RE: Rover 220 Coupe Turbo | Spotted
Discussion
V8fan said:
I often see the white KGF pickup at classic auctions. As soon as I saw the seller, I knew it'd be an astronomical price.
They try to get the very low mileage cars, and then punt them on. Fair enough, its a business model, and they have to provide a warranty, but they take the p**s with their prices. Often 200% or more than they buy them for.
The blue Sierra that have up for £3995 almost seems reasonable when it was bought for £2226 at ACA in January.
They do seem to sell them though.
Possibly the business model is sell it for such a high price that the new owner thinks it's a rare jewel and won't drive it meaning you don't have to worry too much about the warranty They try to get the very low mileage cars, and then punt them on. Fair enough, its a business model, and they have to provide a warranty, but they take the p**s with their prices. Often 200% or more than they buy them for.
The blue Sierra that have up for £3995 almost seems reasonable when it was bought for £2226 at ACA in January.
They do seem to sell them though.
Edited by V8fan on Tuesday 25th February 08:50
At £4k this would be a good looking riot of fun ... at £16k less so ... but everyone has their different price points\buttons to push!
thegreenhell said:
I'd quite like one of these, but as a £2k runabout. You'd have to be mental to pay that asking price for it.
What I really want, though, is a Rover 827 Vitesse, like the one Tony Pond used for the IoM TT lap.
'British Architect'! Bloody loved those cars - and that ad was just way too cool back then! What I really want, though, is a Rover 827 Vitesse, like the one Tony Pond used for the IoM TT lap.
https://youtu.be/pJ-DEi1LP50
Hungrymc said:
cerb4.5lee said:
AdamV12AMR said:
Car Magazine said:
"Under its chic, feline skin, this Tomcat's a dog. A howler ... Under power the whole car writhes and squirms as if an exorcist were trying to rid its body of a plague of demons ... Powering hard through corners is not recommended. Unless you enjoy that much understeer ... Matters are worsened by the stiff suspension set-up ... The 220 Turbo is totally without finesse, unless you care to drive using only a fraction of its potential ... It doesn't just finish fourth in this comparison, it finishes rock-bottom last. It's the company's calamity coupe."
Ahhh, back when motor journalists could write what they felt, and what they felt their readers needed to know, rather than pander to the OEMs because of the fear their next long-termer will go to a YouTuber.
I did still want one so much back then though.
I own a blue FDH same as the one in the pictures (251, but now on a private plate). Dynamically it is certainly of its time, but it is still quick. The gearing seems unnecessarily tall reaching 70 in second and 100 in third which can make it a bit sluggish to react to the throttle, but once boosting the speed climbs convincingly.
It has a charm, simplicity and honesty that is missing nowadays and I find it achingly pretty.
For how it makes me feel and the era it takes me back to I won't be parting with it anytime soon.
Had the rear arches sorted out last year and a full respray so hopefully got many years left in it yet.
It has a charm, simplicity and honesty that is missing nowadays and I find it achingly pretty.
For how it makes me feel and the era it takes me back to I won't be parting with it anytime soon.
Had the rear arches sorted out last year and a full respray so hopefully got many years left in it yet.
back in the day down the local cruising/racing scene on a saturday night I recall one of the regulars was a guy in a gunmetal grey coupe turbo and he would whip most of the stuff that turned up and it looked pretty planted too. It was seriously fast bare in mind they dont weigh much but it was definiately tuned probably at least 250 hp maybe more. sounded good too. Even the subaru and cossie boys were being shown dust......i loved that car. looked totally standard too.
loved all those 2 litre turbo rovers of the day. think the most unusual version was in the 3 door 220 GTi form.
always thought the torque figure was strange for a 200hp car.
loved all those 2 litre turbo rovers of the day. think the most unusual version was in the 3 door 220 GTi form.
always thought the torque figure was strange for a 200hp car.
My older cousin had an early one of these in Nightfire Red. He got a fairly lengthy ban for getting caught doing 3-figure speeds on the M5 in it and then when he got it back, the steering broke. He sold it after that and decided to be a bit more sedate and drive Discoveries instead. I didn't actually realise they did the Turbo version on the facelift car, always thought the performance option switched to the 1.8 VVC thereafter, which would probably be a nicer match to the chassis. I liked them at the time but would probably prefer that engine in a 620ti or 800 Vitesse now. When I could finally afford something with that level of performance, I went with the Corrado VR6 instead. Mine wasn't a particularly nice example being 12 years old and a bit leggy at the time but it was probably the better car and I was likely just as naughty in it.
hahaha 16k lol if someone payed that good luck to them. Early 90s my mother had a car from a rover dealer (a fiat as it turned out not a rover) am they had one of these with a targa roof I think. Loved how it looked an 200bhp was a lot back then but for less than half that you can get Type R / Clio or Megan RS / Ford ST etc all will be more fun I suspect.
