RE: MG ZT V8 | The Brave Pill

[TEKNOPUG]

As a Rover it makes sense with the auto box but should be £4k. The MG has a manual which makes it more interesting but its 100bhp too light. They make a good noise though.

[d_a_n1979]

stickleback123 said:

I drove one of these when they came out, a Mk1 ZT and they certainly didn't improve them with the cack handed facelift. Crap garden shed engineering, it was an absurd project and was never going to make a decent car because of the development budget and starting point. If you wanted a V8 saloon for £8k with a superb engine and chassis that would make this look like the lash up it is you could have

Jaguar X350 4.2 or XJR (400bhp)
Jaguar XF SV8 (400bhp)
Mercedes E500 or an S500 if you want something really big (388bhp)
Volvo S80 V8 if you want left field (320bhp odd) but actually good
BMW 550i with 380bhp (ok engine not great for leaks etc but at least it has some balls)
Lexus GS

Actually, name me a V8 saloon for any price that's a bigger dog log than this? I actually cannot think of a worse way to spend £8k on a V8 unless you're a hardcore Longship stroker. The original 75 was a very good car at launch but within a couple of years they'd decontented it and "value engineered" it into a st car.

Edited by stickleback123 on Saturday 26th September 13:39

Sounds like you’ve personal issues with MG

Agree with your car list though, albeit the 550i could cause drastic bills without breaking a sweat... That'd be more of a brave pill car for me than the MG ZT

[Pit Pony]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I would like a Monaro.
I can not justify one, for many reasons..
Probably £7.5k for a poor example? I think 9 or 10k would be safer.
But has less doors and less seats.

[daytonavrs]

I think if someone was really after one of these ( they must have their driving forces ) they aren't going to be swayed by someone with their own personal reasons why they wouldn't buy it ?
even though there may suggest any number of perceivably better alternatives to drive ?

What a strange place this site can be....its called, gasp, personal choice

[Barchettaman]

d_a_n1979 said:

Because the V6 190s are made of plastic and like to run hot. They also love to kill the VIS motors for the fun of it...

It wouldn’t have worked IMO without a lot of working to make that engine better.

Thanks. Interesting stuff.

[lee_erm]

The engines in these are about as reliable as it gets! Old Ford Crown Victorias use the same engine, those can reach galactic mileage with nothing more than routine servicing. I don't think you need to be particularly brave to buy one of these.

[giveitfish]

Lovely car, and as said no brave poll required - just join the twosixties club for spares and moral support and be prepared for the odd niggle.

I ran one daily for 2 years and almost 30k miles a while back. At the time it was £6k for a 50k mile car so nice to see prices going up. They are very rare.

It’s no rocket ship and not polished like contemporary Jags etc, but they have such a warm character and are just a really nice rewarding car to make progress in. It’s a car you can really get attached to!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u6mMxrVaKPE

[donkmeister]

skyrover said:

Barchettaman said:

Why didn’t MG/Rover just turbocharge the 2.5 V6?

Nothing against this V8 but it did seem a little odd to re-engineer the whole drivetrain for a very small market.

If they had dropped in an LS series engine I expect it would have been an easier fit and made much more sense as far as aftermarket support/tuning potential.

Also it would have been in keeping with the original Rover V8 being a licenced GM V8.

At the time of the ZT260s development, Ford owned Land Rover... Any chance that the Phoenix people were aiming for a reintegration of Rover and Land Rover under Ford ownership?

Alternatively could it be that the Qvale Mangusta was engineered for the Ford Modular V8 already hence a lot of the engineering knowledge for this engine was already there in-house? I'd imagine a manufacturer-engineered engine swap has a lot more engineering work in it than a "crane it in, tack the engine mounts in place and see if anything catches" swap.

Perhaps even ProDrive know the FMV8 better than the GM LS?

[The Don of Croy]

There was a readers ride thread on here many moons ago, and iirc one of the Prodrive team contributed with some insights...one of which was the convoluted provenance of the engine immobiliser and alarm/locking systems.
Apparently you have a Ford system, talking to a Rover/MG interface, operating within a BMW infrastructure...or something like that. Fine while it works etc.
Personally I’d give one a go at shed money, but 8k is proper money, no?

