RE: Rover 827 Vitesse: PH Ad Break
Discussion
I had a British Racing Green 827 Vitesse from new for seven years - 150,000 miles and never missed a beat. It was well and truly thrashed, even around Thruxton race track. It revved like a sewing machine and never needed a drop of oil between services. Everything always worked - it was the best car I had a real sporting family hack. I changed it for a Jag XJS and then had real bills to contend with.........................
My old man got a company 800 F plate Sterling which replaced his old shape 3.0 CD senator.
Sadly I never got to drive the Senator, but I got on his insurance while leaning to drive for the Rover. And then kept on it when I had passed
It was a fair big jump from the 1.2 invalid blue Nova that I was learning to drive in.
I thought it was fantastic, I loved the sport mode on the box and the electric seats. He had for 60k and it was good as gold mechanically, but suffered from rot on the scuttle panel and a few other places if IIRC. Went in to the dealer twice to try and fix.
It also had the worse set of Alloys to clean ever, which corodded.
I was gutted when it went, to be replaced by a 620T, which while fast, needed a top end rebuild by the dealer after 15k.
Always lusted after the Vitesse model. Not keen on the big grill versions, its the early shape models that I really like.
Sadly I never got to drive the Senator, but I got on his insurance while leaning to drive for the Rover. And then kept on it when I had passed
It was a fair big jump from the 1.2 invalid blue Nova that I was learning to drive in.
I thought it was fantastic, I loved the sport mode on the box and the electric seats. He had for 60k and it was good as gold mechanically, but suffered from rot on the scuttle panel and a few other places if IIRC. Went in to the dealer twice to try and fix.
It also had the worse set of Alloys to clean ever, which corodded.
I was gutted when it went, to be replaced by a 620T, which while fast, needed a top end rebuild by the dealer after 15k.
Always lusted after the Vitesse model. Not keen on the big grill versions, its the early shape models that I really like.
clonmult said:
Z28DUNC said:
My brother had a black 827 vitesse. For a big old car it shifted and handled quite well. 825 was never as good as the Honda engined cars.
Er, the 825 was originally Honda engined ....From 1999 to 2002, I had the one pictured below; a 10 year old rust filled automatic 89F 2.7 example bought for the princely sum of £0 from my mother. We'd just had our first child and the Nissan 200SX was no longer big enough. As well as the rust, it had plenty of electrical maladies. It handled pretty badly but had advantages:
1) Pretty quick, lovely engine
2) Park it anywhere without worrying
3) Spacious
4) Comfortable
5) Use it to push the wheelie bin back up the drive if arriving home after the collection had taken place!
Whilst my current steed (2007 325i Touring) is a bit quicker, much better handling, totally reliable and better equipped, I miss the worry free aspect of bangernomics. I wouldn't mind some of that space and ride comfort either
Look at the driver's door to get an idea of how well I can match paint after treating rust, lol:
1) Pretty quick, lovely engine
2) Park it anywhere without worrying
3) Spacious
4) Comfortable
5) Use it to push the wheelie bin back up the drive if arriving home after the collection had taken place!
Whilst my current steed (2007 325i Touring) is a bit quicker, much better handling, totally reliable and better equipped, I miss the worry free aspect of bangernomics. I wouldn't mind some of that space and ride comfort either
Look at the driver's door to get an idea of how well I can match paint after treating rust, lol:
Quality find - I love that ad - Britischer Arkitecht - Brilliant!
I have fond memories of the one I owned.
As an ardent SD1 enthusiast I really didn't want to like the 800 but at the age of 22 I succumbed to an F reg 827 Vitesse manual in battleship grey. It was one owner, 80,000 miles, mint and cost £2,000 in 1998. I bought it simply to do a trans-Euro thrash with some friends (space and speed with low price and low insurance were the only criteria) that summer.
It turned out to be a remarkably good car. Bullet proof, fantastically revvy engine, sonourous exhaust note, slick gearbox, nice handling and good brakes. Only real weakness was lifeless steering. Still, you could really 'make progress' and they were remarkably fast down any A or B road. I enjoyed it so much I ended up keeping it for two years and 30,000 hard driven miles.
All my memories with this car revolve around journies completed at three-figure averages. There was the late night trip up the autobahn near Munich at 120mph, enjoying myself with all my friends fast asleep, when I was overtaken by a 911 going so fast I felt like I was doing 20mph. Then there was the time my old man was taken ill and I thrashed up the M40 from central London to the Midlands doing the 125 miles back home in a time I dare not reveal publicly... Then there was the astonishing moment of seeing the speedo actually go off the dial down a long motorway hill... This silliness could not last and I was caught by plod on the M42 one night at 128mph.
I bought a Chimaera 400 to celebrate coming off the ensuing driving ban ;-)
I have fond memories of the one I owned.