V8fan said:
I often see the white KGF pickup at classic auctions. As soon as I saw the seller, I knew it'd be an astronomical price.
They try to get the very low mileage cars, and then punt them on. Fair enough, its a business model, and they have to provide a warranty, but they take the p**s with their prices. Often 200% or more than they buy them for.
The blue Sierra that have up for £3995 almost seems reasonable when it was bought for £2226 at ACA in January.
They do seem to sell them though.
You say that, but that’s a gross margin of £1,773. They need to buy it, get it home, detail it, prep it, advertise it and they’ll then pay VAT on the difference between the purchase price and sale price. I’d be surprised if they make £800 profit on that. That profit goes towards paying for the showroom cost, rent, rates, heat, light, power, corporation tax on profits etc etc. They try to get the very low mileage cars, and then punt them on. Fair enough, its a business model, and they have to provide a warranty, but they take the p**s with their prices. Often 200% or more than they buy them for.
The blue Sierra that have up for £3995 almost seems reasonable when it was bought for £2226 at ACA in January.
They do seem to sell them though.
Edited by V8fan on Tuesday 25th February 08:50
don29 said:
You say that, but that’s a gross margin of £1,773. They need to buy it, get it home, detail it, prep it, advertise it and they’ll then pay VAT on the difference between the purchase price and sale price. I’d be surprised if they make £800 profit on that. That profit goes towards paying for the showroom cost, rent, rates, heat, light, power, corporation tax on profits etc etc.
If it's so hard for them then, why are they bothering?..Seems to be a big thing in the market at the moment though. By a low mileage example of a car that might not necessarily be desirable, have it detailed to within an inch of its life (£180 - £500), have some professional pictures taken with nice lighting (£120 for the day maybe? Less if they're a normal employee on the books), slap your company's branding on the plates and wax lyrical for a good 1500 words or so in the description about how this one is the desirable one because there's a picture of the Sultan of Brunei walking past one on his way to a Ferrari floating around on a pre-google netscape page somehwere.
You've got KGF, 4Star, Old Colonel, Hexagon and that one bloke that seems determined to single-handedly jack up the price of E39s in the classifieds because he's got a few under 100k miles with a sunroof. They're all at it.
ToothbrushMan said:
back in the day down the local cruising/racing scene on a saturday night I recall one of the regulars was a guy in a gunmetal grey coupe turbo and he would whip most of the stuff that turned up and it looked pretty planted too. It was seriously fast bare in mind they dont weigh much but it was definiately tuned probably at least 250 hp maybe more. sounded good too. Even the subaru and cossie boys were being shown dust......i loved that car. looked totally standard too.
loved all those 2 litre turbo rovers of the day. think the most unusual version was in the 3 door 220 GTi form.
always thought the torque figure was strange for a 200hp car.
The low torque was almost certainly down to the strength of the gearbox and diff. And it seems even this much torque was too much for many of them !!loved all those 2 litre turbo rovers of the day. think the most unusual version was in the 3 door 220 GTi form.
always thought the torque figure was strange for a 200hp car.
I enjoyed this and the many posts about it a lot.
Reminded me of the previous BL turbo's; Metro, Maestro and Montego which shared several features
- Faster in a straight line
- Torque steer to die for (in a bad way !)
- Exploding gearboxes and/or diffs
- Shonky build quality
I never experienced this generation of BL cars as by then my company was buying company cars from Ford rather than BL, but it seems the BL DNA was preserved and I didn;t really miss much (and gained XR2's, 3's, 4's, Cosworths and Mondeo V6's in return which on balance was pretty good)
Reminded me of the previous BL turbo's; Metro, Maestro and Montego which shared several features
- Faster in a straight line
- Torque steer to die for (in a bad way !)
