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Prompted by a 'for sale' ad in this very forum I thought I'd ask who knows what about the final days of Longbridge production and what happened after the factory closed with parts, tooling etc. I did hear that Mini Sport and Mini Spares went in there and carved everything up between them, and Minisport got a heap of the last remaining Mini shells on the line (of which they still have some). I haven't been down there for a couple of years, what's actually left in terms of the original factory units ?

there was two final shells left and bought by one collector, a well known chap, he sold one on and kept one, a few years later i needed a shell and wanted a genuine one, it was too hard to justify building a car out of it, so now im selling it on

as for parts etc, they were bought buy a company down south and they sold them on, cant recall there name of top of head, i know for fact companies went down there and were like seagulls to hot chips apparently company closed doors and let things out slowly

Name was like the part supplier at time, its killing me,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Pete wrote:. I did hear that Mini Sport and Mini Spares went in there and carved everything up between them,

really? - i think thats an urban myth.........


when rover shut, all the tooling that was on site was either scrapped, went to heritage, or went to china or india. certainly all the gearbox stuff went abroad - i know someone who was high up in the powertrain section who confirmed this to me. certainly the chinese just took everything, with no consideration as to its worth or not.


the small qty of parts left in the powertrain section (a day or so's parts id guess) where piled on tables and the staff where allowed to bid for the stuff, then given proper receipts for it (so there was no question of theft), this qty of stuff was certainly not of the magnitude to make any of the larger suppliers screech into longbridge with a 7.5 box van (or even a tranny van), the pile of stuff that i have heard of would have filled an estate car.


all the factored parts went to x-part as part of the requirement to keep parts for the rover made cars that where on the road.


since that time x-part has sold much of the stuff off as the costs of factoring it is more than the value of the parts (the business rates on wharehouses aint cheap!) - its this qty of stuff thats often responsible for genuine rover parts suddenly reappearing when they have been out of stock for many years. x-part tend to sell this stuff by the container full, its not a case of telling them that you will take 10 x a, 3 x b, its more a case of you take 2000 of c, and also 3000 of d.


if the stuff isnt taken by the buyers, then its just disposed off, someone i know found a skip full of genuine mpi plug leads that had been skipped because it was felt that they where not worth factoring out


id guess that there was a fair bit of horse trading and stuff vanishing every which way when the factory was shut, indeed ive heard some cracking stories of what went on at the factory, both during its working life and shortly after, but they are not for public consumption

i also very much doubt that there was many shells left over when rover shut, the demise of the mini was planned and heritage had the clout to pull shells from rover for conversions to the mk3 - indeed shells have been so hard to get hold of since i doubt any supplier has a stash of them from 10 years ago left!

morris_mini_minor wrote:there was two final shells left and bought by one collector, a well known chap, he sold one on and kept one, a few years later i needed a shell and wanted a genuine one, it was too hard to justify building a car out of it, so now im selling it on

I think these body shells might have been the last out of the competitions department at Cowley not the last out of Longbridge.

IAIN wrote:I think these body shells might have been the last out of the competitions department at Cowley not the last out of Longbridge.

iain, thats a possible answer, but according to my roversport book, the roversport shell (which had a unique part number) was supplied without bonnet, boot or doors. from memory they where also supplied without any soundproofing or underseal.


ive also looked a little bit more into this,

heritage did a shell run as part of the last run of shells, they got all the ones they ordered (100 of), the rest of the shells would have then either been turned into cars or sold via x-part to rover dealers (the only way a private individual could have ordered a shell from rover).

if (and its apparently a huge if) any spare shells where left over, then it would have been virtually impossible for a private individual to gain access to the factory site, then strike a deal with the administrators for a single item. if this had happened, the administrators would have had to have provided a receipt to show the sale (in which case id love to see a scan of such a historical document)

Guru,

I don't know about any other shells but the two mentioned were from the comp. dept. They were both complete shells just missing the soundproofing.

It was me that bought them.

They had to be moved because the next day they closed down.

IAIN wrote:Guru,

I don't know about any other shells but the two mentioned were from the comp. dept. They were both complete shells just missing the soundproofing.

It was me that bought them.

They had to be moved because the next day they closed down.

ahh, what part number did they sell them under?

did you ever see the list of stuff that was sold mega cheap from the roversport dept - it was amazing the volume of parts (not just mini) that they had, and the prices. someone i know bought a load of cages for next to nothing

I couldn't say about any part numbers with out digging for them !

