There have been several V8 Land Rover engines made by various companies over the years, including by Ford and Jaguar Land Rover, but the most famous of these is the long-running, legendary powerplant that was the Rover V8 engine.

Originally made in the late 1950s in the United States, it was bought by Rover in 1967 and found its calling in the original Range Rover in 1969, where this formidable pairing would remain together at the top of the SUV market until 1994.

After this uninterrupted run, there was a strong belief that this engine would last forever, continually evolving to meet the needs of a future it could not fathom being a part of.

However, in 2004, the Rover V8 stopped being mass-produced, and whilst specialist suppliers will sell parts and extensively refurbished units, it is far more difficult to buy a new Rover V8 than it used to be. Why is this the case?

Part of the reason emerged in 1986, when the Rover Group was formed in preparation for its sale to British Aerospace. At the same time, the SD1, the final car with the Rover name to use the Rover V8 engine, was discontinued in favour of the Honda V6-powered Rover 800.

The Rover V8 engine was still used in the Range Rover, the Land Rover Defender and early generations of the Range Rover-derived Discovery. This seemed to give the engine a bright future, particularly when the rights to produce it ended up in the hands of BMW in 1994 and later MG Rover in 2000.

Strangely, despite still producing it, MG Rover did not use the Rover V8 itself, instead opting for the 4.6L Ford Modular V8 in the top-of-the-range Rover 75 and MG ZT 260.

Eventually, as the Range Rover moved to a BMW and later Ford V8, and many of the small sports car companies either shuttered or changed powerplants, there was no longer a place for the mass production of the most important engine in British automotive history.