Originally Posted by
mike-wsm
Is that what happens when you type "Trabant"?
Actually no - though the ECV concept of the early '80s did have a more-or-less perfected 3-cylinder lean-burn engine.
For all Clarkson likes to grouch, the '80s vintage Rover Group lay a lot of the technical foundations that we see being used almost across the board these days. Honda's position in the European market would have been far less assured if it weren't for the collaboration with Rover back then, and the much- (and unfairly) maligned K-Series engine provided the blueprint for all the lean-burn 16v 4-bangers in use today. That's just two examples off the top of my head.
Digging further back, they bought a 50's era V8 design from Buick that GM considered mediocre at the time and re-engineered it into an powerplant which not only stayed in production for almost half a decade, but retained widespread respect until the day it was discontinued.
While never achieving the aim of matching BMW in terms of reputation, I still see more '80s and '90s vintage Rovers still soldiering on than any other UK-built cars.