This is an interesting 'counter factual' article, by Keith Adams, on Rover, Honda and BMW - https://www.aronline.co.uk/facts-and-fi ... nd-rover/

He suggests several product actions such as R8 5- and 4-doors remaining in production longer and HH-R and R3 being cancelled.

What do you think would have happened?

Hindsight is a wonderful science.

It’s very difficult to guess how things might have worked out, business wise, given the state the worlds been in the past few years.

However, based on personal experience… When I had my first Rover, a ‘91 214 Si 3 door back in the late 90s, I worked briefly for a car hire company who had the newer cars on fleet, so I was able to make bit of a comparison.

I gather the R3 was originally designed as a replacement for the Metro (or 114) and I think it would’ve made a pretty good upgrade. However, (at the risk of upsetting people), it struck me as a poor replacement for the R8, it somehow felt smaller in all respects, and it did feel like you were stepping slightly downmarket. Perhaps if they’d stuck with the original concept – a 200 hatchback and a 400 saloon on the HH-R it might have been more successful?

I remember doing quite a few miles in a 420 auto – the autobox wasn’t particularly smooth and it DRANK petrol. One of the managers had one as a company car and a coolant hose fell off because the clips weren’t properly fitted. And the rear three quarter badges fell apart – on a lot of them!

I also (briefly) owned an HH-R. It felt very different to the R8. Better? Don’t know. I didn’t have it very long, but long enough for the clutch cylinder bracket to give up and the coil to get fried – maybe sticking it on the back of the block wasn’t the best idea.

No doubt owners of these models will totally disagree, and that’s fine. I’m obviously biased because I love the R8, and over time it’s proved itself to be a damn good design.

Whilst the R3 project began as a Metro/100 replacement, it quickly evolved away from that idea for a number of reasons; the sudden increase in sales of the 100 being one, and the sheer size of the R3 (being initially based on R8 underpinnings) - at the time it would have been far too big as a Metro replacement, and indeed when Rover stopped 100 production and tried to push the R3 as the alternative, a large proportion of potential buyers in the Metro size bracket turned away from Rover for that very reason.

As to R3 not being successful and basing a replacement 200 on HHRwould havew been, it is worth pointing out that the R3 was a bigger seller than HHR was, and hugely better in the later stages of MG Rover

The sad part about the replacements for the R3 is that BAe was starving Rover of the investment needed to fully participate in developing new models jointly with Honda - the in house cobbling together of R3 (which was quite a remarkably good car considering its very meagre development budget), and licence building the Honda Domani based Civic were the result, and were predictably underwhelming as a result.

Sadder still is that Honda were neither interested nor financially able to take full ownership of Rover at the time, so Keith's ramblings seem pretty fanciful to be honest.

There's a slightly different up on ARO too now - https://www.aronline.co.uk/facts-and-fi ... te-equity/

Keith was very quick off the blocks, before I had time to rethink the badging strategy.

What should have happened was :

R3 badged as 100
HH-R 5-door badged as 200
and
HH-R 4-door badged as 400

John,

I prefer your "alternative alternative" because it answers the question of what to do with the K Series. Other articles about it on AROnline suggest that it was a serious engine hampered by cost savings forced on Rover by its financial situation.

Also as I read it. John Bacchus hints in his book that Honda were not necessarily receptive of external ideas, although their interest in the R3 might suggest otherwise. I think that had Rover become a subsidiary of Honda, Rover's input into new models would have been minimal, almost badge engineering.

Your scenario allows Rover to have a considerable input into new models which might have reined in the excesses of more recent Honda designs.

Also your suggestion that BMW might re-enter the story in a less desgructive manner raises the possibility of a BMW/Honda/Rover range of models built on a common platform along the lines of VAG's Skoda/Seat-Cupra/VW/Audi ranges.

And R3 was almost badged as the 100 by Rover themselves. An intetesting thought, would that have left Tomcat "(Coupe), and Tracer (Cabby) carrying the 200 Badge?

CoupeFan wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:29 pm
And R3 was almost badged as the 100 by Rover themselves. An intetesting thought, would that have left Tomcat "(Coupe), and Tracer (Cabby) carrying the 200 Badge?

They lost the 200 and 400 references when the R3 was launched, becoming the Rover Coupe, Cabriolet and Tourer, so nothing needs to change

John, I know.

The point that I was making was that if the R3 left the 200 Series designation to become the 100 Series, then the 200 Series could have continued but with the Tomcat and Tracer as the two models in the 200 Series instead of the reality of being kicked out of the 200 Series. That would have left the door open for a new 200 Series saloon bigger than the R3 with new Coupe and Cabriolet variants. You could argue that Tomcats and Tracers were 400 Series cars at heart along with Tex.

At grave risk of being forcibly ejected from the Club, the R3 looks more like a direct descendant of the Allegro than the R8 or the Maestro. Nothing wrong with that, I had 3 different A(lle)gros (1, 2, & 3) and loved them.

MG as a marque, initially depended on "hotted-up" versions of the standard Morris cars, I seem to recall reading somewhere in the dim and distant past that "MG" stood for Morris Garages, please correct me if I'm wrong. The MG Metro, Maestro, Montego, and ZR, ZS and ZT continued that tradition. It was the GTi 220 Turbo and Coupe 220 Turbo that proved tbat Rover could do higher performance cars without the MG badge.

I'm afraid that I was never a fan of the MGB or the BGT. They always struck me as a bit basic compared to the Triumph Herald and 1300 that I drove in the late 1960s.

For that reason. I'd have hoped that instead of going for MG, the higher performance cars were branded as "Triumph". My Tomcat interior is similar to a 1300, 2000, 2.5PI or Stag than the black-metal MGB/MGBGT.

But back On-Topic, for me your scenarios works better than Keith's because it looks more realistic given Honda's reluctance to take over Rover.

Thank you for your take on "What happens if" John.

Thanks Keith

Don't worry, you won't be forcibly ejected from the club with your Allegro reference

In here - https://www.aronline.co.uk/facts-and-fi ... 3-30-years - Keith Adams has the R3 up along the Stag and the SD1. Praise indeed

CoupeFan wrote: ↑Thu Oct 02, 2025 12:27 pmAt grave risk of being forcibly ejected from the Club, the R3 looks more like a direct descendant of the Allegro than the R8 or the Maestro. Nothing wrong with that, I had 3 different A(lle)gros (1, 2, & 3) and loved them.

To be fair all the cars were going that way back then, though proper aerodynamics rather than the rather strange shaped Allegro. The SEAT Ibiza Mk2 1996 revision looks very similar in shape to the R3.

https://rover200.org.uk/images/models/R ... oor_01.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... _front.jpg