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The top designers, engineers and company bosses will usually get the headlines and plaudits for the successful launch of a new car. But behind them is a team of hundreds, maybe thousands, working towards that success.

New models must be planned and costed then delivered on time and on budget. That involves planning and project management, and Renee Knott, whose role at Aston Martin sees her head up both of those areas, is one of those backstage heroes.

She left a staff role at JLR for a contract job at Aston in 2003 as a programme timing analyst, such was the pull of the marque and the extent to which “she loved the cars”. She became a member of staff in 2006 and has been there since.

In her early days at JLR, Knott soon realised she wanted to “spend her whole life” working in project management. “I just love it,” she says. “Even outside work, my life is a plan.”

Knott was first deployed on the VH platform that would underpin a whole generation of Astons, starting with the DB9.

Project management is about creating relationships and networks and ultimately “building trust”, says Knott. She speaks warmly of the family feel at Aston, of how everyone buys into a project where going the extra mile is not just a cliché but a reality: “Aston is ultimately a small, independent luxury brand.”

There are partnerships with the likes of Mercedes-AMG, but Knott says these are “very, very different” from how things were under Ford ownership in the Premier Automotive Group. “You would always have that safety blanket,” she adds. In automotive terms, Aston doesn’t now have “a big brother” to share technology and information.

Knott speaks highly of Aston’s executive chairman Lawrence Stroll, who heads the company and helps to create an environment in which it can thrive on its own. She says he was immediately “very visible and very engaged” around Aston when he arrived five years ago. “There has been quite the transition since he joined,” she adds. “He’s really passionate about Aston Martin and wants to make it a success.”

Knott describes seeing validation prototypes run off the production line as “quite emotional”. She adds: “You see something you’ve been looking at in [digital renderings] suddenly come to life.”

The culmination of the six-year DB12 project was a particular highlight for Knott as a project that grew in time and complexity in order to futureproof it with the likes of active safety and a new electrical architecture.

“I managed to go to Monaco as well for the launch event and joined the journalists driving the car, sitting with them having lunch,” she says. “When they then tell you how amazing the car is, that’s a real highlight.”

A few years back, the classic car interior trimmers occupying the shed opposite the one where a mate and I store our old cars, had an MG ZT in for repairs.

It was a simple job for them – replacing the worn bolsters of the driver’s seat, the cheap leather MG Rover used by the time this 2002 car was made apparently sourced from rather thin-skinned cattle. The trimmers were doing the job for a local secondhand car dealer, and when I showed an interest in the car suggested a quick test drive. It was a ZT 160 rather than the more potent 190, but it looked good in metallic black, had only done 70,000 miles and would likely have cost no more than £1200 from the dealer.

The worn leather was dubiously complemented with a rather bilious patterned cloth, the ZT's interior a starker place than the sumptuous cabin of its Rover 75 stablemate. But none of this disguised the fundamental quality of this car, its exceptionally robust bodyshell, high quality cabin mouldings and well developed suspension serving a sophistication that 70,000 miles had done little to diminish.

The V6 issued a smooth, light growl, the wheels rode bumps with well-damped authority and the steering had the right kind of heft to encourage entertainingly hurried attacks of bends. Exiting them wouldn’t have been quite so brisk with only 158bhp, but the MG’s mix of enthusiasm-firing agility and composed deportment were of a higher standard than I’d remembered.

This was another car I didn’t need however, and it wasn’t even of the ideal specification (you can have a ZT with upholstery less offensive, and most of the V6s are the more potent 190s) but this was a car it was easy to like.

A good thing, then, that when I got back, the trimmers had discovered that it was already sold. Oops. Still, it rekindled an interest in these machines, whose launch was held at windswept Welsh racetrack back in 2001. MG Rover’s management was more bullishly optimistic back then, partly because it was launching not one but three cars simultaneously. Admittedly the trio were conversions of existing models rather than the fabled new medium-sized car that this dying company so desperately needed, but by the end of that day there were plenty of cautiously impressed journalists who thought this hollowed out company might be in with a fighting chance.

That was because the ZR, ZS and ZT were surprisingly good, their verve, handling and manners entirely good enough to earn them a sporting badge, the ageing ZS especially so. Based on the Rover 45 – aka the Honda Domani – it sported double wishbones all round, these tuneable to great effect. The 25-based ZR was cruder, but turned out to be a big hit because it could be had with quite low-powered engines, enabling young guns to actually insure it. For a while, this was Britain’s best-selling hot hatch. 

But by far the most sophisticated of the trio was the 75-based ZT. The 75 had been developed during BMW’s ownership of Rover, this properly funded project producing a car of far higher calibre than anything Rover had made since the 1963 2000.

The ZT was an early victim of MG Rover’s now notorious Project Drive campaign, directed at cost-reducing its cars in an unwinnable bid to curtail losses. The 75 ultimately suffered more, including fake dashboard wood rather than real tree, badge deletions and multiple subtle cheapenings. Most obvious in the ZT was its low-rent upholstery. The good news, though, was that money wasn’t spared on the suspension, now tautened and tweaked to provide livelier dives into bends, aided by a reworked 2.5 litre V6 putting out 187bhp to the 75’s 175bhp.

The result was a very capable sports saloon, its tuneful V6, reliable grip, decent turn-in and excellent body control producing the fine sporting drive that BMW disallowed Rover from exploring with the 75. That was for fear of invading Munich territory, which sounds sadly laughable now. 

The ZT could have used more power – it came with the wonderfully crazy rear-drive V8, a classic almost from the moment MG Rover went under – its slightly over-stiff shockers later softened. The lower-powered ZTs convinced less but it sold well, diesel and ZT-T estate included, the sales boost provided by this instant MG range staving off its maker’s downfall.

Given that the youngest ZT is now 20 years old, it’s no surprise to find non-runners for £1000 or less, or drivers for under £2000. Most have done over 100,000 miles and are in banger territory, doubtless needing a pricey cam-belt change and those pesky seat bolsters repaired. The very best low-milers attract price tags getting towards £10,000, but there’s no need to pay that to enjoy one. And collectible the ZT will surely be.

This column first appeared as an email to subscribers.