City Rover

rover
City Rover
Production period:	2003-2005
Class :	Small car
Body versions :	Station wagon
Engines:	Otto engine : 1.4 liters (62 kW)
Length:	3600 mm
Width:	1625 mm
Height:	1485 mm
Wheelbase :	2400 mm
Empty weight :	980 kg
Previous model	Rover 100 series

The City Rover was a small car from Rover that was presented in the fall of 2003. It was a slightly modified Tata Indica with the Rover logo (so-called badge engineering ).

The model was to be offered as the successor to the Rover 100 small car, which was initially quite successful in England . The car, based on the Austin Mini Metro or Rover Metro , was withdrawn from the market in 1998 after catastrophic results in the Euro NCAP crash test. BMW also wanted to avert further damage to Rover's image. Since no successor had yet been developed for the original model, sales at Rover continued to decline. After BMW withdrew, the search was on for an inexpensive way to fill the gap in the model range under financially difficult conditions. Tata offered itself as a partner because the company had developed a small car in India that only had to be modified insignificantly for sale by Rover.

The vehicle, which was initially only sold in England and Spain, was only sold slowly. Technically, the City Rover could not meet the demands made in Europe and also not convince in terms of safety. Although it was equipped with two airbags and ABS, the passenger compartment was too flexible. The design corresponded to the state of the early 1990s. The prices for the vehicle were extraordinarily high compared to more modern competitors, despite price cuts.

A shipload of City Rovers that arrived in the English seaport of Dover in May 2005 after MG Rover went bankrupt was sold as bankruptcy in supermarkets. Allegedly, MG-Rover had planned to bring out a successor to the City Rover for the 2007 model year. An MG version had also been considered.

The cooperation with MG Rover was terminated by Tata, also to prevent further license exploitation of the City Rover by other cooperation partners. This prevented any further production of the City Rover.

Rear view

Web links

Commons : City Rover  - collection of images, videos and audio files