BMW revives Riley
Heritage nametag to be applied to front-drive city runaboutsBMW is strongly rumoured to be planning for its new front-drive passenger vehicle range to be marketed under the brand name Riley.
Munich had retained the Riley name after selling the MG Rover Group in 2000, but has done nothing with it, or other traditional British brand names since. The Riley Motor Manufacturing Company was formed nearly a hundred years ago by the four Riley brothers, led by Percy. For many years it was a producer of upmarket cars, both sporty and luxurious. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions (Nuffield, BMC, Leyland, MG Rover) the name fell into BMW's lap, many years after the last Riley-badged cars had been built by BMC.
BMW owns the MINI name and, following that precedent, it now appears to have in mind the Riley name for its other front-drive models that are expected to debut from 2014. Although they will be based on MINI mechanicals, the new models will be larger and quite distinct from the donor cars.
Development codes for the new front-drivers are reportedly F44 ('GT' hatch), F45 ('Touring' wagon) and F46 ('City' three-door hatch). Many have speculated that these vehicles would be badged '1 Series', despite the 1 Series already being sold in rear-wheel drive form. As we reported in October last year, BMW hints that it will not name the new front-drive cars '1 Series'.
This has been confirmed very recently by an insider with the company, who told motoring.com.au that the new range of cars would be marketed as the Riley Elf. There's a link to MINI through the name, since the original Riley Elf was basically a long-tailed (BMC) Mini. 'Elf' in German means 'Eleven' in English — and 11 is 10 more than 1 (Series).
The new name marks a half-way point for the company in the development of the new front-drive cars — a look back on history and a look forward to BMW's future product development.
Assuming the Riley branding works for BMW, expect larger front-drive models to begin reaching the market in later years, named Riley 'Zwolf' (Twelve) and 'Dreizehn' (Thirteen).
Read the latest news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site…
Tags
Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