As an ardent SD1 enthusiast I really didn't want to like the 800 but at the age of 22 I succumbed to an F reg 827 Vitesse manual in battleship grey. It was one owner, 80,000 miles, mint and cost £2,000 in 1998. I bought it simply to do a trans-Euro thrash with some friends (space and speed with low price and low insurance were the only criteria) that summer.
It turned out to be a remarkably good car. Bullet proof, fantastically revvy engine, sonourous exhaust note, slick gearbox, nice handling and good brakes. Only real weakness was lifeless steering. Still, you could really 'make progress' and they were remarkably fast down any A or B road. I enjoyed it so much I ended up keeping it for two years and 30,000 hard driven miles.
All my memories with this car revolve around journies completed at three-figure averages. There was the late night trip up the autobahn near Munich at 120mph, enjoying myself with all my friends fast asleep, when I was overtaken by a 911 going so fast I felt like I was doing 20mph. Then there was the time my old man was taken ill and I thrashed up the M40 from central London to the Midlands doing the 125 miles back home in a time I dare not reveal publicly... Then there was the astonishing moment of seeing the speedo actually go off the dial down a long motorway hill... This silliness could not last and I was caught by plod on the M42 one night at 128mph.
I bought a Chimaera 400 to celebrate coming off the ensuing driving ban ;-)
JREwing said:
LewisR said:
Ah, of course. Thanks. Was always taught and heard "sie heissen" etc.
That's a subtly different meaning. It's effectively passive versus active. "Der Wagen heisst...." would be 'the car is called....' but 'sie nennen es Fastback' is 'they call it 'Fastback'.Black S2K said:
Sort of interchangeable, but people tend to @be titled' & things tend to 'be named'.
Sogenannt means so-called, which I find amusing. Probably because it's so very tabloid in English.
I missed out, if you want to look at it that way, on a black, |F/G plate 827 Vitesse. It was only about £800 and was on Car & Classic for weeks. Wish I'd bought it now but at the time was thinking that it was just a FWD, V6 SD1 pretender!Sogenannt means so-called, which I find amusing. Probably because it's so very tabloid in English.
I had a british racing green 827 Vitesse G444 XHP. It was a great car, I have fond memories of driving empty autoroutes from the south of france with 4 adults in the car and a boot full of wine. The trip computer showed an average speed over 5 hours of 105 mph 
It was streets ahead of other cars I had up til them (most interesting being a BMW 318i), it was comfortable, fast, reliable, very smooth engibe, had a massive boot, good stereo etc. The only issues I had were a wheel bearing fail at 60k miles and a power steering rack leak at similar mileage, both fixed for a reasonable cost. My car was rust free although the paint on the alloys had bubbled slightly.
TBH if I saw a decent one today I would consider buying it, its the same era as my Alpine GTA, (I think I have a velour fetish )
It was streets ahead of other cars I had up til them (most interesting being a BMW 318i), it was comfortable, fast, reliable, very smooth engibe, had a massive boot, good stereo etc. The only issues I had were a wheel bearing fail at 60k miles and a power steering rack leak at similar mileage, both fixed for a reasonable cost. My car was rust free although the paint on the alloys had bubbled slightly.
TBH if I saw a decent one today I would consider buying it, its the same era as my Alpine GTA, (I think I have a velour fetish
)I 'traded down' to one of the last 820 Vitesses (hatchback) in 2006 when i bought a new place and needed a load lugger that i could shift sacks of rubble to the tip but also act as a fastish everyday car.
The car was nightfire red and I bought it off a chap in Essex who had bought it from new but had been offered a derisory sum for it as px against his new RS6. £750 later I had a car with adjustable koni suspension, rebushed suspension throughout and I don't know what was done to the engine but it went like hell.
My plans of keeping it temporarily went out of the window, the flat came and went (sold) and the Rover remained. I absolutely loved that car. Considering the size of the car it really was v rapid (expecially as a m'way cruiser) comfortable and I loved the look of it. I also didn't give a damn what people thought of it - and liked it even more as a result. It was a true Q car.
Unfortunately it met (an untimely) end on the M40 when blasting home (as i used to rather illegally) when a piston holed and it blew the thickest blue smoke all over the carriageway. I could have cried. Anyway a rebuild was going to cost far more than it was worth so with a heavy heart I sold it to two chaps who drove down from Liverpool on the day i advertised it to collect it for £250. These cars have quite a following.
More recently i have bought an SD1 Vitesse to satisfy a childhood desire, but i am probably alone in saying this, it isn't as much fun as my 820! I will have another....
The car was nightfire red and I bought it off a chap in Essex who had bought it from new but had been offered a derisory sum for it as px against his new RS6. £750 later I had a car with adjustable koni suspension, rebushed suspension throughout and I don't know what was done to the engine but it went like hell.
