the l30 project was a joint one involving engineers from both rover group and bmw and was initially based at bmw's fiz engineering centre in munich before transferring to land rover's solihull plant for the final stages prior to volume production. munich was chosen to house the team as rover group's gaydon engineering facility was already working on the new mini (r50) project as well as other mg, rover and land rover projects and did not have enough space for another large engineering team to be based there.