astra and vectra beating car" Ooh! I don't know about that, I understand it was meant to slot in (sizewize) in-between the 45 and 75, so in-between an Astra and Vectra. That may or may not have worked. In general I don't think replacing well known models with new indirect replacements is a good idea -- there is a reason the Corolla and Camry or Civic and Accord carry on and on and on, and get new generations even if the car gets bigger and newer models are slotted in underneath. Meanwhile you had, say, the Dodge Avenger, Chrysler 200 and Dodge Dart all slightly different sizes: that was a mess.
Where are the other cars because there were more than three
in storage at BMM now
A reminder of how years of strikes and poor management back in those days lost Britain it's motor industry, sad as I remember when BMW took over Rover and thought they'd be able to save them
Very good vid.
That car looks good even today
The TF coupe is documented that it actually had a 4 cylinder k series motor under there, the KV6 was pure marketing smoke and mirrors
The Mini made me think of Project Binky. Who needs 5th Gen Celica running gear when you can just modify the A Series? Would it run with a standalone ECU? Link would probably be able to help. They supplied Binky's ECU. The front end of the RDX60 reminds me of the pre-facelift Vectra C but I can understand why it is being compared to the Signum.
I did suggest the stand alone, it’s a question of ownership and budgets now
Interesting that many comment about the RDX60 having Vauxhall styling, because I see a lot of Megane 2 in there, possibly no coincidence as that was an attention-grabbing car in the same segment that was launched just as this was being developed. The front grille has the same split, the rear has similar but less risque curves, roofline and lights and the interior also has the same shape gauge surrounds and layout of the dash, although it's pretty typical of all cars of the time. No transverse parking brake though, boo. I wonder if had it gone into production they would have pitched it as a more sensible and reliable choice over the 'ooh la la' French car?
That TFGT looks amazing, shame it went how it went for Rover.
Love the front design on the RDX60. Reminds me of Dodge/Chrysler designs of the time.Yeah, the dash does look very Vauxhall.
Would have been interesting to see if there had been a production line set up in another country, Spain, or perhaps by Skoda, in one of the factories in Slovenia....The design looks quite advanced for 2003.
Would of been nice to put older rear lights on mini from 60's
I was getting Nissan vibes from the front of the RDX60. 😋👍
Bit like the almira combined with a signam
The mini should have had a tuned K series in it, could have been even more mad!
Great video, never knew about these concept cars.
Anyway, I am sure the first gen 1 series BMW looks took a lot of inspiration from that concept.
However, as for the rest of the car sans the optical styling, the E8x 1 series and E9x 3 series is practically the same car. Are people saying that that that entire platform of RWD, longitudal engine etc and all BMW stuff under the hood was foremost a planned Rover product? I seriously doubt it... why would they make the 75 FWD in that case and not just rebadge and restyle a 5 series or vice versa.
I think it got the looks of the concept and thats it. Its the only thing that makes sense to me.
The green one look like a vectra from the front didn't gm buy them or was that saab