Asking an enthusiast knowledgeable about Land Rover engines about the car they associate the famous Rover V8 engine with the most will generate a range of responses, but the most common of these will likely be the Range Rover.

Even though the original engine block was created a decade before the Range Rover launched, the aluminium engine block’s remarkable power-to-weight ratio and the all-rounder design of the prototypical “Road Rover” created a match made in heaven.

For 25 years the pair were inseparable, and even when the Range Rover Classic was discontinued in favour of successors that continued to use the Rover V8, the original was still a remarkably competitive off-roader after decades of competition.

However, only one car can claim to have used the Rover V8 for longer, lasting from almost the very start of the engine’s production under Leyland Motors up until the moment the MG Rover Group went bankrupt in 2005.

The Morgan Plus 8 is one of the longest sports car production runs ever, lasting from 1968 up until 2004.

It was the second car to ever use the Rover V8 following the Rover P5B saloon car, and not only helped save the Morgan car company but created the eternal connection between the Rover V8 and the British sports car industry.

TVR and Marcos were heavily reliant on the Rover V8 in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, but the Morgan Plus 8 was one of the fastest accelerating production cars in the UK, particularly between 20 mph and 80 mph.

Morgan maintained a traditional approach, relying on traditional construction techniques and even continuing to use wood as a coachbuilding material long after every other British car company had shifted to more modern materials.

Rather infamously, a televised attempt to modernise Morgan ultimately had the opposite effect, and the Plus 8 was made the same way with the same engines up until the mass manufacturing of those engines stopped.