About Rover
Rover was a British automobile manufacturer originating in Coventry, moving to Solihull after World War Two, and latterly a marque based at the former Austin Longbridge plant in Birmingham.
In recent years it was part of BMW and the MG Rover Group. However, in April 2005, production stopped when the company became insolvent. In July 2005 the Nanjing Automobile Group acquired physical assets/tooling, although SAIC already owned certain intellectual property, with plans to resume production in China and at Longbridge, in 2007. On September 18, 2006 Ford bought the rights to the Rover name from BMW for approximately £6 million. Ford had acquired an option of first refusal to buy the Rover brand as a result of its purchase of Land Rover from BMW in 2000. Rover was in the 1960's was a very desirable car to own especially in the UK. With wealthy excecutives often boasting about their performance figures
History
Before cars
The first Rover was a tricycle manufactured by Starley & Sutton Co of Coventry, England in 1883. The company was founded by John Kemp Starley and William Sutton in 1878. Starley had formerly worked with his uncle James Starley (father of the cycle trade) who began in manufacturing sewing machines and switched to bicycles in 1869.
In the early 1880s the cycles available were the relatively dangerous penny-farthings and high-wheel tricycles. J. K. Starley made history in 1885 by producing the Rover Safety Bicycle - a rear-wheel-drive, chain-driven cycle with two similar-sized wheels, making it more stable than the previous high wheeled designs. Cycling Magazine said the Rover had 'set the pattern to the world' and the phrase was used in their advertising for many years. Starley's Rover is usually described by historians as the first recognisably modern bicycle. The words for "bicycle" in Polish (Rower) and Belarusian (Rovar, Ро́вар) are derived from the name of this company.
