No safety feature. It will run until siezed.

 

I have a 2002 Saturn SL2 that my wife drives to the train station. She was telling me that the oil needs to be changed because the light is on. I was thinking the reminder light. I needed to go up to the FD (I am a volunteer), so I took her car. I didn't look at the dash at all, just started it up and went. Well the motor dies on me on the way there. I put in in neutral and just heard a click. I thought starter. Nope turns out it spun a connecting rod bearing. The low oil pressure light was coming on. I got lucky on the repair. Replaced the main and rod bearings, no damage to the journals. Total cost was around $100 and 1.5 days of working on my back in the driveway.

You should try to turn the motor over with a wrench on the crank to see if it is seized. If so, drop the oil pan and start looking to see how bad the damage is.

 

IIRC, I once had a Vega panel wagon (pint sized POS), and it had an interlock, if oil PSI did not go above minimum it would inhibit running. Found out when I installed aftermarket gauges. So some vehicles have the feature, even very cheap ones. Just not Rover.

 

Vega panel wagon I guessing it was a POS because it didn't have a small block in it.

 

It had a small aluminum 4 cylinder block, with factory AC, and would go into thermal runaway at 65 mph, fresh from the dealership. Had to drive in the slow lane of Atlanta's I-285, just crawling at 65.

 

yah they were only good for small block transplant, even the improved Iron Duke motor sucked.