Steve Parker Motoring / The Car Nut: CHINESE COMPANY BUYS RIGHTS TO BRITISH CAR NAMES FROM GERMAN COMPANY

Thanks for visiting our main website, and please visit our other websites, including the automotive blog at the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-parker), the Santa Monica Daily Press newspaper (www.smdp.com; my column, Tornante, runs each week) and our new Facebook group, DRIVING CRAZY. We also host LIVE radio shows each Saturday at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern and Sunday starting LIVE at 5pm Pacific/Eastern on www.TalkRadioOne.com. Saturday it's THE CAR NUT general interest auto show, Sunday WORLD RACING ROUND-UP, which is self-explanatory. Please join us LIVE or check-out the podcasts anytime which are posted right after the live shows' conclusions. Based on a background of more than 35 years as a journalist covering the worldwide car, truck, motorcycle and motor racing industries, from drag boats to F1, we've created this site so we never have to pull any punches with our opinions and analysis; we're beholden to no one and nothing but ourselves and you, our readers, viewers and listeners. This is definitely not just another "never met a car we didn't like" website clone. We've done our job; now it's your turn. Please tell your friends about us, and don't forget to let us know what you think. And thanks again for stopping by.

About

consulting

Automotive Consulting Services

Subscribe to this blog's feed

Photo Albums

EXCLUSIVE PHOTO ALBUM! 2009 GUMBALL RALLY 3000

See Steve's exclusive Gumball Rally video from NBC-TV's Whipnotic website (copy and paste): http://www.whipnotic.com/videos/viewvideo-558.html Over 120 gas-guzzling super-exotic sports cars, Hummers, Cadillac Escalade SUVs and an occasional interesting older car roared on May 2, 2009, from a California beach-side parking lot directly onto I-10, the Santa Monica Freeway, also known as the Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway, for the start of this year's Gumball Rally. The world's most politically-incorrect automotive street event, the Gumball Rally 3000, left Santa Monica (CA) Pier on Saturday, May 2, 2009 and headed toward its ultimate destination of Miami, FL eight days later. Participants reportedly paid $44,000 per car/team to enter the event. Though the Gumball stresses the skills of its drivers (and their cars) there are only two race track "special section" stops scheduled for the 3,000-mile long event, which will be run on public roads with all entrants subject to all highway rules and regulations. All photos (c) 2009 by www.SteveParker.com

Car Nut Memberships

Steve Parker, "The Car Nut", is a proud and long-time member of AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, SAE, the Society of Automotive Engineers, CCCA, the Classic Car Club of America, AACA, the Antique Automobile Club of America, SAH, the Society of Automotive Historians, and SEMA, the Specialty Equipment Market Association, Serving the World's Automotive Aftermarket!

« WHO WAS THE PR GUY AT THE FIRST 'SILVER STATE CLASSIC', 1988? WHY, I WAS! | Main | USA's SMART AIRBAGS MAY DOOM BUGATTI »

August 16, 2006

CHINESE COMPANY BUYS RIGHTS TO BRITISH CAR NAMES FROM GERMAN COMPANY

AUTOBLOG (via Reuters) REPORTS: Financial Times is reporting that BMW has agreed to sell the Rover name to Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC), new owner of the design rights to many of the vehicles owned by MG Rover before the company was sold to SAIC. FT reports the German automaker will complete a deal with SAIC in September in which BMW will hand over the rights to the Rover name for about $1.9 million. BMW, however, responded to the report today, indicating that talks are still in progress and no deals have been struck.

Nanjing Auto, the Chinese automotive company who bought MG Rover from BMW, was also talking to BMW about the Rover name. Ford Motor Company reportedly has right of first refusal to the Rover name, but is not expected to buy it.

Here are some other names SAIC might want to consider purchasing: Edsel, Henry J. Kaiser, Willys-Overland, Graham-Paige, Kaiser-Fraser, Tucker, DeLorean, Bricklin (never say die, though!), Dale and, possibly sometime soon, Shelby.

Posted on August 16, 2006 at 09:19 PM in Automotive News | Permalink