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Trucks and vans separate— Simpson
Page 6
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• Leyland Truck's new managing director George Simpson has confirmed that the Rover Group has no plans to draw its two commercial vehicles companies — Freight Rover and Leyland Trucks — closer together, despite the fact that he is now running both con manies.
Simpson believes that Freight Rover's separate identity has been the key to its success in recent years, and that in the short term at least, a positive decision has been made to keep the two companies apart.
His initial reaction on taking over the Leyland hot seat from Les Wharton Mow running Austin Rover) is that Leyland has a very good product range, backup, management team and distributor network. Simpson is very optimistic about the future for the deal with Dal to sell Roadrunner and Sherpa in Europe, and says that he will be "extremely disappointed" if Leyland does not pick up a large slice of the Bedford business.
Simpson is, however, fairly reserved about the future for the truck market in general. He sees it as being flat at best, with every possiblity of a downturn: "Negative growth is not a good possibility for any business to be in."