Where has British Motor Heritage come from?
British Motor Heritage was established as a limited company in 1975 as part of the former British Leyland group to support owners of British classic cars by putting genuine components back into manufacture using original tools wherever possible. It was part of a small division, Leyland Historic Vehilces, created to provide a genuine parts service and technical information for all the models from both the former British Motor Holdings and from the Leyland Vehicles sides of BL. The BMH side included Austin Morris, MG, Riley and Wolseley, together with Daimler and Jaguar. The Leyland side included Alvis, Rover, Standard and Triumph, plus Leyland trucks and buses. Many of the vehicles forming various collections within the group companies were gathered up and restored and found there way into what became the Heritage Motor Museum, now the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon in Warwickshire.

Leyland Historic Vehicles started as a collection at Donnington before moving to Syon Park in London, ultimately finding a final resting place as the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon in Warwickshire. Subsequently Leyland Historic Vehicles became the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust or BMIHT in 1983. British Motor Heritage became the subsidiary of BMIHT responsible for producing parts on a commercial basis, particularly body pressings, panels and sub-assemblies using the original moulds and tooling.

Later BL became the Austin Rover Group, which was later renamed the Rover Group, which was then acquired by British Aerospace in 1988. In the early 1990s, British Aerospace went through financial woes of their own, and the removal of all non-core businesses, the biggest of which was Rover, became a priority. So during 1993, and by then headed by new a chairman John Cahill, British Aerospace began to decide upon a strategy that involved the disposal of Rover Group. Finally in January 1994 the Rover Group was acquired by the German motor manufacturing group, BMW.

As the new owner of Rover Group, BMW struggled to deal with the ailing UK motor group and during 1998 Rover posted a £647 million loss. The UK Government could not be persuaded to provide support for new projects and what support they could attract was not enough. Even though outwardly BMW were still very committed to their plan to introduce a new joint model the R30, the feeling at the very top of the company was an exit plan would shortly be required.

Alchemy offer
In August of 1999 BMW's wishes would seem to be granted as the source of the exit was a most unlikely one. John Moulton and Eric Walters of the Venture

capital company known as Alchemy were scouting around for ideas and both men settled on the notion that given Rover Group ’s continuing troubles and BMW’s share price wobbles, perhaps the British car company could be prised from BMW’s hands at a favourable rate. So discussions continued and BMW were the first to go public on the 16th March 2000 when the World’s media were literally stunned at the announcement the company were intending to sell Rover to the Alchemy Partnership. Moulton then faced the press the following morning, and issued a statement over Alchemy’s intended role in Rover’s future: BMW would be pulling out of Longbridge, selling Land Rover (probably to Ford) and Alchemy Partners would retain the rights to Rover’s existing range of cars. From Rover, BMW would retain the Oxford factory and the new MINI - current production of the Rover 75 would be moved to Longbridge, thereby ensuring that Alchemy’s entire operation would be centred in Longbridge. In a brief statement to the press, Alchemy laid out their plans for Longbridge: “The new company will focus on developing a state of the art British built product range worthy of the sporting heritage of the MG name. The product will use the latest developments in composites and aluminium body technology and will appeal to the motoring enthusiast well versed in the history of the marque going back to the former Morris Garages which started modifying standard Morris Cowleys in 1922.” In short, Alchemy would ensure that MG would be brought to the fore, renaming the Rover Group, the MG Car Company - and sports cars would be the order of the day.

The implications of the realistic plan proposed by Alchemy were soon recognised both locally, by the unions and by the UK Labour government - a major slimming down of the operation. Some local businessmen began thinking of a counterbid and government set up an enquiry. During the first few months of 2000 an intense period of discussion and political face saving followed during which time the counterbid from the Phoenix Consortium headed by John Towers was negotiated with BMW and the UK Government. That deal was finally closed in May 2000.

BMW retained a number of assets including the MINI project and production facilities, brands and some subsidiaries like British Motor Heritage. In 2001 British Motor Heritage was acquired from BMW and since that time it has been run successfully as an indpendent and privately owned company.

MG Rover was run by John Towers and his associates but that was characterised by a very difficult business case, a lack of realism with some product investments and a great deal of critical comment of the four directors drawing salaries not commensurate with MG Rover's faltering performance. The company finally failed in April 2005 and administrators were appointed.
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