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any truth to this?

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jackag91

Jedi Warrior
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A buddy of mine that is a big BMW freak, said that when BMW bought the Mini rights, they demanded the Triumph (car) rights as well. He said that it came to the point of BMW calling off the mini deal unless it came with the triumph rights.
 
Not quite. BMW bought Rover from British Aerospace. They therefore got the patents for the Land Rover 4WD system to use in their 4WD. They then sold Land Rover to Ford. They also sold off Jaguar. Then they discovered that the MG Rover side of things were not profitable and sold them for 1 penny. They kept the Mini that had been developed by MG Rover. So in effect they bought the whole company, picked off the best bits and then spat the rest out. MG Rover therefore didn't have any newly developed cars and they declined and eventually went under. Thanks BMW for helping the British car industry go into oblivion. BMW have kept the rights for some of the old British car manufacturers names, including Triumph.
 
If he got it from the wikipedia site then he misread it. He probably heard it on a MINI forum or through a MINI club newsletter or something. The Triumph nameplate, as much as I would like it to be true, had no bearing on purchasing the Rover group which is how BMW got the Mini.

BMW still owns the Triumph name and there was great speculation in the last year about a new BMW, possibly MINI based, sports car carrying a Triumph nameplate. The last I read on the subject, the BMW dealership network shot down the idea because of BMW's own dealership franchise rules. Any non-BMW badged car has to have a separate building. Which meant that any BMW dealer that also wanted a MINI dealership had to build a new showroom specifically for MINI and could not mix the BMW and MINI showrooms. Which is also why not every BMW dealer can sell you a MINI. The same rules would have applied to adding the Triumph nameplate into the mix. Dealership owners weren't very keen on building a third showroom and BMW wasn't willing to allow other nameplates in a BMW showroom. Even if BMW owns the other nameplates.

I'm afraid for the time being BMW has no interest in either using or selling the Triumph nameplate.
 
swift6 said:
I'm afraid for the time being BMW has no interest in either using or selling the Triumph nameplate.
Click to expand...
True, but I've heard that they (BMW) are VERY protective of the Triumph trademarks, names and logos (as in, don't put a Triumph emblem on a shirt and try to sell it for profit without getting licensed by BMW)!
 
They do seem to be VERY interested in protecting their rights to the Triumph trademark. Which still speaks volumes about possible future use of it.

That and there has been a hybrid type car manufacturer in England that has been trying to sue them for use of the name. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
 
I just have to make a peep here,sorry,but.. A beemer Triumph would be pretty slick but what about that nauseous guy in a beemer (probably a 318i) that suggests you should have just got a real bmw...this is just a for instance of what should be considered if such a car were actually produced. I think it would do more harm than good for the vintage cause we belabor in. Now I'm not saying that BMW would not unveil the most beautiful thing we could imagine...it just would simply not be a Triumph. It's like when your favorite band of the 70's re-unites and the only original member is a roadie whose guitar they don't bother plugging in...yeah...you get to hear the songs but sump'in ain't quite right. I'd be at peace if they designed a new triumph but just called it a z5 (or z/whatever). To quote James May from the Top Gear story about the TR6 "you're a man, this is what you want!".
 
Have to agree a bit with Achtung here. While BMW does make some wonderful I-6's, I have yet to hear any credible talk about BMW using the Triumph nameplate on something that would directly compete with a true propeller badged car. The vehicle they were supposedly thinking about badging as a Triumph would have been a MINI based car and could have possibly been FWD. The other early speculation was a MX-5 fighter and therefore a four cylinder. They were not going to go anywhere near their 6 cylinder Z series with it.

While Triumph made plenty of four cylinder vehicles and even FWD vehicles, any new interpretation by BMW would be a Triumph in name only. (and lets all agree on not getting into and hashing out 'Triumph' and 'Standard Triumph' again /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif )

Triumph is dead, Long live Triumph!
 
I would love to see a "retro" styled Triumph return to production.

Can you imagine a slightly larger TR2/3-styled car still bearing the cut-down doors and the "wind-in-your face" attitude.

You can still buy a Morgan and experience the same thing but at a pretty steep price. I'm taking about a mid 20's priced car with a 3.0 or larger inline six.

They certainly would sell a bundle of 'em....
 
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