Freight Rover was a British commercial vehicle manufacturer based in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

History

The company was created as a division of the Land Rover Group

Land Rover Group

Land Rover Group was a division of British Leyland and later the Rover Group that was in existence between 1981 and 1987. LRG brought British Leyland's light commercial vehicle production under one management, consisting of the Land Rover utility 4x4 range, the Range Rover luxury 4x4 and the...

 of British Leyland (BL) in 1981, creating a new single brand for BL's panel van business.

Under later company organisation changes Freight Rover became part of the Leyland Trucks division of BL.

In 1987 the Leyland Trucks division of, what was by then, the Rover Group

Rover Group

The Rover Group plc was the name given in 1986 to the British state-owned vehicle manufacturer previously known as British Leyland or BL. Owned by British Aerospace from 1988 to 1994, when it was sold to BMW, the Group was broken up in 2000 with the Rover and MG marques being acquired by the MG...

 (following the renaming of BL in 1986), merged with the Dutch truck company DAF Trucks

DAF Trucks

DAF Trucks NV is a Dutch truck manufacturing company and a division of PACCAR. Its headquarters and main plant are in Eindhoven. Cabs and axle assemblies are produced at its Westerlo plant in Belgium...

, to form the new independent DAF NV

DAF NV

DAF NV was a commercial vehicle manufacturing company based in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. In 1993 DAF NV became insolvent.-History:...

 company which soon after was floated on the Dutch stock market. The British arm of the new company traded as Leyland DAF

Leyland DAF

Leyland DAF was a commercial vehicle manufacturing company based in the United Kingdom, and a division of DAF NV. In 1993 DAF NV became insolvent and Leyland DAF went into receivership.-History:...

, with two main sites in the UK: the truck plant in Leyland

Leyland, Lancashire

Leyland is a town in the South Ribble borough of Lancashire, England, approximately six miles south of the city of Preston.Throughout the 20th and 21st century, the community has seen a large growth in industry, population and farming, due to the establishment of Leyland Motors, housing...

 and the vans plant in Birmingham.

Note: following the collapse of DAF NV in 1993 the Birmingham van business was the subject of a management buyout

Management buyout

A management buyout is a form of acquisition where a company's existing managers acquire a large part or all of the company.- Overview :Management buyouts are similar in all major legal aspects to any other acquisition of a company...

 and a new independent van company, LDV Limited

LDV Limited

LDV Group Limited was a British van manufacturer, based in the Ward End area of Birmingham.In its history part of Rover Group and Leyland DAF, was latterly a wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian GAZ group...

, was created.

Vehicles

• Sherpa/200 Series
• 300 Series