RE: Rover SD1 | Spotted

[littlebasher]

Feel free to correct me, but wasn't the 2600 massively detuned, as post development it was pushing out numbers close to that of the V8 ?

[Rich Boy Spanner]

I love the look of these. If I had a time machine I'd have the Vitesse and a 2.8 Capri.

[anonymous-user]

Cool. In the 80s, used to smoking more powerful cars in our family Mk 2 VW GTi, I found one of these (in the hands of a neighbour) to be a worthy adversary in several back-roads challenges. V evenly matched. Slower in corners, but with the grunt to make it up again on the straights. Respect. And I always thought they looked like a Ferrari Daytona too ...

[carinaman]

littlebasher said:

Feel free to correct me, but wasn't the 2600 massively detuned, as post development it was pushing out numbers close to that of the V8?

You're correct about the 2600 being detuned. I've raised that in Breadvan72's SD1 thread.

[BGarside]

littlebasher said:

Feel free to correct me, but wasn't the 2600 massively detuned, as post development it was pushing out numbers close to that of the V8 ?

LJK Setright wrote an article on that engine when it was new pointing out various aspects for improvement. Mainly longer duration cam, port matched manifolds and electronic ignition I recall

[rastapasta]

itcaptainslow said:

“....Eees a getaway driver, aincha Tyrone?”

'did a rally course'

[rastapasta]

These cars were very popular in Switzerland to the point now where alot of them get restored and wheeled out to the Britcar meets they have during the summer. There was one near me last sunday which had a few of these. They are nice cars, well designed but obviously let down by build quality. I recall reading that the guy who was importing them, Emil Frey, was actually dis/reassembling them upon import to 'go all swiss' on them and sort the build quality issues. Maybe this explains why so many survive.

Heres a restored Vitesse for sale near Winterthur:

https://www.autoscout24.ch/de/d/rover-26003500-lim...

[Lowtimer]

Bencolem said:

Remember my father telling me years ago about getting an SD1 as a new company car and the allowance wouldn’t extend to the 5 speed gearbox that he really wanted. After about 3 weeks with his new car he absent mindedly slipped it into 5th gear and found a 5th gear despite it being built as a 4 speed and having a 4 speed pattern on the gearbox. Typical BL quality!

Similarly, early 80s, I had a mate who bought a new Ford XR3, the carb model which was originally a four speed. He was a bit fed up when a month or two later they came out with the five speed. Until he accidentally found that his four speed model, with a four speed gear knob, had a fifth gear after all.

[a11y_m]

My neighbour's SD1 was seriously cool to a 10yr old me - probably due to the noise of it.

Even today I've got a soft spot for them. Great to see this one being a regular in the Classics championship at Knockhill, it sounds properly lovely too:

2017-08-20 SMRC reverse (34) by Ally Mitchell, on Flickr

[Limpet]

Lovely things. A school mate's dad had a gold V8-S (with gold alloys), which I used to love hearing woofle its way up the road. Sounded and looked the absolute dogs danglies back in the day.

Looked (and sounded) just like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSWoxEz7uxQ

[J4CKO]

CDP said:

There’s a chap in the Ely area running a tatty 2600 as a daily. I see it occasionally but in all weathers. This time in Waitrose carpark.

It looks low and sporty against the city cars

I thought that was a photoshop at first, it looks dainty next to and up and a Meriva (?) which are tiny modern cars, the SD1 was a huge beast of a car

Remember driving a six cylinder one at the car dealers I worked at and it was gutless, and being in a V8 evading the Police.....prob told it before but I still find it utterly bemusing.

I got a job with a local plumber as an apprentice as my parents thought I wasnt going to pass any O levels having not ever done any work or seemingly done any revision (I got six in the end) so they had this plumber in and negotiated me a job. Did one job in the morning unblocking an old ladies bog, then went straight to a sketchy boozer in Ardwick (The Kings Head, long gone) met some dodgy friends of his and they proceeded to get pissed over maybe two hours, two women and a bloke with the Rover.

Anyway, they swap cars for some unknown reason (we were in a boggo Sierra 1.6 estate), and we go for a drive, he is sliding about as it was wet, he was a bit drunk and was in a V8 Rover, plod spotted and followed, we lost them (because V8 vs Pug 309 or something) but ditched the car GTA stylee and got a taxi home, there ended my plumbing career. The Rover was reported as stolen and as far as I am aware its owner picked it up and that was that.

