British Leyland - Timelines - Divestments

Divestments

• 1969 The last Riley Elf, 1300, and 4/72 models were built, thus ending the Riley marque
• 1975 Innocenti passed to Alejandro de Tomaso
• 1975 The final Wolseley, a Saloon, is built, thus ending the Wolseley marque
• 1978 Land Rover separated from Rover to form a separate company, still part of BL
• 1979 Collaboration with Honda begins, sacking of Derek Robinson ("Red Robbo")
• 1978 Closure of Triumph assembly plant in Speke - production moved to Canley
• 1980 Closure of MG and Triumph assembly plants in Abingdon and Canley
• 1981 Closure of Rover-Triumph plant in Solihull
• 1981 Alvis sold to United Scientific Holdings and Alvis plc formed
• 1982 Michael Edwardes steps down as Chairman, BL Cars Ltd renamed Austin Rover Group (ARG)
• 1982 Leyland Tractors sold to Marshall Tractors, tractor production at Bathgate assembly plant ends
• 1983 Closure of Bristol bus plant, production transferred to Leyland National plant at Workington
• 1984 Morris Ital goes out of production, signalling the end of the Morris badge
• 1984 Jaguar floated off (including Daimler and the US rights to Vanden Plas); bought by Ford in 1989
• 1984 Final Triumph Acclaim rolls off the production line, ending the Triumph name
• 1985 Closure of Bathgate truck assembly plant
• 1986 BL plc renamed Rover Group, Austin badges disappear the following year
• 1986 Leyland Bus floated off; bought by Volvo in 1988
• 1987 Leyland Trucks division (including Freight Rover vans) merged with DAF to form DAF NV/Leyland DAF. Vans became independent as LDV in 1993, as did Trucks as Leyland Trucks. Leyland Trucks was taken over by US giant PACCAR in 1998 and integrated with Foden.
• 1987 Unipart, BL's spare parts division acquired by management buy-out
• 1988 Rover Group privatised; sold to British Aerospace
• 1994 Rover Group sold to BMW; collaboration with Honda ends
• 1994 Maestro and Montego go out of production.
• 1998 Metro/100-series goes out of production - the last of the former Austin models.
• 2000 BMW decides to break up and sell the Rover empire; Land Rover sold to Ford
• 2000 BMW MINI, Triumph, and Riley trademarks retained by BMW, but BMW's other interests sold off
• 2000 Remainder of company became independent as the MG Rover Group
• 2007 MG Rover goes into administration with huge debts, and its assets are taken over by Nanjing Automobile.
• 2007 SAIC takes over NAC and relaunches production at Longbridge
• 2006 Ford acquires the rights to the Rover brand name from BMW, though without any immediate plans for using it on production cars.
• 2008 Ford completes the sale of Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata Motors, of India