Rover
The Rover Company Limited was a British automaker with a base in the Warwickshire town of Solihull. Its first postwar model was assessed by Road & Track in 1952 and was declared to be nicer than any other car aside from a Rolls-Royce because of its enduring reputation for quality and performance. From 1948 on, Rover also produced the Land Rover series, which gave rise to the Range Rover in 1970 and went on to become its most popular and lucrative vehicle. Land Rover later split off as a distinct business and brand.
In 1967, Leyland Motors bought Rover after acquiring Standard-Triumph seven years earlier. At first, Rover remained somewhat autonomous inside the Leyland corporation, but by 1978, British Leyland (BL), then known as Leyland, had encountered serious financial problems and had been taken over by the British government. The majority of the previous Rover Company's assets were transferred to a new BL subsidiary called Land Rover Ltd, but the Rover brand name was still used on other BL vehicles that heavily depended on Honda engineering. Nevertheless,
Rover eventually overtook BL as the most successful brand and, in 1986, changed the name of the whole conglomerate to the Rover Group. MG, Mini, and Land Rover continued to be a part of the Rover Group until BMW disbanded it in 2000.
Current Rover Company de facto successor Jaguar Land Rover (owned by Tata Motors), which continues to operate out of Rover's Solihull facility, currently owns the dormant Rover nameplate.
