Could this car have saved Rover?

This is the Rover Tourer Concept Vehicle, revealed at the Geneva motor show in 2002. We can’t overstate the excitement of this moment – after all, there hadn’t actually been a concept car with a Rover badge on the front of it since the 1986 CCV (Coupe Concept Vehicle), revealed at that year’s Turin motor show. It was a new dawn for Rover… or at least the promise of a dawn that might come if the cash could be scraped together.

This concept was an official jettisoning of the retro stylings that had allowed Rover to keep stumbling along for a few more years. When BMW had bought the brand in 1994 the classic English tweed and flat cap look was a surefire cash cow, but the firm needed a shake-up after the Germans had cut and run in 2000, taking Mini with them and selling Land Rover to Ford for a vast sum. The bosses at MG Rover had been left with the peelings while BMW got the smoothie. 

Well, we all know the importance of a grille, especially these days. Gone was the deep grille inspired by the Viking longboat on the company badge, and it was replaced by a shallower five-sided number echoed by a curving bonnet swoop that went all the way down to the front bumper. The sort of extravagant gesture that wouldn’t have gone near a production model. 

Yes – another aspect of the TCV that was interesting, exploring an as-yet unexplored niche mashing up the coupe, shooting brake and estate into an amorphous mass. We wouldn’t see this kind of visionary shape on our roads until the 2003 Vauxhall Signum was launched. Another compelling package, you’ll no doubt agree. And also remarkably unsuccessful. Oops, maybe the Mercedes R-Class from 2006 then.

Rover didn’t get round to showing off much of the interior, perhaps there wasn’t enough money for a dashboard, the 2002 Geneva show was a bit busy or something like that. What the company bosses were really keen to show off was the car’s ability to swallow a washing machine whole, which is a real party piece. There were supposed to be a range of configurations available at the back, including a desk that could be swapped in for the middle seat, or a fridge. The boot floor was movable for extra space and even featured a strange red throne at one point. Perhaps if the Pope were to visit Birmingham he could have made use. 

No one is really sure – it could have been elastic bands, or perhaps the TCV was propelled by the hopes and dreams of Longbridge. The TCV was based on the same platform as the Rover 75, and there was talk at the time of a production version using a 2.5-litre V6 engine. It was a different world back in the early 2000s, after all.  

There just wasn’t the money. Ever. MG Rover never had any money – just enough to do some facelift tinkering, but the only new model the company managed to produce was the 2003 CityRover, a warmed over Tata Indica. What was luxurious in the burgeoning Indian automotive market didn’t quite cut the mustard in the UK. Ironically, and somewhat convolutedly, Tata ended up buying JLR from Ford a few years after Rover hit the wall and even ended up with the Rover branding rights. Small world.

The TCV was supposed to go into production for 2004, but by that time the company was in trouble. It all went under in April 2005. The physical assets of the company were sold to Nanjing Automobile Group, as well as the MG brand, while Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) had the rights to build the Rover 75. BMW wouldn’t sell SAIC the rights to the Rover name (they were already promised to Ford), so the Chinese firm invented its own version, Roewe, and then went and bought Nanjing in 2007. It all gets so complicated. Now it’s no TCV, but if you really want something with some of that classic Rover DNA you can still get your hands on an MG 750 in China, the updated version of the 75. Let's party like it's 1998.