I came across a short magazine article from: March 1994 Ward's Auto World
(an industry journal) that I had saved because of the article's last paragraph.
Since it has been a slow day here (in digest mode), I thought that I would share
it with you all. The title of the article is "BMW whacks its competitors". It
speaks in generally glowing terms about BMW's purchase of Rover, how this
doubles BMWs size, all for a mere $1.2 billion US; but cautions that "(BMW) will
need some powerful digestive pills. Rover , while basically sound, will present
many problems. There still is tremendous internal goodwill toward Honda, which
provided a lifeline during Rover's dark days and is outraged by BMW's move."
The final paragraph reads: "The sale additionally spells the end of the British
auto industry - though there remains a strong auto industry in Britain. Such a
development would be unimaginable in any other developed country. What is
really sobering is that in 1952 British Motor Corp. was the largest automaker
outside of North America. At the time, BMW was making bubble cars, and Honda
had not even made a passenger car."
Again, this is from March 1994.
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