My plans of keeping it temporarily went out of the window, the flat came and went (sold) and the Rover remained. I absolutely loved that car. Considering the size of the car it really was v rapid (expecially as a m'way cruiser) comfortable and I loved the look of it. I also didn't give a damn what people thought of it - and liked it even more as a result. It was a true Q car.
Unfortunately it met (an untimely) end on the M40 when blasting home (as i used to rather illegally) when a piston holed and it blew the thickest blue smoke all over the carriageway. I could have cried. Anyway a rebuild was going to cost far more than it was worth so with a heavy heart I sold it to two chaps who drove down from Liverpool on the day i advertised it to collect it for £250. These cars have quite a following.
More recently i have bought an SD1 Vitesse to satisfy a childhood desire, but i am probably alone in saying this, it isn't as much fun as my 820! I will have another....
The 820 Vitesse Sport I drove was an N-plate saloon in the dark metallic blue (can't remember the name of it). It was the Tech Support Manager's company car at my then-employer. He'd been all over Europe in it, and racked up 130,000 miles in just under four years. Apart from an early gearbox failure, and on one occasion grenading its catalytic converter on the motorway, the car had been completely reliable. It still went like the clappers, far more so than you would expect from a 2.0 four pot in a big barge of a car.
It surprised me in many ways. I guess the performance was kind of expected, but the lovely smooth, remarkably lag free delivery wasn't. It also cornered very flat, got its power down very cleanly, and turned in with much more enthusiasm than its size would suggest. I got in it expecting it to be fast and crap, and it was faster and actually pretty good. Gorgeous set of half leather Recaros to sit in as well.
This example was driven hard, but well treated. Serviced on the button by a local family owned Rover dealership, and always kept immaculate.
It strikes me the 800 is like all Rover products. Launched before it was really ready, evolved into a thoroughly decent, competitive car, and then kept in the range long after its sell-by date.
It surprised me in many ways. I guess the performance was kind of expected, but the lovely smooth, remarkably lag free delivery wasn't. It also cornered very flat, got its power down very cleanly, and turned in with much more enthusiasm than its size would suggest. I got in it expecting it to be fast and crap, and it was faster and actually pretty good. Gorgeous set of half leather Recaros to sit in as well.
This example was driven hard, but well treated. Serviced on the button by a local family owned Rover dealership, and always kept immaculate.
It strikes me the 800 is like all Rover products. Launched before it was really ready, evolved into a thoroughly decent, competitive car, and then kept in the range long after its sell-by date.
Mr2Mike said:
Many years ago a friend bought a very cheap 820 Vitesse Sport... I presume it wasn't the original box as I think they all had the Torsen LSD as standard?
A Vitesse Sport should have had the Torsen LSD, so it probably had been changed. A lot of people with them weren't aware that there was much of a difference between that and the regular Vitesse, which led to me seeing a number of "Sport" models that turned out to be regular Vitesses. In fact there was an extra 20bhp (200 rather than 180), different wheels, that LSD and Recaro seats.My old (ex-Rover) mechanic didn't believe me when I told him mine was a Sport, and despite the Recaro seats, 17" wheels, suprisingly good traction and the fact that it said f
kING SPORT ON THE fkING LOG BOOK, he (or one of his cronies - he was away when the work was carried out to be fair) still lied to me and swapped the box out for a non-LSD one, thinking I wouldn't notice. It was fairly obvious. This wasn't the first time I'd had shoddy work done at his place, but this time there was no benefit of the doubt given. He's lost a lot of business since. I recall driving a 3 year old 820i belonging to a Director over a long weekend - terrible build quality - i recall my girlfriend manually working the wipers in the rain as they had packed up, with a piece of string threaded through the door aperture to the wiper blades pulling them left & right to clear the screen - very funny.
Very comfy seats though & powerful for a n/a 2.0 for the size of car.
Later bought a 620 Ti which was a much better prospect & very quick (heart over head decision)
Very comfy seats though & powerful for a n/a 2.0 for the size of car.
Later bought a 620 Ti which was a much better prospect & very quick (heart over head decision)
newdogg06 said:
clonmult said:
Z28DUNC said:
My brother had a black 827 vitesse. For a big old car it shifted and handled quite well. 825 was never as good as the Honda engined cars.
Er, the 825 was originally Honda engined ....The very first 800 V6's had a 2.5 Honda V6, later upgraded to a 2.7, then the '96 facelift gave it the less than reliable Rover developed KV6 2.5. So you're both right!
tali1 said:
clonmult said:
Z28DUNC said:
My brother had a black 827 vitesse. For a big old car it shifted and handled quite well. 825 was never as good as the Honda engined cars.
Er, the 825 was originally Honda engined ....
As in my previous post i think he his referring to later 825 Rover Kv6
Er, the 825 was originally Honda engined ....
As in my previous post i think he his referring to later 825 Rover Kv6
TinyCappo said:
It's a corporate video, they're all tragic.
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