[Greg the Fish]

Previous neighbour had a beautiful 3500 Vitesse (and a Bristol in the garage too!) Was a great looking car.

Also, mine and my brother's first Scalextrix set was the SD1 Touring car set

[gdaybruce]

I had a 1977 V8 manual which I bought for not very much in the 80s. It was a good, reliable car and while things like the sun roof went AWOL, the core oily bits proved to be tough. I recall that it's party piece was the flexibility of that wonderful engine. You could put it into 5th at not much more than walking pace and floor it from just 500 rpm. Without any vibration or harshness, it would simply gather speed, accelerating harder as it moved up the rev range. It felt like a steam engine!

As a child I recalled that there was a hill near Scarborough (Staxton, for those who know it) and it was always a challenge to see if Dad could get the family car to the top without needing to double-declutch into the non-synchro 1st gear. In other words, a properly steep hill. I once found myself going up Staxton in the Rover and by way of experiment, I selected 5th at the bottom and arrived at the top without needing to change down. Not the quickest way up but pretty remarkable!

That engine flexibility also made it a great tow car. At a time when the only 4x4s were Defenders, we used the Rover to pull a horse trailer and managed to get to parking spaces in fields where others struggled, largely because you could just trickle across the mud at tickover revs.

Later I bought a Vitesse and while it was obviously quicker (and the sun roof worked), for some reason I never warmed to it as much as I had to the original version.

[gazza285]

Lowtimer said:

Similarly, early 80s, I had a mate who bought a new Ford XR3, the carb model which was originally a four speed. He was a bit fed up when a month or two later they came out with the five speed. Until he accidentally found that his four speed model, with a four speed gear knob, had a fifth gear after all.

He must have known something was wrong before then, as reverse was next to first in the four speed box, and next to fourth in the five speed...

[Zumbruk]

What a pity that BL were totally unable to make the paint stick on these for any length of time.

[Digga]

I'm not saying I had a deprived childhood, but whilst Digga snr had a V6 Granada, three of my mate's dads had V8 SD1s, some of them had several, a mix of both Vitesse and Vanden Plas.

One of the latter being a car that as an 8 or 9 year old, mid winter, me and a mate having begged his dad for the keys to go back and warm up in the car at a freezing cold MotoX meet, we jammed the windows down and sunroof open. Yes, reliability...

[Escort Si-130]

This was a fat mans car, always saw a lot of fat people driving them. This car was a love/hate car for me, some ways I hated it, looked a bit tacky and I always felt a car of this size should be a saloon, now Audi, Merc, BMW are making there saloons of sport coupe on this kind of look.
Had love the police car version SD1, especially after it was also on the Bill.

[Escort Si-130]

Damn, that shows you how much cars these days have grown. It looks so small now.

CDP said:

There’s a chap in the Ely area running a tatty 2600 as a daily. I see it occasionally but in all weathers. This time in Waitrose carpark.

It looks low and sporty against the city cars

[Escort Si-130]

Lowtimer said:

Similarly, early 80s, I had a mate who bought a new Ford XR3, the carb model which was originally a four speed. He was a bit fed up when a month or two later they came out with the five speed. Until he accidentally found that his four speed model, with a four speed gear knob, had a fifth gear after all.

Very interesting, maybe they had too much 5 speed gearboxes in stock and flogged them as 4 speeds, or major incompetence. Any cases of people with 4 speeds that could not get into 5th gear,lol

[monzaxjr]

Digga said:

I'm not saying I had a deprived childhood, but whilst Digga snr had a V6 Granada, three of my mate's dads had V8 SD1s, some of them had several, a mix of both Vitesse and Vanden Plas.

One of the latter being a car that as an 8 or 9 year old, mid winter, me and a mate having begged his dad for the keys to go back and warm up in the car at a freezing cold MotoX meet, we jammed the windows down and sunroof open. Yes, reliability...

Nowt wrong with that. The Granada was a far better car. Still love them both though as my Dad had a succession of Granadas and V8 SD1's when I was a nipper.