Concept Cars That Never Made The Cut: MG Rover RDX60

The RDX60 may so practically have been the brand new Rover 45 – and maybe even the automotive to avoid wasting MG Rover. However in contrast to its predecessor, nipped and tucked and dragged kicking and screaming into the 2000s in opposition to its will, the RDX60 would have aimed proper for the highest of the category, going head-to-head with one of the best household hatchbacks that Ford and Volkswagen may provide.

As a substitute, it ended up gathering mud as Longbridge sat empty and quiet, awaiting its ignominious finish.

The indicators had been coming for a while; we simply didn’t wish to consider them. Within the early 2000s, MG Rover was a carmaker that wanted to reinvent itself. The British model was now beneath the possession of the Phoenix Consortium, having risen from the ashes of the break-up of the Rover Group after BMW ended its possession.

Regardless of what ought to have been the beginning of a promising new period, MG Rover was shedding market share to rivals on account of an ageing and considerably undesirable line-up. To arrest the slide in gross sales, it wanted to exchange the traditional 25 and 45 fashions, however with no new fashions within the pipeline and little money to construct one, it desperately wanted a saviour.

Underneath the prior interval of BMW possession, MG Rover had began the event of a brand new medium hatchback that might exchange the 25 and 45. Codenamed R30, the brand new mannequin was nearing completion when BMW left, taking the complete mission with it. In an try to reverse the model’s flagging gross sales numbers, a brand new mid-sized mannequin was green-lit for growth, codenamed RDX60.

A brand new saviour: Mission RDX60

As nothing remained from the event of the R30, the RDX60 mission needed to be began from scratch. The corporate tasked John Tweedy to guide it, who’d beforehand overseen the event of the Rover 45. Contained beneath the RDX60 identify initially have been an array of fashions throughout each manufacturers; RD60 referred to the Rover-badged three- and five-door hatchbacks, with the MG-badged variations known as X60. Later within the mission, a four-door Rover saloon dubbed RD61 and a five-door property known as RD62 have been added to the proposed line-up.

Because of the tight monetary state of affairs at MG Rover, the brand new automotive needed to be developed utilizing the belongings the corporate already had in-house. It used a revised model of the subtle Rover 75 platform with the identical wheelbase, which might make it spacious for the category and cheaper to develop and produce. Key adjustments included the removing of BMW’s costly Z-axle rear multi-link rear suspension set-up for a less complicated beam axle design.

Preliminary progress on the RDX60 mission was sluggish, with solely a small group of engineers and designers engaged on the event and design, that means MG Rover wanted a associate to get the mission transferring. Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) was introduced in, which appeared to be a sensible determination given the corporate’s sturdy observe file of working with mainstream automotive producers equivalent to Renault and Volvo.

TWR’s involvement accelerated the RDX60’s growth, with quite a lot of designs and manufacturing tooling being accomplished within the first yr. To save lots of each money and time, the vast majority of TWR’s work was accomplished nearly utilizing Laptop-Aided Design (CAD) and Laptop-Aided Manufacturing (CAM), with no bodily prototypes being constructed.

Whereas the brand new automotive’s growth was transferring rapidly, its exterior design was inflicting controversy. Workers at MG Rover have been stated to have thought the ultimate design chosen for the brand new automotive was moderately ungainly, with a squared-off entrance finish paying homage to a pick-up truck. Whereas the design was by no means seen outdoors of MG Rover, the Rover TCV (Tourer Idea Car) revealed on the 2002 Geneva Motor Present is assumed to intently resemble the RDX60’s daring design technique.

A blown price range, and TWR crashes out of the race

The RDX60 mission was halted in early 2003 on account of spiralling prices. To make issues worse for MG Rover, TWR went bankrupt inside weeks, ensuing within the lack of a good portion of the mission group in addition to entry to the RDX60 knowledge and designs. After spending practically £100 million on TWR’s growth work, MG Rover was then compelled to pay a big settlement quantity to the directors a number of months later to get well all the mission recordsdata.

Regardless of the lack of TWR and the mission being halted, a operating and driving prototype of the five-door RD60 hatchback was lastly unveiled in November 2003 to a choose group of sellers, elements suppliers, and high-level MG Rover staff.

Whereas no official pictures have been ever launched from this occasion, pictures that later surfaced on-line confirmed the automotive had a powerful resemblance to the Vauxhall Signum, with an up to date front-end that toned down the early truck-like design, and a futuristic inside most in contrast to Rover’s up to date vary.

The start of the top

Whereas the reveal of the prototype gave renewed hope that RDX60 could be completed, the progress of the mission had been just about static for the reason that summer time of 2003.

Because of the ongoing delays and dizzying growth sums, MG Rover now wanted a brand new associate to push the RDX60 into manufacturing. The group bought near agreeing an alliance with Shanghai Automotive Trade Company (SAIC) in early 2004, however the Chinese language carmaker had considerations concerning the RDX60’s design, allegedly asking for it to be overhauled. Ultimately, it by no means bought even that far; SAIC swerved away on account of MG Rover’s huge losses, which have been estimated to be over £1 billion on the time. In April 2005, MG Rover known as within the directors, ending the RDX60 mission and severing the corporate’s potential lifeline.

Whereas MG Rover believed internally they might flip issues round within the remaining years earlier than it went out of enterprise, a UK Authorities briefing report from 2001 suggests its demise was at all times inevitable. The report said the corporate had a legacy money reserve of solely £500 million from BMW to cowl the price of its new medium-sized automotive – a sum inadequate to cowl the event of a brand new mannequin, not to mention its vital working losses.

RDX60: the ultimate sightings

After the doorways closed and shutters rolled down at MG Rover, the RDX60 prototype was hidden away within the Longbridge manufacturing facility. Images of the inexperienced five-door RD60 hatchback prototype surfaced on-line in 2006, then over a decade later, in 2019, the automotive was photographed for the ultimate time as the location was closed down. Whereas its destiny is unconfirmed, it’s thought that it was destined to be scrapped.

As for what grew to become of the RDX60 mission, it has been reported the SAIC-produced Roewe 550 saloon was derived from Rover’s work. Whereas we’ll probably by no means know simply how a lot of the RDX60’s growth made it into the 550 (if any in any respect), its evolution later included the introduction of a plug-in hybrid – maybe a glimpse of how MG Rover’s sharp new mannequin may have saved forward of the curve.

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