Whilst small volumes of the Rover V8 engine made famous by the Range Rover Classic are still made, repaired and rebuilt, the company that does so is not an incarnation of Rover itself.

The reason for this is tragically simple; Rover no longer exists. MG was bought from what was the MG Rover Group by Chinese manufacturer SIAC and is now a very successful electric car brand, but Rover itself is an unused trademark owned by BMW, and Rover V8 engines are made by low-volume specialists.

This begs the question of what caused MG Rover to go bankrupt in the first place, and whilst the answer is rather complex, one major cause was an ambitious and very capable project that managed to bankrupt three companies by being the wrong car at the wrong time with the wrong engine.

Rather than a high-volume hatchback or mid-sized saloon, the MG XPower SV was a very fast sports coupe that sold for between £65,000 and £83,000. That is a lot of money for what is essentially a parts-bin special.

The car began its life as the De Tomaso Bigua, an Italian sports car inspired by the Rover V8-powered TVR Griffith, before both the name and the badge were changed to form the Qvale Mangusta.

By 2000, however, Qvale were struggling owing to essentially zero brand recognition and the rights were sold to MG in 2002 before the company went out of business. MG subsequently used it as the platform for a halo car made on the cheap. 

The body is from the Isle of Wight and completed in Turin, many of the parts come from the Fiat parts bin, the external door handles are from the MG TF roadster, whilst the interior ones are from the Rover 75. All told, six companies were involved to make each single car.

This bizarre supply chain was representative of the bizarre decision not to update the Rover 25 or 45 and instead focus on a high-end, low-volume sports car. Nine cars were sold before MG Rover went bankrupt and stopped producing both it and the Rover V8 engine.

Astonishingly, three years later, William Riley bought the assets from the administrators and sold the car again, only to also go bust following a trademark dispute with the Nanjing Group over the MG name. Mr Riley would later be arrested on suspicion of stealing his own car.