MG T-Bar Quiz

alanrt54 wrote: ...Does that help?

:nonod:





:slapme:

I'll just sit here in the dark with John


John what you drinking :beer:


Here is a quick reminder of the current question

alanrt54 wrote: What is this car.

and the clues

1. This was a design proposal from a company run by a former Director of Advanced Engineering at Rover. I don't think a car was actually built.

2. The company shares its name with part of the name of a public transport vehicle

Source: AROnline

RICHARD Hamblin, former Managing Director of OMNI Design, and has managed to give us an invaluable insight into the design of the sports car pictured on this page. As the former Director of Advanced Design at the Rover Group, he has passionate views on the health of the MG name, and during the MG Rover era, was very keen to see the marque treated to the new sports cars it so richly deserved.

He told us: “…we always believed that money could have been spent on one good, new, trend setting product! Produce one such car, and you can go on to re-build the company, then provide the wealth to go on to greater things. With the OMNI MG, we were advocating the concept of an additional, bigger brother to the MGF – just below £30K – of which that car was one. Market research had shown MG would not be credible above £30K, at that stage…”

In fact, early post-2000 MG Rover product planning documents ‘leaked’ to the press spoke of an X70/X71 programme – which would take the MG name further upmarket. So, MG Rover was probably thinking in the similar terms to OMNI, even if it’s own ideas seem to have been killed stone dead by the XPower SV.

It is impossible to say OMNI’s car would have been a success or not – it certainly looks exciting enough to have done so, but at £30,000 it was a whole lot more likely to make an impact on the market place than the £70,000-£80,000 MG XPower SV, which is now generally regarded to have been little more than a technically interesting sales flop. The market that OMNI was pitching its MG design proposal was one that was later filled by the Audi TT, Mazda RX8 and Nissan 350Z – and with its mid-engined layout, it would have possessed one major unique selling point.

Richard added: “When we were advocating the bigger brother, there was no RX8, no 350Z, no TT – it was that gap in the market (niche) we were identifying! and the lifestyle/social change that were creating the desire and purchasing power in that area.”

It is probably no co-incidence that the OMNI MG was mid-engined – when Richard’s Advanced Design department at Rover was putting together the original PR3 project in the mid-Eighties, a classical front engined layout had been on the cards (and had been since Roy Axe’s arrival at Austin Rover since 1981), but was put on ice as the Product Planning department told us it wouldn’t sell – simply because no-one else was producing cars like that at the time.

Following the launch of the hyper-successful Mazda MX5 everything changed. Richard added: “The MX5′s success allowed us to later produce MGF – but it had then to be very different – as the MX5 had already taken MG’s clothes – hence the unusual mid engined approach.”

It seems that approach was taken again…

Well done MartinW :woohoo:

Click here to view to view the article Martin refers to

I have just seen this article on the X70/X71

X70/X71 story from Autotrader on X-Power forum

Alan your clue 2 to omnibus to OMNI was a bit left field. I tried all sorts of combinations of TRA Design, AXI, etc, etc. :lol:

Thank goodness Martin got it, I knew we could rely on him.... eventually :bust:

Look forward to the new question

When the Z range was launched, the ZT was the only front bumper re-style that dd not share the indicators with the Rover model.

What was the rumoured reason for this?

MartinW wrote: When the Z range was launched, the ZT was the only front bumper re-style that dd not share the indicators with the Rover model.

What was the rumoured reason for this?

Martin - I have no idea but based on lack of replies, neither do others. :bang:

A pure guess (obviously) - The design team had a parent incarcerated in a Japanese POW camp (n WWII) and didn’t like the “ slant eyes" of the Rover so made them round and thus more in keeping with the rest of the MG “front package”.

There – told you I had no idea!! :coat:

I was thinking maybe a clue might help.

As a bit of background, if you look at the concept sketches of the Rover 75 the indicators appeared in a different place next to the headlights but were moved for the production model to the position lower in the bumper.

Whilst many called the Z range re-badged Rovers, there were changes that included the suspension ride height.

Therefore to avoid being illegal the indicators had to be moved, but how did the 75 end up with the indicators where it did? Hence the question being carefully worded as to what was the rumoured reason for positioning the indicators so low on the 75?

Just seen your reply Martin. :sick: Well that has just scuppered 20 mins research :slapme:



I was going to say was it rumoured that the ZT was such a fast beast that it needed ducts in the front bumper to cool the brakes.

So the question is actually about Rover 75 indicators and not MG ZT indicator positioning.

To avoid me confusing the issue the question is;

What was the rumoured reason for positioning the indicators so low on the Rover 75?

The ducts were blanked off anyway, although I did remove mine and fit a cold air feed from the near side duct

But yes, the question relates to why the indicators had to be moved and to help as a clue, I mentioned the low position of the indicators, so in essence the question is why where the indicators rumoured to have been positioned so low on the 75 that made it illegal to use the same arrangement on the ZT, bearing in mind the the ZT would have a different ride height. Hope that helps.

Looks like some more help is needed? BMW...

Rumour has it that Das Motorwerken saw it as a rival to the 3 series sporty versions and positioned them thus to prevent lowering mods for a sportier profile?

Well done! Over to you!

Gawd, is that the answer? No wonder they lost the war(s)
Oh bulwarks, that means that I have to find a question challenging enough to test the knowledge of those of you who can quote the part number of a 1964 Midget nearside front indicator lens from memory......

Tomorrow friends, tomorrow.... :bang: