The story begins in 1952 with the creation of BMC (british motor corporation).
Now this company had problems since the begining, and despite (hal-hearted) atempts to rationize/modernize it all eventually failed.
BMC merged Jaguar to become BMH and later in 1968 merged with Leyland to became British Leyland Motor Corporation, the 3th largest automaker in the world.
This monstruosity incorporated the majority of previously independednt british auto makers and beyond that.
The bankrupt company is nationalized in 1975.
And the ship is sinking fast now, some of their car are sinonimous with lack of reliability, and combatant unions make things worse.
The company is renamed British Leyland, then Austin-Rover group and later the Rover group since the Austin, Morris and Leyland brands have negative conotations.
The group is choped to pieces and privatised by the Thatcher goverment.
BAE getting the Rover group witch is sold to BMW.
But thing are not as expected, the Rovers (some) are by now rebaged Hondas, and the curent range is far from metting expectation.
BMW poors a lot of money in Rover, saving Mini and LR/RR, and helping to create the fine Rover 75.
But this was a comany starved for decades, witch probably need it more.
Even, BMW partner Chrysler was bought by Daimler-Benz.
By now BMW was a divided company.
Wolfgang Reitzle and Bernd Pischetsrieder were on 2 diferent baricades.
But in 1999 the situation is a mess.
The loses were afected also by the strenght of the pound.
By now BMW no longer has money.
There is talk of a merger or buy out of BMW by Ford, GM and even Fiat.
Not since 1959 was BMW in such a mess.
While the BMW division/brand is still profitable problems can be found here too.
The E39 5 series and FL E38 7 series are taking a serious punch from MB E and S klasse.
BMW has lost its position to MB in USA and to Audi in Europe.
By now the pilon of BMWs posible future is the E46 3 series, and there is also hope of a succesfull X5.
But for now sock terapy is need it.
So after 4 billion euro loses in 2000 the de-merger takes place.
To obtain the need it cash BMW sells LR/RR to Ford and recovers some of its loses.
This was done to avoid borowing money from a bank and/or selling at least partially BMW (= to keep BMWs independence).
1. LR/RR wasn't actually profitable, it becamed so only recently under Ford.
2.
The X5 is based on the existing four-wheel drive 5-series 'X', the only technical transfer is the lifting of Hill Descent Control. (Which, incidentally, Toyota now offers a copy of on the Land Cruiser). There WAS substantial BMW engineering in the new Range Rover, but that's a radically different argument. And before anyone says anything, the X3 is based on the 3-series 'X'. While the Freelander is based loosely on various bits of Maestro.
Land Rover engineers might well have been shocked at the lack of off-road kudos of BMW's X-products. But they certainly weren't as shocked as BMW engineers were by the utterly terrible build quality of Land Rover products.