[Vocht]

I always felt that the 75 and these were knockoff Jags so why anybody would pay £8k for this above an nice S-Type R or XJR is beyond me.

Cool cars but needs the be half that price to seem attractive.

[d_a_n1979]

Vocht said:

I always felt that the 75 and these were knockoff Jags so why anybody would pay £8k for this above an nice S-Type R or XJR is beyond me.

Cool cars but needs the be half that price to seem attractive.

Because some folk want an MG ZT over a Jag and vice versa... I’d own any of them mentioned (bar the S Type), but not everyone works like that

And have you ever sat in an S Type R? They’re tiny inside, so much so I actually couldn’t fit (albeit I’m not normally sized)...!

[jzh888]

Funnily enough I just brought a 260 today. I have had two ZT260s in the past and also an STR. They were all around the 7k mark, all have little faults such as water leaks, STR much faster, 260 sounds better. For some reason that I don't know how to explain, I just brought another 260.

[itcaptainslow]

I owned one of these for a year which I sold to a good friend, who still has, loves and cherishes it.

Objectively it’s not brilliant-on paper it’s slow compared to its contemporaries, thirsty, some bits underneath look like an aftermarket conversion and it feels bulky at times.

However, drive one and I challenge you not to be charmed. It sounds epic (especially with the XPower exhausts fitted), actually handles neatly and predictably, cruises comfortably and ooozes character in a way the sanitised aforementioned contemporaries don’t. The Mk1 really is a handsome old brute, too. A cross country 150 mile night time drive on fast A roads felt pretty special in it-a 7/10ths pace is the ZT V8’s element.

Parts supply is a little sporadic but the owners club is excellent and there are extremely knowledgable specialists about who are great at fixing them (Nick at Austin Garages springs to mind here).

[Oilchange]

Do you still have the Jag and the Lotus?

[anonymous-user]

d_a_n1979 said:

Sounds like you’ve personal issues with MG

Not personal issues, but the management team were self serving and grasping, and so far out of their depth it's probably unrivalled in the recent history of big business. They let the company go round in circles on cretinous projects like this as a distraction, while ruthlessly stripping cost out of the cars so they could pillage the company for personal gain for as long as possible.

If the government had the balls to go with the Alchemy proposal that cut off all the dead rotting flesh of what laughably passed as the "volume" business they might have found a sustainable future, but the second the government went with a PR stunt pie in the sky plan put forward by four cunning thieves the die was cast.

This is an objectively poor car with absolutely nothing to offer over any of the competitors except for novelty value and historical curiosity, I couldn't quite believe how home made the Mk1 ZT felt when I drove it back when they were new and available at a massive discount. That the company developed and brought this embarrasment to market at all, at the price they were asking, showed how little interest they had in the business of making and selling cars profitably as opposed to the business of lining their own pockets - £36m between them over four years for doing nothing more than disbursing the money BMW gifted them for long enough that BMW had to take no resposibility when it finally died.

Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 26th September 18:44

[Oilchange]

Blimey! That really does sound like you’ve personal issues with MG

[anonymous-user]

Oilchange said:

Blimey! That really does sound like you’ve personal issues with MG

Frustrated would be the right word. There was a thin slither of a chance of retaining some part of the business, but instead we got ste like this

[Oilchange]

Fair enough, sorry business with those Phoenix blokes, frankly.

[ScoopyDoo]

A local retired neighbour has the 75 version in light olive green. It’s in near-perfect condition, pampered and gets the occasional local run after yet another wash and polish. It’s currently for sale, but only to appease his wife, so it’s high price has attracted no interest. His other car is a Viper ... and that’s also immaculate and just gets the occasional run.

[GX337]

Had one of these when it was 2 years old.
It felt solid and well engineered and sounded like no other German saloon of the time .
Granted not very fast but fun and felt like a proper muscle car with loads of character.