I personally venerate the Rover plant in Solihull, England for the charming, clannish, and pastoral location; rough terrain (of which Land Rovers have been tested on before the North plant had been constructed in 1956 and the East plant had been constructed in 1975; and where engineer Charles Spencer King is said to have been convinced by coil springs when driving a Rover P6 across rough scrubland on part of the Solihull factory site that was being redeveloped).

The original building at the Solihull complex that had originally been built by the British Government in 1938 as a “shadow factory” (and was named No. 2 Solihull) to be allocated to the Rover Company upon their assignment to build Bristol Hercules Aircraft Engines; itself is quaint and cozy inside and out, the dirt lot in between the original plant and the entrance to the North plant that had built the P6 and the Range Rover is quaint to be on, the design studio located inside the original plant where all Rover passenger cars produced since 1949 and every Land Rover model ever made is its own right; pleasant to visit and be inside of. I personally think that when in 1968, Princess Margaret was chauffeured in a Jaguar Vanden Plas to the Rover Solihull complex to experience a Rover turbine-powered passenger car; she was welcomed by the pleasant setting of the Solihull complex; and even the front façade of the original portion of the Solihull plant itself being warm and inviting. The turbine engine business of Rover at some point in time had been purchased by Rolls Royce and over time, it has evolved into the Rolls Royce aircraft engine business that we know of today.

In 1978, British Leyland (a Rover merged with other companies started first by Rover merging with Leyland Motors in 1967) spun off Land Rover into a separate entity but was and is still highly associated with the Rover Company and its core passenger car business.

Solihull in England is to Land Rover what Toledo, Ohio has always been to Jeep; especially when there were Willys passenger cars produced at the old Toledo plant before the war, some Willys passenger cars were produced alongside Jeeps after the war, and some Kaiser passenger cars had also been produced alongside Jeeps at the old Toledo plant during the time when Kaiser owned Jeep before AMC had purchased it in 1970. In other words, make a long story short; Solihull is the ancestral home of Land Rover as much as Toledo, Ohio is the ancestral home of Jeep.

How the Buick/Rover V8 ever came to be under the possession of the British, became the most celebrated and well-regarded engine the world over in a Land Rover; and became a very important engine in British motoring history and well-respected and well regarded engine for passenger cars inside of Britain; is that GM had become infuriated with the early manufacturing processes of manufacturing an aluminum block and the troubles caused by the technology of the time to manufacture an engine out of an aluminum block. The aluminum engine was also relatively expensive to produce and it suffered problems with oil and coolant sealing, as well as with radiator clogging from use of antifreeze available at the time that was incompatible with aluminum. As a result, General Motors ceased production of this all-aluminum engine after 1963. In January 1964, Rover gave American operations head J. Bruce McWilliams permission to investigate the possible purchase of an American V8 engine for Rover cars. It is usually said that McWilliams first saw the Buick V8 at the works of Mercury Marine, where he was discussing the sale of Rover gas turbines and diesel engines to the company (Mercury certainly did use the Land Rover 2.2 liter diesel engine in marinized form). However, it is likely that McWilliams was aware of the Buick engine before this. Anyhow, McWilliams realized that the lightweight Buick V8 would be ideal for smaller British cars (indeed, it weighed less than many of the 4-cylinder engines it would replace). McWilliams and William Martin-Hurst began an aggressive campaign to convince GM to sell the tooling, which they finally agreed to do in January, 1965. Retiring Buick engineer Joe Turlay moved to Britain to act as a consultant for further engineering and manufacturing of this engine.

This Buick engine had also spawned a V6 sibling that is the V8 with 2 cylinders removed to create a V6; was displaced at 3.7 liters, is the earliest ancestor of the GM 3.8 liter V6; and the tooling for this engine had been sold to Kaiser to power CJs in 1965 just like how it’s V8 brethren had been sold to the British to power Rover passenger cars and Land Rovers. Within Kaiser and Jeep, the engine had become known as the Dauntless 225 (225 being the cubic inch displacement for this V6 engine). When AMC had purchased Jeep in 1970, AMC began to use their own homegrown inline-6 engines (of which have evolved into the later Jeep 4.0 liter inline-6 that had been produced from 1997-2005); and no longer had a need for this Buick V6 engine or Kaiser’s own homegrown Torpedo inline-6 that had been used in the Jeep SJ Full-Size pickup trucks and SUVs. So away went the Torpedo inline-6, and coincidentally; as the fuel crisis of 1973 had loomed, General Motors came into realization that they need a powerful, responsive, yet thrifty engine as a fuel-efficient alternative to the ubitquous, monstrous, and sometimes medium-sized gas-guzzling V8s (such as the 350, 400, 454, and 455 V8s produced by each GM division). So General Motors had purchased back the tooling for this V6 engine from AMC, the engine had been displaced at 231 cubic inches/3.8 liters starting in 1974; and the engine had gone on to power several GM passenger cars until 2006.

Also when AMC had purchased Jeep in 1970, AMC had spun off Jeep into a separate entity called the Jeep Company that still had been highly associated with AMC’s passenger cars (including the eventual AMC Eagle that utilized a modified version of the CJ drivetrain); and the military and governmental vehicle division had been spun off by AM General, remained a wholly separate company after Chrysler had purchased AMC and Jeep in 1987; and had been eventually purchased by REMCO in 1992. Just like how British Leyland had spun off Land Rover into a separate entity but was and is still highly associated with the Rover Company and its core passenger car business; in 1978.