| MG Rover Failed as Design Flourished
In the dying days of the last British volume car producer, the company's design team pushed out a range of new designs for SAIC
Peter Stevens, former design director of MG Rover, this week paid tribute to the 'talent and dedication' of the Longbridge workforce. Stevens, MG-Rover’s Consultant Director of Design, announced that he is no longer involved with the manufacturer, after almost five years as design chief. His association with MG-Rover ended on April 11 2005.
The success of the company folllowing BMW's departure was never assured, Stevens acknowledges. MG Rover's life as a small independent producer was always going to be tough and at the time, Stevens spoke of it in terms of a 'brave experiment', one that my not necessarily succeed.
"That this has now happened is very sad indeed," said Stevens. "My greatest disappointment is that the tremendous loyalty and energy of the dedicated workforce who built the cars will now go unrewarded. Without them, any efforts in MG-Rover Design to sustain interest in the current models whilst working on new cars, would have been pointless. I would like to thank everyone of those people for turning even our most simple dreams into reality."
Stevens highlighted the exceptional work his, now disbanded, design team produced - especially for the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) whilst trying to create plans for future collaboration.
"The part of my role at MG-Rover which I truly enjoyed was working with a hugely talented group of young designers who never lost their enthusiasm for design, whilst enduring often dramatically differing demands on their talents. We were a tiny team who, despite very limited resources, challenging deadlines and occasional uncertainties, produced an enormous amount of superb work, most of which will unfortunately never be seen or appreciated. It is particularly sad that in February and March 2005, a period during which I constantly made unreasonable demands on the team’s energy, time and concentration, they should see their hard work come to nothing. Those two months were dominated by our efforts to satisfy the wide-ranging requests from SAIC for a number of future model proposals, and yet not one designer complained about the challenging pace of work that I set them. It was a privilege to work with such a great group of designers and model makers.
"Whilst developing my own design consultancy, Peter Stevens Design, I am hoping to have the opportunity to assist any group that may have plans to preserve employment for at least some of the workforce. It is crucial that this pool of talent is not allowed to go to waste."
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