NO ONE really knows what happened at the momentous BMW boarding meeting that took place on February 5, 1999. With Rover's future at stake, the company that had become the envy of the European motor industry lost its two most influential managers and came dangerously close to losing its own independence... all in the space of 11 hours.

The day had begun normally enough with a meeting of the BMW supervisory board at the group's imposing Munich headquarters. Top of the agenda was what to do with Rover.

BMW had purchased Rover, MG, Land Rover and a grab bag of dormant marques (among them Austin Healey, Riley and Triumph) from British Aerospace five years earlier. The Germans had paid BAE £800m. In addition, it had agreed to take on the British car maker's average daily debt of £200m and off-balance sheet commitments of £700m. In total, the deal was worth £1.7bn and it helped save cash-strapped BAE, stricken by losses from its regional aircraft operations.

At the time industry pundits were quick the hail the deal - pulled off by BMW's new chief executive Berndt Pischetsrider - as a masterstroke for both companies. Rover would be revived by BMW's billions and the German company would achieve the critical mass it needed to ensure long term independence. At least, that was the theory.

Five years and several billion marks later, the dream had turned into a nightmare. A lack-lustre model range, poor marketing and the strength of the pound had turned Rover into a black hole which consumed money as fast as BMW could sign the cheques. Losses in 1999 were running at more than £1m a day. Something had to give.

And it did. In the most spectacular circumstances, the after effects of which are still being felt by the industry today.

Within minutes of the 12-strong board convening, Pischetsrider was invited to outline his plan for turning Rover around. The chairman pleaded for another six years and £1.4bn to bring the "English patient" (BMW's nickname for its troublesome UK arm) back to good health. That kind of spending would deliver the cars Rover needed - principally a replacement for the unloved 25 and 45 medium-sized hatchback and saloons - plus a cabrio, a coupe, a large estate car, the new Mini and a replacement for the Land Rover Freelander.

Pischetsrider expected a tough time. After all, under his original bold plan Rover was supposed to make a profit by 2000 - an objective which was totally out of the question. What he didn't expect was the outright rejection his Rover revival received. Having thrown a fortune at Rover for five years with no appreciable benefits, the board had grown tired of promised prosperity.

Distraught and disillusioned, Pischetsrider resigned immediately.

After lunch, shaken board members reconvened to consider who should replace the departing Pischetsrider. The man expected to get the job was called Wolfgang Reitzle. A hard-nosed engineer, Reitzle had no time for Rover which, he believed, was beyond help. Under his plan, BMW would have ditched the passenger car operation and kept only Land Rover, MG and Mini.

Longbridge, Rover's troublesome plant in the West Midlands, would have been either sold to developers or ear-marked for future BMW products.

Reitzle and his supporters had championed this plan for months. Their discontent developed into a whispering campaign that some of the workers' representatives on the board partly blamed for BMW's dilemma. In the crucial ballot, every one of the six workers' delegates voted against Reitzle. Shocked and humiliated, Reitzle pulled out.

What happened next has never been confirmed but the story goes something like this...

With both the obvious candidates gone, Eberhard von Kuenheim, soon-to-retire chairman of the board, asked Pischetsrider to stay on for a few months until a replacement could be found. Rover's champion turned him down.

Incredibly, the board is then alleged to have started ringing executives in rival companies, but no one was willing to pick up the pieces. As the farce unfolded, BMW eventually turned in desperation to Joachim Milberg, the firm's production chief who, after discussing the offer with his wife over the phone, accepted - to sighs of relief all round.

The amazing turn of events on that cold February day nearly two years ago perfectly illustrates what went wrong with BMW's bold Rover experiment. Almost from the start, there were two factions within the company squabbling over what to do with Rover cars. At the same time, BMW adopted a disastrous "hands off" policy, only taking direct control when it was too late. The final nail in the coffin had been the remorseless rise of sterling. By the end, Rover was losing more than £1,000 on every car it sold in Europe.

This tragic saga is the subject of a fascinating new book - End of the Road, by Andrew Lorenz and Chris Brady. Lorenz, a former industrial editor at The Newcastle Journal, had unrivalled access to BMW and Rover executives, having being commissioned to write a history of the British arm shortly after the Germans acquired it.

The book will make uncomfortable reading for executives from both BMW and Rover.

While I take issue with some of their assumptions that the Rover brand was all but dead and buried by the time BMW took over, I can't help but agree with their conclusion that, unless a wealthy partner can be found, then Rover is currently living on borrowed time.

No one emerges from the story with much credit, least of all the British Government. Trade Secretary Stephen Byers' handling of the crisis was, according to the book, almost comical. There's also an interesting bit part played by Alan Milburn, the MP for Darlington, who was Chief Secretary to the Treasury when BMW executives were banging on the Government door asking for cash to help with the rebuilding of Longbridge.

The Phoenix consortium which purchased Rover for the laughable figure of ten quid hasn't got time on its side. Despite the BMW dowry of £500m that came with the company, new models are desperately needed.

Unless the group can find a larger partner - and soon - it is debatable whether or not Britain's last UK owned volume car manufacturer will be able to survive for another five years standing alone.

l End Of The Road: BMW & Rover, A Brand Too Far, by Andrew Lorenz and Chris Brady (Prentice Hall)