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| Sauber 'BMW were asking too much' | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 6 2009, 11:16 AM (1,220 Views) | |
| AndyW76 | Aug 6 2009, 04:20 PM Post #31 |
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Anyway, least we all forget, BMW is a business and profits are their perogative. I don't blame them for withdrawing. They are not a charity, after all. What is inexcusable is the way in which they are treating the reminance of their team. It seems that they would rather see the staff of their F1 team out of work than sell to Peter Sauber. |
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| John | Aug 6 2009, 04:23 PM Post #32 |
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sentimental boll*x... and from a Tory boy as well It seems so long as it's a British firm doing the dirt is fine... but oh no, it nasty johnny foreigner... Well tuff welcome to the global economy
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| John | Aug 6 2009, 04:24 PM Post #33 |
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You must be kidding... second bag of pop corn is in the microwave as we joust
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| John | Aug 6 2009, 04:34 PM Post #34 |
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Times up for today... tomorro people.... (there some pop corn left if anyone wnats some) |
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| AndyW76 | Aug 6 2009, 04:40 PM Post #35 |
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That is a rather strange statement from a committed socialist. Hey, all I'm saying is that BMW, as an employer, has a duty to their workforce, like any other company. If Rover wasn't profitable, then of course they would be prudent to close it. It is better that a part of the business closes than the whole business. It is not what they did but the manner in which they did it. They seemed to have their minds set on closing rover instead of exploring all the options first and benefitted hugely from the other arms of the business at the same time. With the right branding and marketing, Rover could have been a success. Instead, the rover that emerged from BMW was so poor that it couldn't afford to develop the brand. BMW didn't even attempt to relaunch the MG brand.
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| AndyW76 | Aug 6 2009, 04:42 PM Post #36 |
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Oh and need I mention that they hung on to the rights to the Rover name after they sold rover. So the depleted business that was roverwas still having to pay out to name it's own cars. |
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| John | Aug 6 2009, 04:52 PM Post #37 |
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LOL it's raining so I have a few more minutes... lets see what do we have here Last first... again with the lack of knowledge ... BMW had to keep the Rover name as a condition enforced on them by FORD when they bought Land-Rover, Ford did not want the brand but insisted BMW restrict the brand name to prevent any potential owner of Rover building a 4x4 rival... when FORD needed to sell on Land-Rover they had to buy the name back off BMW so the new owners of Land-Rover would control the Rover name. where next... MG, it was never intended by BMW to revive a weakened marque such as MG which had long become no more than badge engineering... Rover sat just below BMW and to revive MG properly would have made just another direct rival for it's own brand... now why would they (or anyone else) do that... answer they wouldn't. Anything else in there... oh yes... I am not a committed Socialist, I just have more of a social conscience than your average Tory... which given the industrial history of this country is not that much.
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| Steelstallions | Aug 6 2009, 07:36 PM Post #38 |
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BMW surprised me with their performances until this seasons rule changes unbalanced them. BMW has suffered the worst from the rule changes and now its too late for the team to catch up. I think they were reaching for the top until this seasons fiasco of a rules change that by accident caused a sensation in Brawn GP. |
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| AndyW76 | Aug 7 2009, 08:41 AM Post #39 |
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Well, that may be so but that doesn't change the fact that the actions of both BMW and Ford hurt the future business prospects of Rover. May be I don't know the full details but then again, I don't care too much for defending faceless companies that deservedly earn themselves a reputation for treachery. Also, concerning the MG brand, I find it amusing that you consider it as a "weakened marque" when the pheonix consortium actually achieved some minor success with it when they broke free from the BMW shackles. The rebranded MG cars (which admittedly were rovers underneath) sold very well compared to their sister cars, which seemed to remain the main stay of pensioners (not necessarily a bad thing except that it is a very limited market). BMW's shortsightedness did not help Rover when thay failed to see this opportunity. The fact that both MG and rover cars would have been made in the same factory negates your point of internal rivalry. On the subject of politics. Where you say social conscience, I say mob rule. In the history of strikes in the UK, they have usually been driven by the political agenda of the unuion leaders. Look at Authur Scargill, Andy Gilchrist etc. It is very rare that workers in the UK are treated badly. On example of an industry that does not fold to the power of the unions is the construction industry. the fact is that, although unions were a good idea to defend workers rights, now that the battle for fair working legislation has been won, the union have been taken over by politicians. Incidentally, it was discovered that the GMB was one of the most underhand employers in the country, using practices such as making workers sign out (and docking pay) for toilet breaks, allowing only minimal mandatory breaks, only allowing minimal annual leave etc. To me that is gross hypocracy. Anyway, you may slag off the UK record but we have one of the worlds top ecconomies and a relatively high standard of living compared to most EU countries (as well as being the second highest financial contributer to EU coffers) and that is far from shameful. |
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| John | Aug 7 2009, 09:12 AM Post #40 |
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MG was a weakened brand... there is no conjecture in that statement, that is simple fact... and if you had read what I said you will appreciate my point was that had BMW taken the time, effort and considerable amount of money to rejuvenate the MG brand as it deserved, then all BMW would have done is introduce a direct rival to it's own brand... that was never going to happen. As it was Phoenix had little choice but to push the MG brand (given that Ford, and not BMW, prevented them for having full control of the Rover name) and the limited success of MG post BMW was in part down to patriotism... something which was very lacking pre the sale to BMW and which may have saved Rover long before it ever got to the stage were it was put up for sale... I mean it is simple maths... Brits in their 1,000's avoided buying Rovers while Italian's, French and German's all bought their own cars regardless of quality and that is why they still have independent volumn car companies today and the UK has none... So please look a little closer to home when you talk about not caring for UK jobs and laying this guilt trip on BMW... BMW also inherited many other BMC/BL brands when it acquired Rover, and it had no duty to revive any of them, there was talk at the time of a top end Rover coupé to be branded Riley and even today rumors persist of the Triumph brand being revived using the BMW Z cars underpinings... however, if this does or does not happen, as custodian of the names that is down to BMW. over to you... |
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| John | Aug 7 2009, 09:38 AM Post #41 |
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On the subject of politics you constantly confuse the term social conscience with being a socialist and just as (I assume) a Tory you may be right of center I do not accuse you of being extreme right wing, you always throw up this far left jibe as if some how I must be a Marxist..
