Rootes Group

The Rootes Group is a now-defunct British automobile manufacturer.

Rootes was the parent company of many famous British marques, including Hillman, Humber, Singer, and Sunbeam.

In 1963, Rootes introduced the Hillman Imp, a compact rear engined sedan with an innovative all aluminum engine. It was intended to be Rootes' answer to the all-conquering Mini, and endorsed their confidence in the Imp by building a massive new factory in Linwood, near Glasgow in which to assemble it. But the Imp was tragically underdesigned, and a whole string of quality and unreliability issues, coupled to buyer apathy towards the quirky design meant that the car never fulfilled its promise.

In the mid-1960s, Rootes was taken over by the Chrysler Corporation of America, following huge losses amid the commercial failure of the troubled Imp. Chrysler was also only too keen to take control of the struggling firm as it was keen to set up an independent European subsidiary like arch rivals Ford and GM. Chrysler also took over the French Simca company at the same time.

The company soldiered on however with a range of worthy but dull family saloons like the Hillman Avenger and Hillman Hunter ("Arrow"), while desperately trying to develop the Imp into a decent car. But Chrysler's lack of interest in Rootes' products was reflected in its development of the Simca-based Alpine and Horizon ranges instead, allowing the Hillman brand to die by 1976.

A lacklustre product range, coupled with a multitude of industrial relations problems in the 1970s led to the collapse of Chrysler Europe in 1977, leading to the company's 1978 takeover by PSA Peugeot-Citroen, and the only remaining remnant of Rootes is its main assembly plant, near Ryton, Coventry which today produces the Peugeot 206 for European markets. The Linwood plant closed in 1981.