Was rootes group a Rival to British leyland

[Celicaas]

I have been reading about rootes group and how it was merged with chrysler and how it was Producing lots of cars in the 70s and 60s like hillman avenger And the sunbeam tiger
For example

But it means that it did rival British leyland in making lots of cars at the time so was it a rival ? And did it fail like british leyland thus merging with chrysler europe and then cars like talbot sold to PSA

My question is in short

Is rootes a failure like British leyland and was it a rival to it

 

[Wiegert]

But it means that it did rival British leyland in making lots of cars at the time so was it a rival ?

You answered your own question there. One of them at least. BL were only rivals during the Chrysler period, while BMC were their primary competition through the 50s and early-60s.

Rootes bought out brands that struggled to regain a foothold in the market after the war. Most were assimilated into Rootes' brand sharing programme and became badge-engineered models, as it was the most cost-effective way to keep those brands alive longer than they would have been if they'd remained independent. Reliability was sound compared to rival manufacturers until the introduction of the Imp. You could say that it (along with the badge-engineered variants) contributed more to the group's failure than anything else. Poor reliability and a cheap, utilitarian image. On top of strike action at the Linwood plant where it was built.

Steadily merging into into Chrysler Europe helped ease the pressure for a time, but the model branding throughout the 70s was a complete mess and sales were in decline. All that was left of the original Rootes lineage after PSA took over the flagging Chrysler Europe division were Talbot-badged Avengers. The Talbot name survived in name only after that point.


tl;dr: The group itself was doomed to fail in the mid-60s due to strikes and a dented reputation. But lived long enough to see a second failure under Chrysler ownership in the late-70s.