That's a good question ! The r.i.p Rover history was quite messy. In fact, it is two old brothers, more english than an english umbrella. They had a farm in Anglesey and the end of the 2WW finally arrived. These two brothers were not without interest since the owners of the already well known Rover brand. Of course, to ramble around the domain and hunt the woodcock, a bottle of whisky as main weapon, they nedded a small vehicle off roader.

They bought the only available of this time, the Jeep, ex-army. But each time they drive around in it, they feel such a deep pain in the ass due to their patriotic feeling bad to be seen in such american device... So they decide to modify their own "jeep" in order to hide the US origins: steering wheel in the centre, for example. Which is a good device to drive once dead-drunk.

One evening, after a long day hunting the wild, short of whisky, they decided to go back to their family farm. The legend says that the Frankensteined Jeep, seeing them coming, self started and drove in their direction trying to roll on them. Both brothers, terrified, started to run away, shouting like two rutting grouses, followed by the damned haunted Jeep. They will be found the following day, hidden in the cellar of a whisky distillery, tired and thirsty by the crazy run for life. The Jeep, luckily, stopped just before hitting the distillery's walls and parked itself in front of the door. Back to the farm, both brothers explain their story to their wifes and, to give more ground to the story, decide to build their own car, 100% english.

And success comes. Because Rover brings the first english offroarder at the good time, a time of recoveing economy and car expansion in 1948. The body, made of aluminium panels, due to the lack of steel after the war, are still in place and give the advantage of a non rusting body. On the bad side, the "spi" joint, so british but so stupid, has been installed in all after war british production (MG, Jaguar, Rover, Minor, Vanguard, RR, Aston). If one day you doubt on the citizenship of a car, just have a glance underneath: oil pool and drops ? Then you have a british car in front of you.

This story explains why the Rover and Land Rover are linked together. Of course, Land Rover now survived the mother company since Rover diseppear in the late 90s.