Sharing technology with Honda and financial investment during the BMW ownership led to a revival of the brand during the 1990s in its core midsize car segment.

Powered by the licence-built ex-Buick V8 engine, it had innovative features such as a permanent four-wheel drive system, all-coil spring suspension, and disc brakes on all wheels.

Able to reach speeds of up to 100 mph (160 km/h) yet also capable of extreme off-road use, the original Range Rover design remained in production for the next 26 years.

[8] By the revised launch date towards the end of 1972 the considerable development costs had been expended and pre-production prototypes had even undergone extensive testing in Finland.

[8] It later emerged that Rover's contender would not have been particularly cheap or easy to build, and the shrinkage of the European market for sedans of this size that followed the 1973 oil price shock suggest that abandonment of the project in 1972 – even at the eleventh hour – may have been the right decision for British Leyland; but the P8 was not entirely ummourned nearly thirty years later.

[8] As British Leyland struggled through financial turmoil and an industrial-relations crisis during the 1970s, it was effectively nationalised after a multibillion-pound government cash injection in 1975.

In 1979, British Leyland (or as it was now officially known, BL Ltd.) began a long relationship with the Honda Motor Company of Japan.

It proved to be a success for the brand, gaining positive critics, although it failed to outsell the BMW 3 Series.

The four businessmen who took control of the newly formed MG Rover Group are reported to have received around £430-million in a dowry from BMW that included unsold stock.

In October 2003, MG Rover launched the CityRover, a badge-engineered Tata Indica that served as an entry-level model.

Several concept cars intended to point the way towards a replacement for the Rover 25 and 45 were shown in the early 2000s, but no production model emerged.

MG Rover production ceased on 15 April 2005, when it was declared insolvent, resulting in the immediate loss of more than 6,000 jobs at the company.

They indicated that their preliminary plans involved relocating the Powertrain engine plant to China while splitting car production into Rover lines in China and resumed MG lines in the West Midlands (though not necessarily at Longbridge), where a UK R&D and technical facility would also be developed.

On 30 May 2007, Nanjing Automobile Group claimed to have restarted production of MG TF sports cars in the Longbridge plant, with sales expected to begin in the autumn.

[10] However, BMW refused their request, due to an agreement that Ford had reached with them to be given first option on the brand when it acquired Land Rover.