Was the Rover 620ti the world's best never-advertised quick saloon?
KEVIN DAVIS reckons so, and tells us how Rover missed a golden opportunity to stick one on its German owners...
The ti's the limit...
HE Rover 600 Series was a competent
enough range based largely on the awkward looking Honda Accord. Though the 600
Series was saved by its graceful ‘Roverised’ styling, which gave
the 600 an air of class about it which left the Honda looking seriously, well,
outclassed, despite it being virtually the same car - there were issues of blandness
when it came to driving the standard Honda-powered fare.
Yes, if there was one thing the 600 was lacking, it was excitement. Rover had already launched 2-litre turbocharged versions of its 200, 400 and 800 Series, and so it was inevitable that the 600 Series would get the same workout. However, getting Honda's agreement on a VHPD version of the 600-Series wasn't the work of a moment, and it wasn't until July 1994 that the unusually monikered 620ti arrived - a whole year after the rest of the range made its debut.
Aside from the great picture, this advert talks about the T-Series engine's impressive power and torque curves and that the engine holds 37 land speed records - though it doesn’t say they were broken using a 220 Turbo Coupe. And, like any good car advert, it quotes the motoring press, "...the 620ti is downright beautiful to look at", which, actually, came from Autocar’s Steve Cropley.
No one would disagree with that.
The only external give away to the ti’s potential were the beautiful 16-inch alloys, but everything else externally was standard 600; it was Clark Kent car on wheels, waiting for it’s shirt to be torn open by a blip of the throttle for its transformation into Superman.
Few people realise that the 600 Series was available with a 200PS engine, but they usually find out at a traffic light grand prix! This was partly thanks to the fact that advertising for high performance Rover cars was shortlived after BMW had taken the reigns at Rover in 1994; and by 1995 individual marketing support for Rover’s performance models, including the 220 Turbo Coupe and 820 Vitesse, were dropped.
Someone must know what really happened at marketing during that time?
I’ll quote Steve Cropley or the sum up; "its forte is cruising fast on main roads, and in that it excels."
For some reason Rover didn’t put that in the advert, but it sums it up perfectly.
| Have your say... |  |
Please let us know your thoughts - and let us know what you think of the 620ti's advertising campaign.
Having read Kevin
Davis' essay on the Rover 620ti, I think I can throw some light as 'feedback',
on his question "Someone must know what really happened at marketing during
that time?". Here it is, please edit as you see fit (I have since sold
my copy of Brady and Lorentz's book, but it was full of amazing anecdotes, and
makes it look like the German management at BMW was so riddled with daft, elitist
politics it was about as effective as the management at BL during the seventies,
but I suppose that is a story for another day)
On the topic of Rover's marketing department decision to pull advertising on the Rover 620ti, I read in Brady and Lorentz's "End of the Road: The Real Story of the Downfall of Rover" (an amazing read, if one with a bit too much management-speak for my liking) that advertising on the entire 600 range was stopped. The reason for this was that BMW shareholders were infuriated that 600s were selling like hotcakes in comparison to the 3-series, and while this was good news for Rover, and therefore BMW, shareholders were annoyed that BMW was losing its purity as a single-marque manufacturer in the face of manufacturers like Ford, GM and Volkswagen who were rapidly buying up other compaines to stay profitable. Despite this, BMW executives' plans to build up an entire portfolio where they owned a number of different manufacturers, such as Rover, of which each would attack a different segment of the market. Ideally the executives wanted to be running a German version of British Leyland - but slightly more streamlined and teutonic, so there would be no inter-manufacturer rivalry like we had with Austin and Morris, MG and Triumph and Jaguar and Rover, with allegations that the likes of Pischetsreider & Co. were going weak at the knees at the prospect of owning Rolls Royce.
This obviously raises questions about BMWs ability to 'rebuild' Rover. The journalists of the day that knew nothing about marketing, strategy and business models, all said something along the lines of "Well if anyone knows about building saloon cars, it's BMW, so if anyone can save Rover it's BMW, and if BMW can't save Rover, nobody can, so the latter is obviously moribund / doomed / a waste of money." The fact that the Rover 75 was a great car built under BMW management with BMW money, seems to have escaped their gaze. The reason why it all went wrong was that Rover was fighting for the same portion of the market that BMW was, and when you have BMW shareholders that are blind with the intent with keeping the marque 'pure', it was clear who was going to come out on top... cue the Phoenix Four, a £600 million dowry and a several acres of land with cars parked on them... so a deal worth £10.
As for the 220 Turbo Coupé and 800 Vitesse, there is no mention of the advertising being stopped for those in Brady and Lorentz's book, but I can only image that it was for the same reason that the Rover 600 got it's advertising stopped in its entirity.
At the end of it all, BMW shareholders don't seem too bothered that they now own Rolls Royce, which, being a British, that's right, British brand, dilutes the BMW purity... I wonder why. Still, it cracks me up no end when I remember the story of the first BMW built Rolls Royce snapping its fanbelt a mile down the road from the factory, blowing the engine into little pieces. I wonder if BMW shareholders believe in karma...
Sebastian Michnowicz