A general timeline of the now famous Land Rover.

Let's start at the very begining. There was a car company, in Coventry England, called the Rover Company, founded in 1904. Working for the Rover Company were the Wilks brothers. They designed the Land Rover and in 1948 the Rover company launcehd it as a marquee model.

In 1967 the company was taken over by Leyland Motors Ltd which later became British Leyland.

In 1970 the famous Land Rover is introduced.

In 1975/75 British Leyland implodes and is taken over by the British Government, at around this time the one millionth Land Rover leaves the production line only six years after its introduction.

During the mid eighties the company gets spun into its own entity and becomes known as the Rover Group.

In 1988 the company gets privatized once more and becomes property of British Aerospace. At this time the company name is shortened to Rover. Still with us? The Discovery then launches the following year.

In 1994 BMW takes its hand at the reigns of this much handled company. It's amazing that the vehicles have maintained their distinctive style and high level of quality through the many ownership changes. To continue our timeline..

In 2000 BMW decides to seperate different segments on the Rover Group, selling Land Rover to mighty Ford.

Jumping ahead to today. The Ford Motor company sells Land Rover (as well as Jaguar) to Tata Motors of India. This was finalised June 2, 2008 so we should be OK for a year or two.