- Exploding gearboxes and/or diffs
- Shonky build quality
I never experienced this generation of BL cars as by then my company was buying company cars from Ford rather than BL, but it seems the BL DNA was preserved and I didn;t really miss much (and gained XR2's, 3's, 4's, Cosworths and Mondeo V6's in return which on balance was pretty good)
I had it's big brother, the Rover 800 Vitesse Coupe. It could cope with the power well, looked good, superb interior, and was remarkably good to drive especially in light of how poor the cooking 800 was. The contemporary reviews of the 800 Sport all expressed enormous surprise at how not rubbish it was to drive.
I drove a few 200 Coupes and as others have said they were very poor cars, a real lash up in many ways, and I don't recall ever driving anything where the chassis was so totally inadequate for the engine as the T-Series turbo; it was a real handful/bag of s
t.
I drove a few 200 Coupes and as others have said they were very poor cars, a real lash up in many ways, and I don't recall ever driving anything where the chassis was so totally inadequate for the engine as the T-Series turbo; it was a real handful/bag of s
t.Limpet said:
I seem to remember there was an entertaining race series for these cars as well, back in the day.
One of my (many) memories from days at Silverstone with my Dad back in the day were regular visits to the “Dunlop Rover Turbo Cup” toilet block, which if I remember right was somewhere along the outside of the old pit straight. We called it that as someone had stuck a large round sticker from the race series on one of the urinals... It was there for years, and I must admit was the first thing that came to mind when seeing the spotted! There was an occasional TV series (C4?) which covered the Tuscan Challenge, these and maybe Minis and Caterham racing if I remember right.cerb4.5lee said:
Hungrymc said:
cerb4.5lee said:
AdamV12AMR said:
Car Magazine said:
"Under its chic, feline skin, this Tomcat's a dog. A howler ... Under power the whole car writhes and squirms as if an exorcist were trying to rid its body of a plague of demons ... Powering hard through corners is not recommended. Unless you enjoy that much understeer ... Matters are worsened by the stiff suspension set-up ... The 220 Turbo is totally without finesse, unless you care to drive using only a fraction of its potential ... It doesn't just finish fourth in this comparison, it finishes rock-bottom last. It's the company's calamity coupe."
Ahhh, back when motor journalists could write what they felt, and what they felt their readers needed to know, rather than pander to the OEMs because of the fear their next long-termer will go to a YouTuber.I did still want one so much back then though.
He had the problem with the diff - but it was a good opportunity to use the later type Torsen that made a massive difference to the handling/cornering. The original spec Torsen was really intended for a military vehicle rather than a performance car hence the very aggressive bias ratio that snatched the power back and forth. Also had the oil leak from the head gasket but had it fixed at his leisure as it wasn’t a compression blow
Pretty economical on a long run as well as being a nice looking coupé
As to who would pay 16k for one - lots of people did as they were more than that new. Loved the Blue colour on these
Also enjoyed watching them racing with the Vento VR6s back in the 90s
s m said:
cerb4.5lee said:
Hungrymc said:
cerb4.5lee said:
AdamV12AMR said:
Car Magazine said:
"Under its chic, feline skin, this Tomcat's a dog. A howler ... Under power the whole car writhes and squirms as if an exorcist were trying to rid its body of a plague of demons ... Powering hard through corners is not recommended. Unless you enjoy that much understeer ... Matters are worsened by the stiff suspension set-up ... The 220 Turbo is totally without finesse, unless you care to drive using only a fraction of its potential ... It doesn't just finish fourth in this comparison, it finishes rock-bottom last. It's the company's calamity coupe."
Ahhh, back when motor journalists could write what they felt, and what they felt their readers needed to know, rather than pander to the OEMs because of the fear their next long-termer will go to a YouTuber.I did still want one so much back then though.
He had the problem with the diff - but it was a good opportunity to use the later type Torsen that made a massive difference to the handling/cornering. The original spec Torsen was really intended for a military vehicle rather than a performance car hence the very aggressive bias ratio that snatched the power back and forth. Also had the oil leak from the head gasket but had it fixed at his leisure as it wasn’t a compression blow
Pretty economical on a long run as well as being a nice looking coupé
As to who would pay 16k for one - lots of people did as they were more than that new. Loved the Blue colour on these
Also enjoyed watching them racing with the Vento VR6s back in the 90s
I find them really hard to fault in fairness(appreciate I haven't driven the turbo though), they look great/go very well and I like the interior. So personally I couldn't want for much more from a car, plus my lust levels were sky high for them back then.
I'm a big fan.
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