I think Scott Bonnar was doomed by the time Rover bought the firm, Ty. They made the 45 for too long: it was too expensive to buy and to maintain. I doubt there was a solution to the reel mower problem that would have worked, but the complexity and high wear rate of the SB45 certainly wasn't it. They seem to have been trying to make a greens mower for private buyers, and that was a piece of insanity. If they could have made their belt drive mower reliable, perhaps that could have kept them alive. Success in the private-buyer-reel-mower niche would have required something that was like a Victa rotary to maintain and like an SB45 to use. It would have had to be bulletproof, and not need maintenance beyond a new V belt now and then, and a reel regrind perhaps every 3 years or more. During that three years, the odd incident of running over a dog bone or abandoned bicycle pedal would have had to cause belt slip rather than significant reel damage. Chain drive just wasn't the answer.
I haven't paid enough attention to Rover to interpret what went wrong there. Rover's rotaries seem to have been functional but less exciting than the Victas - they avoided the 2 stroke pitfall but didn't do anything to make their 4 strokes successful (aside from making them work properly but look boring). I have a 1976 Victa-Briggs and a 1983 Rover-Briggs, and I've never bothered to use the Rover because it seems a boring prospect compared with the rather flasher-looking Victa. Nothing wrong with the Rover, it's quieter than the Victa and has 4 blades and a bigger catcher, but it completely lacks charisma. It's like a modern mower instead of a classic mower (or a Commodore instead of a vintage car).