I don't slag of the UK record I hold it up as a historic fact.. no more no less... You'd be amazed as to how low down on the standard of living table the UK really is... I'm not saying it poor far from it but it is not the best either... heck even Ireland ranks higher. Gross national income per capita 2008, Atlas method and PPP Atlas methodology (Ranking by Economy) 1 Liechtenstein 2 Bermuda 3 Norway 4 Luxembourg 5 Channel Islands a 6 Switzerland 7 Denmark 8 Qatar 9 Sweden 10 Netherlands 11 Ireland 12 San Marino 13 Finland 14 United States 15 Cayman Islands 16 Isle of Man 17 Austria 18 United Kingdom 19 Belgium 20 Kuwait 22 Germany 23 France 25 Canada 27 Australia 28 Iceland 30 Japan World Development Indicators database, World Bank, 1 July 2009 Finally, IF you really must throw out this tire old fact about the UK contributing the second most to the EU coffers... well PLEASE have the temerity to get your facts 100% straight. Yes the UK is the second highest contributor to the EU coffers (a fact the daily Mail/Sun will tell you Ad infinitum) but they never bother to remind it's readers of the UK's rebate... that would spoil the rant a little. Below is the ACTUAL.... ACCURATE.... contributions made each member state (AFTER the UK gets it's rebate) Member State Total Contribution as % of total EU budget Germany 21.11% France 16.44% Italy 13.64% United Kingdom 13.05% Spain 8.51% Netherlands 5.28% Belgium 3.83% Sweden 2.69% Austria 2.19% Denmark 2.02% Poland 1.99% Greece 1.79% Finland 1.47% Portugal 1.37% Ireland 1.27% Hungary 0.95% Czech Republic 0.89% Slovakia 0.37% Slovenia 0.29% Luxembourg 0.23% Lithuania 0.21% Cyprus 0.14% Latvia 0.11% Estonia 0.10% Malta 0.05% Bulgaria 0.01% Romania 0.01% It is getting very tiresome to keep having to correct the many untruths posted on these boards... but someone has to do it I guess. |
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| John | Aug 7 2009, 10:10 AM Post #42 |
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Peter Sauber is passionate about F1 and his former team... but he is 66years of age so how much longer can he realistically run an F1 team. Even the great Ken Tyrrell who sold his team in 1997 when he was 73 he had pretty much handed over control of his team to his son and Harvey Postlethwaite by 1991 about the same age as Sauber... Even Ron has gone and Frank Williams (67) and Head (64) are close to retiring but have an established team, not a new start up and are a partnership to share the job. This is in reality wishful thinking on Saubers part... the team if sold need younger blood... Maybe Sauber/Thiessen together could do something but I hold out little hope... but I could be wrong. |
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| Lex | Aug 7 2009, 11:25 AM Post #43 |
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if you look at total contribution as a %age of GDP you get an interesting picture Denmark 1.31 Belgium 1.29 Finland 1.01 NL 1.00 France 1.00 Sweden 0.99 Italy 0.96 Germany 0.93 Austria 0.89 Ireland 0.84 Cyprus 0.78 UK 0.76 Lux 0.75 Spain 0.75 Portugal 0.72 Malta 0.70 Greece 0.69 Slovenia 0.65 Hungary 0.65 Estonia 0.47 Czech R 0.44 Lithuania 0.43 Slovakia 0.41 Poland 0.40 Latvia 0.37 Romania (no figure for GDP) Bulgaria (no figure for GDP) back to topic (sort of )btw, I still don't know why Rover turned their back on the Honda partnership, that would seem to have been better than selling out to BMW |
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| John | Aug 7 2009, 11:30 AM Post #44 |
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Honda had a sharing agreement with Rover, I guess they saw the books so they knew what BMW didn't and hid the barge pole. |
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| Lex | Aug 7 2009, 11:44 AM Post #45 |
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lol, true, I hadn't thought of that |
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... BMW had to keep the Rover name as a condition enforced on them by FORD when they bought Land-Rover, Ford did not want the brand but insisted BMW restrict the brand name to prevent any potential owner of Rover building a 4x4 rival... when FORD needed to sell on Land-Rover they had to buy the name back off BMW so the new owners of Land-Rover would control the Rover name.

12:37 AM Jul 11