[3] Leyland Bus was incurring the heaviest losses within the commercial vehicle division of the Rover Group at the time, making a £30 million (equivalent to £114,809,000 in 2023) loss in 1985, partially as a result of the incoming deregulation of the bus industry causing a collapse of orders in favour of minibuses built on van-derived chassis.

[4] Despite competing bids by Metro Cammell Weymann and the Volvo Bus Corporation, a management buyout led by Leyland Bus managing director Ian McKinnon and supported by divisional directors John Kinnear, Jim McKnight, George Newburn and Eric Turner would ultimately be approved in August 1986 by the Rover Group and the government.

Also included in the final deal were the Farrington and Workington factories, four service centres in Bristol, Chorley, Glasgow and Nottingham, as well as a business exporting used buses to Hong Kong.

The Eastern Coach Works factory at Lowestoft, not included in the management buyout sale, also closed following the completion of a bodywork order for London Regional Transport.

A new company named VL Bus and Coach was launched on 1 January 1989 as the group's marketer for new Volvo and Leyland vehicles in the United Kingdom.

[17] 180 jobs at the Workington factory, making up 25% of the workforce, would later be cut in May 1990 as a result of a fall in bus sales in the United Kingdom.

[19][20] However, as a result of a large volume of sympathetic orders from multiple bus operators, the factory would not close until early 1993, two years later than originally.