The standout feature of the Rover V8 engine was its remarkable longevity, remaining competitive, light, powerful and reliable for an astonishingly long time, with rebuilds available from specialists when it finally gave up.

There is a reason why Land Rover kept with the engine even after being bought by BMW and later Ford, with only the bankruptcy of MG Rover in 2005 finally bringing the dynastic reign of the Rover V8 to an end.

However, despite its reputation for versatility, it did have limits, and they were seen when Rover attempted to convert the V8 engine into a diesel-fueled power unit in what became an expensive disaster.

In the late 1970s, with the entire car industry reeling from an oil crisis, many engine manufacturers realised that survival in the future would include not only efficient petrol engines but diesel ones as well.

Without a lot of money to develop an engine available to British Leyland, the fateful decision was made to base their diesel engines on existing petrol engines across the entirety of the British car industry monolith.

This included the Rover V8 diesel, codenamed Project Iceberg.

The goal of the project was to develop a naturally aspirated and turbocharged diesel engine using the core block casing of the petrol engine so both could be built on the same assembly line.

It faced similar fundamental problems to the infamous Oldsmobile diesel engines, which also were based on a V8 block and were such phenomenal disasters that they decimated the entire diesel car market in the United States for decades.

Project Iceberg had the potential to fix many of these issues, but as British Leyland was reorganised with an eye towards selling the nationalised company in pieces, the Rover and Land Rover divisions were separated.

Land Rover received the Rover V8 engine, but the expected capacity for developing a diesel engine was no longer available, so it was abandoned in 1983.