There's a Ford in Land Rover's future. And that's a rosy scenario, since without Ford Land Rover might have had no future at all. Land Rover is currently part of the ailing Rover Group that has been a dead weight around BMW's neck since it bought the wilting company for $1.2 billion in 1994. Now BMW has unloaded virtually all of Rover, except the rights to the legendary Mini, to a British venture capital firm called Alchemy Partners, and at the same time it has peddled Land Rover to Ford Motor Co.

The acquisition of Rover was a star-crossed one for Munich-based BMW. It is estimated that BMW dumped as much as $5 billion into the British company trying to keep it afloat, but its efforts were greeted by ever-lower sales. Last year, Rover sold just 251,000 vehicles, including the well-regarded Land Rovers and Minis.

Ford already has announced that it will relocate Land Rover's North American headquarters from Lanham, Md., to Irvine, Calif. There the brand will become part of an array known as the Premier Automotive Group, a recently established organization that also includes Lincoln, Mercury, Jaguar, Volvo and Aston Martin.

Meanwhile, Alchemy Partners says it will rename what is left of Rover the MG Car Co. That entity will build the Rover 25, Rover 45 and the MG F sports car in a dreary Birmingham, England, plant. Of these vehicles, only the MG F might find its way to America, where it will attempt to capitalize on the legendary MG reputation established here 50 years ago.