Keith Adams Rover SD1 looking all sparkly and ready for action I must admit that I’d been a little nervous. While driving over to Poland yesterday, I’d been screwing myself up a little wondering whether Jerzy’s garage would still be in business when I got to Częstochowa – I hadn’t, you see, heard from …

THE only surviving director of the motor company that designed the iconic Mini has claimed the concept was not the brainchild of Sir Alec Issigonis, its legendary designer, as most people think. Westcountry resident William Davis, the British Motor Company (BMC) production boss who ensured the hugely popular car was manufactured, says few credit the [...]

Here at AROnline we’ve always had a thing for Rover R8s and so, at last, it’s nice to be offered the chance to bring a Tomcat back to health – we’re looking forward to finding out what all the fuss is about. Keith Adams came across this one in the ‘For sale and wanted’ area [...]

Automotive News Europe/Reuters, 28th May, 2009 India’s Tata Motors Ltd. said on Wednesday it has completed refinancing of its $3 billion bridge loan taken to purchase luxury car brands Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor Co. in 2008. Tata, which had already repaid $1.16 billion last year and raised $840 million through nonconvertible debentures [...]

More than 25,000 people from 40 countries made the trip to a sunny Siverstone Racing Circuit during the recent Whit Bank Holiday weekend to mark the MINI brand’s 50th birthday with a three-day festival of cars, MINI Challenge racing and music from headline acts such as Paul Weller and Calvin Harris. A reported 10,000 classic [...]

Jaguar UK has launched a high performance Police pursuit vehicle based on the company’s XF Diesel S model and Police forces across the UK are currently evaluating the car. The Police specification XF features the 271bhp 3.0 litre twin-turbodiesel engine, a roof-mounted light bar with 3600 blue flashing lights and three other sets of blue, [...]

Keith Adams Clicking on this link might seriously damage your health if you dislike the idea of this site containing information about cars produced by other manufacturers. However, if you’re like me, and love a good automotive yarn, this might well be right up your street. As you can see, I’ve uploaded the Talbot Tagora [...]

Keith Adams So here it is: middle age. The onset on senility or, perhaps, the desire for a quiet life. Either way, and against my better judgment, it has to be said, there’s now a Mercedes-Benz 230TE sitting on my drive with my name on the V5C. Reasons for buying it are legion – as [...]

Steven Ward What with forum member, Alex Sebbinger, having a run of bad luck buying and running an ever evolving fleet of Rover 800s, I decided to brush-up on my ‘XX’ Product Knowledge. Just lately, Alex had bought a J-plated Rover 800 Sterling, which was the last of the ‘XX’ Sterlings from fellow forum member [...]

Update: 23 May 2009 It’s been a busy few weeks at AROnline Towers. The Tomcat’s MoT has now expired, and that’s meant that we can now stop enjoying the rolling, and get on with the restoration. But in time honoured tradition, it’s now in a bit of a stack of projects thanks to the impending [...]

Joe Leahy in Mumbai and John Reed in London , Financial Times, 22nd May, 2009 Tata Motors is expected on Monday to obtain the agreement of its banks to roll over about $1.05bn in debt, rescuing India’s largest carmaker from the brink of default. The extension of the loan until the end of 2010 will [...]

Joe Leahy and John Reed, FT.com, 21st May, 2009 If there was a prize for leaving things to the last moment, Tata Motors would be this month’s winner. Until this week, India’s largest carmaker had refinanced just over one third of the $3bn bridge loan it used to buy luxury marques Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford [...]

George Gao, Gasgoo.com, 18th May, 2009 SAIC Motor announced last week that the company has adjusted its low-emission NSE engine strategy based on the MG model and will mainly use the 1.5 and 1.5T series of engines in its future models, sina.com said today. Since acquiring Nanjing Auto at the beginning of 2008, SAIC Motor [...]

Graeme Brown, Birmingham Post, 20th May, 2009 LDV workers are being paid two weeks’ wages this week after the company successfully withdrew its application for administration. The Washwood Heath van maker, which announced this week it plans to resume production in July, processed the payment after finally putting an end to court hearings over its [...]

The Rover 75, which the company described as ‘the car we had to make,’ first went on sale to an expectant UK car buying public back in 1999. However, ten years on, and with older examples of the model gradually disappearing from Britain’s roads, a growing number of enthusiasts have joined the Rover 75 and MG ZT Owners [...]

Graeme Brown, Birmingham Post, 18th May, 2009 LDV is set to resume production by July following a last-ditch rescue of the Birmingham van company by Malaysian company Weststar. A takeover deal – for an undisclosed sum – is in the process of being finalised according to Weststar, which has been negotiating to buy the Russian-owned [...]

Alexander Boucke Early morning, Saturday, somewhere in the west of Germany, the birds start to sing. Can’t sleep. Looks like the sun will be out – decide to go for a drive. Select car – that’ll do: Leaving town the sun comes out. Morning sun is so nice – driving further south. After a break, [...]

Keith Adams Hmmm… While I’m getting revved up about my SD1 project in Poland (thanks to those kind magazine editors who paid me yesterday), I should spare a thought for the other projects on the AROnline fleet – because, despite logic and good sense, they are still around, even if work continues slowly. You can [...]

Vicky Farncombe, Birmingham Post, 14th May, 2009 Months of agonising continues for hundreds of LDV workers after a hearing to place it into administration was adjourned again. Lawyers for the Washwood Heath van-maker returned to Birmingham County Court for a second time this month yesterday after applying to go into administration weeks ago. The company [...]

Keith Adams In case you’ve been wondering, I’m still around, and still very much alive. The lack of blogs from me has been inexcusable, especially considering I’ve pretty much kept them going regularly since I started doing them in 2004. It’s a great discipline to follow for any budding writer – creativity comes from necessity [...]