Rover's public affairs director Denis Chick said: 'We have a big backlog of MGF VVC orders and we can't start building the 200 vi until we get through that. What can we do? We can only produce 200 engines a week and there are not enough for both cars. The 200 vi is being kept in the wings and we don't know for how long. We could invest in more engine-building facilities but when MGF demand settles down we'll have too much capacity.'

The engine is also going into the 200 Coupe and the Tourer which will also have to wait. A further complication is that the equipment for producing VVC cylinder heads also produces cylinder heads for the new Rover 800 V6.