What Is the History of British Motor Works?
There is no British Motor Works company of historical significance, but there was a prominent English car manufacturer named the British Motor Corporation that was founded in 1952 and designed and produced several well-known vehicle brands, including MG, Austin, Austin-Healey, Wolseley and Riley. The British Motor Corporation merged with Jaguar in 1966 and was absorbed into the British Leyland Motor Corporation in 1968, which the German automobile manufacturer Bavarian Motor Works acquired in the 1990s.
At the time of BMW’s acquisition of the major British brands, the English car-making group had been renamed the Rover Group, and its major market brands included the Land Rover, MG, Rover, Triumph and Mini. BMW also purchased the British car-maker Rolls-Royce in 1998, effectively ending the last British ownership of any car manufacturing.
BMW sold the Rover Group in 2000 and retained only the Mini line of cars from the original British Motor Corporation and British Leyland. The Mini brand of vehicles produced by BMW are small, high-performance luxury cars that trace their design basics back to the original British Motor Corporation’s Mark I Mini, Mark II Mini, Wolseley Hornet, Riley Elf and the high-performance Mini Cooper vehicles. The British Motor Company produced several other Mini-style cars, including the Morris Mini Traveler and Austin Mini Countryman station wagons, the Mini Van, a small jeep-style vehicle called the Mini Moke, and the Mini Pickup.
