Rover 400 Series
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Rover 400-series & 45 | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer: | MG Rover |
| Production: | 1990-99 |
| Predecessor: | Rover 200 Mark I |
| Successor: | n/a |
| Class: | FF midsize car |
| Competitors: | |
| Mark I – Rover 400 | |
| Production: | 1990-94 |
| Related: | Rover 200 Honda Concerto |
| Body styles: | 4-door sedan 5-door station wagon |
| Engines: | 1.4 L K-Series I4 1.6 L I4 2.0 L M-Series I4 |
| Mark II – Rover 400 | |
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| Production: | 1995-99 |
| Related: | Honda Domani |
| Body styles: | 4-door saloon 5-door hatchback |
| Engines: | 1.4 L K-Series I4 1.6 L K-Series I4 1.6 L K-Series I4 2.0 L T-Series I4 |
| Mark II facelift - Rover 45 | |
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| Manufacturer: | MG Rover |
| Production: | 1999-2005 |
| Related: | MG ZS Honda Domani |
| Body Styles: | 4-door saloon 5-door hatchback |
| Engines: | 1.4 L K-Series I4 1.6 L K-Series I4 1.8 L K-Series I4 2.0 L Diesel I4 2.0 L KV6 V6 |
The Rover 400 was a mid-sized motor car introduced in the 1990s, and produced until 2005 – by then under the name Rover 45. The car was developed during Rover's collaboration with Honda, and all versions of the car were derived from Honda models.
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[edit] 1990-1994 Rover 400 Mark 1
The original 400 Series, launched as a four-door saloon in early 1990, was simply a saloon version of the 200 Series hatchback, and like the 200 it was based on the Honda Concerto. It used the same bodywork and mechanicals, and had the same styling characteristics inside and out. The diesel powerplant was supplied by Citroën (PSA group) in 1.8 turbo and 1.9 normally aspirated configurations.
[edit] 1995-1999 Rover 400 Mark 2
The second generation 400 Series was launched in the Summer of 1995 as a hatchback and saloon in the Ford Mondeo size sector. This time it was based on the Honda Domani which came out in Japan in 1992, as was the European Honda Civic 5-door hatchback. It was no longer related to the 200 Series, which was revised independently by Rover. Power came from 1.4 L, and 1.6 L K-Series, 1.6 L Honda D series SOHC (Automatic gearbox only) and 2.0 L Rover T Series petrol engines as well as a 2.0 L turbo-diesel from the more luxurious 600 Series. The Rover 400 may have been Ford Escort-sized, but Rover inserted some wood trim in the dashboard and priced the car in the Ford Mondeo sector. This meant that, despite being moderately successful in its early years, the model would not repeat the sales success of its 200/400 predecessor.
[edit] 1999-2005 Rover 45
In the autumn of 1999, Rover gave the 400 Series a facelift and a new name: Rover 45. It was instantly recognisable as the same car which had been marketed as an alternative to the Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Vectra during the later part of the 1990's, but Rover management now realised the error of their previous strategy and it was marketed as a Ford Focus rival.
The 1.4, 1.6 and 1.8 petrol and 2.0 diesel engines were carried over from the 400 Series, but the 2.0 four-cylinder petrol unit was replaced by a 2.0 V6 from the larger Rover 75 – although this power unit was only available on saloon versions. The 45 came equipped with the better seating of the 75 and whilst the 400 models handled very well, the suspension was tuned to give much better controlled ride characteristics with quicker steering. This gave the 45, especially post-2003 models which shared suspension mods with the MG version, handling as good as most and better than some of its rivals. The 45 was available with Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) supplied by the German manufacturer ZF Sachs AG which had also been previously used in the MGTF. This particular design of CVT consists of an oil-cooled laminated steel belt (with external oil cooler) running on variable pulleys. MG Rover had many failures returned to the German supplier. With the retention of MG Rover's manual gearbox factory by BMW, Rover ended up purchasing their own gearboxes from BMW who hiked up the price so much that Rover subsequently went elsewhere for a supplier. This turned out to be Ford and later Rover 25/45 models up to 1.6 were fitted with a Ford gearbox. With all the changes that MG Rover had made to this model, the later versions had little in common with its Honda origins apart from the body shape.
Initially, the Rover 45 sold reasonably well thanks to its good equipment levels, comfortable interior and reduced prices. While the asking price remained modest, however, the Rover 45 began to lose its popularity in the face of more refined and modern rivals like the Peugeot 307 and Renault Megane – it must be noted that the 45, being based on the 1992 Honda Domani, was a very outdated car in terms of 'style' compared to its contemporaries by this stage, even though its dynamics from a drivers point of view were still equal to and better than some more popular rivals.[citation needed] A facelift in the spring of 2004 was MG Rover's last effort to boost sales of the Rover 45, including a new front and rear end, a re-designed dash, revised suspension settings, improved equipment and lower prices, necessitated by the end of Domani production in Japan. Production of the car stopped in 2005 with the end of trading at Rover.
Since the summer of 2001, the Rover 45 was also sold as the sportier, more stylish MG ZS.
The Rover 45 design is controlled by Honda, and the company is believed to have seized schematics and tooling relating to the 45 and ZS shortly before MGR was sold to Nanjing Automobile Group.[citation needed]
[edit] The RDX60
From 2001 MG Rover had been trying to replace the 45 with an all-new model based upon the shortened Rover 75 platform. Codenamed the "RDX60", this vehicle, first seen as the Rover TCV concept, would have been larger than its rivals, and would have shared the Rover 75's praised "luxurious" ride quality.
However during the design process, MG Rover's design partner Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) went into administration – blamed on the financial needs of their Formula One team Arrows. MG Rover lost most of the computer-aided design work for the new vehicle in this set-back and, in simple terms, had lost £100 million overnight. Shocked at having lost so much MG Rover ended up paying many more millions of pounds to the TWR administrators in order to have all CAD Work returned. However this major set-back lost them many designers, models and resources, and MG Rover could not afford to start all over again without cutting corners. Although they did not give up, designers from the company retold their stories, saying that the RDX60 progressed very little up until 2005.
However salvation looked possible in 2005 when a joint veture was proposed between SAIC (a large Chinese company) and MG Rover. However, SAIC took over a year to agree a deal and within that crucial time MG Rover had found itself with no money after bad sales of the face-lifted 25/45/75 and the release of the 75 V8.
[edit] External links
- Rover 200/400 (R8) Owners Club - Complete Resource for the Rover 200/400
- Details of the RDX60 Project
