The Rover Company was a British motor vehicle manufacturing company originating in Coventry, which moved to Solihull after World War Two. Following absorption by Leyland Motors in 1967, and subsequent mergers, the Rover Company retained its identity as a subsidiary of British Leyland through the 1970s and into the 1980s. The Rover marque survived the break-up of British Leyland, and sell-off into private ownership, being used as the primary brand of the Rover Group as it passed, first through the hands of British Aerospace, and then into the ownership of BMW. In 2000 BMW sold much of the mass-market car activities of the Rover Group to the Phoenix Consortium who established it as the MG Rover Group. However, BMW retained ownership of the Rover brand, allowing MG Rover to use it under licence. In April 2005 Rover branded cars ceased to be produced when MG Rover became insolvent. In July 2005 the Nanjing Automobile Group acquired the physical assets and tooling of MG Rover, although SAIC already owned certain intellectual property, with plans to resume production of MG Rover car designs in China and at Longbridge, in 2007. On September 18, 2006 BMW sold the Rover brand name to the Ford Motor Company for approximately £6 million. Ford wanted it in order to protect their Land Rover brand. Ford had acquired an option of first refusal to buy the Rover brand as a result of its purchase of Land Rover from BMW in 2000. In March 2008, Ford reached agreement with Tata Motors of India to include the Rover brand as part of the sale of their Jaguar Land Rover operations to them.

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