Maybe 'morris mini minor' knows of one on the body tag ?

I never saw any list unfortunately, they weren't expensive but they also weren't given away.

I could swear I heard Minisport had a load of stuff away, inc shells. I'll do some digging.

argh thanks iain memory gone fuzzy over the years i do recall the other factory

X part was the company yes mini sport did get a load of stuff but like said was bought at bulk lots

I for one went to them and bought all the Cooper Sport 500 Plaques to stop rebirthing of these cars,

Also soem thing filtered back to delaer long after the closure I had a great chap who would call me from local dealer and et me know what he had just been offered, as a collector coming home i grabbed loads of items, new dashes he had dozens of them, so funny enough i have quite a collection now, pitty i never boguth all the Jap Air con ones cause at 25 pound I would be making a few quid here in aus with them

[quote="morris_mini_minor"]argh thanks iain memory gone fuzzy over the years i do recall the other factory

Old age !! It does funny things to you.

[quote="Pete"]I could swear I heard Minisport had a load of stuff away, inc shells. I'll do some digging.

Mini Sport had some Rover Cabriolet shells about 2004. I know where one went.

Rover MG, Longbridge, 18/02/07
Still some photos below of the abandoned factory that were on 28dayslater, though many have been removed - The UK UE Urbex Urban Exploration Forums.
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/rover-mg-l ... nnel.t9749

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/rover-east ... 010.t49314

I had seen those pictures before. I just reminds you how sad and depressing the whole thing was.

Great pictures, they certainly didn't spend any money on improving the product and facilities, you can see why it all went belly-up, very sad for the people who lost their jobs because of it.

For those who have not seen them before, the Mini Clubman in the tunnels beneath Longbridge as pictured on:
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/sho ... longbridge

very sad endeed

What's this bloke doing in the sink!!!

You know, even from here in NZ these pictures just make my blood boil. Hold on, I'll just go and pop some more blood-pressure pills......ah, thats better. Now where were we..... Ah yes... what were you guys thinking way back when all this started; well probably not YOU guys but maybe your parents, and maybe even your Grandparents. How did you/they let the likes of Red Robbo and Co. rule the roost so effectively. I know there were problems on the management side as well, but if you had been living in Japan or Germany you would have been told....'vee haff our vays off makingk you vork'. And you bloody well would haff vorked or else!!!! All those jobs gone, everyone on the dole, it's a scandal. I'm sorry but I put it fair and square down to the unions. Then some foreigners step in, write out a cheque for a couple of hundred pounds and its theirs!! We on this forum drive these British icons that were once assembled' in factories like Longbridge.....we love them, or sometimes hate them, but 'once upon a time'.....sounds like a fairy story already....the British car industry was as good as anywhere and better than most, and you turned out some dammed interesting cars. So what if they leaked a bit of oil. Is it this British working class mentality that we hear about. Surely everyone wants to work, get some money, do things they want to do...restore old Minis or whatever!!!! I have often wondered if any of these Union bosses are still alive, and think back to the old days and have any regrets as to how they destroyed the British car industry. Agh, I dont know......I think I'll just shut up and take up knitting. OK....shoot me down

I'm not sure the unions were responsible for Rover designing cars that people didn't want to buy.

I had a really good conversation with one of the liquidators of Rover Group a few years ago. The stuff she could tell you REALLY did make your blood run cold.

A few of the facts that stuck in my mind were:

1) There was no computer system at all in the administration department. Everything was done on paper.

2) There were people in that department that had analysed one section of a form for 30 years, but had no idea whatsoever how what they did related to what the person sitting next to them did. This attitude ran throughout the company.

3) Because of the lack of administration, the management had no idea whatsoever what any parts they bought in actually cost.

4) Because of point 3 no one had any idea how much their products cost to make.

5) Because of 3 & 4 no one knew how much to charge for the cars they produced or if they were making a profit or loss on each model.

She told me that the production side of the business was actually quite efficient considering that it had suffered from a chronic lack of investment for 40 odd years, but it was the administration & management system or should I say total lack of any administration or management whatsoever that led to the companies downfall.

Its very, very easy to blame the workers & the unions for the downfall of rover, the truth however is much more complicated.

I also quizzed her about her views on the Phoenix 4 & whether they really did go into it to cynically strip the company for what they could get. She categorically denied this and put the whole venture down to a triumph of hope over reality. Sounds about right to me.