RE: Rover 75 Tourer | Shed of the Week
Discussion
Smint said:
Jawls said:
These are £330 to tax. Didn’t know that! That puts a bit of a dent in the otherwise v respectable shed credentials.
I had a bit of a shock one day when i noticed the cost of a mate's Freelander 1 HSE auto with the BMW Diesel engine, highest rate possible.I assumed shirley some mistake, looked it up when i got home, sure enough the HSE really went into the highest tax bracket with just a fairly basic 2 litre Diesel.
The highest rate cars regd after March 2006 will drop in value like hell once they become sheds, well over £600 this year.
Chromegrill said:
Nickp82 said:
I think I go against the grain but for me the 2004 facelift worked very well on the ZT (less so on 75) , Firefrost is a great colour too. As you say, that still looks quite a smart thing.
Yep, frequently commented that the ZT face-lift nailed them whilst the 75 face-lift spoilt the classic retro Jaguar-esque stance.Chromegrill said:
Nickp82 said:
I think I go against the grain but for me the 2004 facelift worked very well on the ZT (less so on 75) , Firefrost is a great colour too. As you say, that still looks quite a smart thing.
Yep, frequently commented that the ZT face-lift nailed them whilst the 75 face-lift spoilt the classic retro Jaguar-esque stance.
rallycross said:
Great to see info like to this I’d guess 95% of us on here didn’t know the details - thanks for sharing!
Details like that explain why and when a brand was popular and they could sell well based on past success.
I think Jaguar have a similar story - 1950’s superstar race rustles - hence why they got away with selling crappy out of date rubbish in the 70’s/90’s/00’s to retired northerner business men who wanted to show ‘they’d made it’!
Remarkable display of misinformed prejudice in so few words ...Details like that explain why and when a brand was popular and they could sell well based on past success.
I think Jaguar have a similar story - 1950’s superstar race rustles - hence why they got away with selling crappy out of date rubbish in the 70’s/90’s/00’s to retired northerner business men who wanted to show ‘they’d made it’!
I had the MG CDt ZT T (or some silly acronym that went on forever!) quite a few years back now, pre facelift, manual variant of one of these, diesel engine, manual transmission, nice ally wheels, a sort of a mid green metallic, nice polychromatic colour actually that changed the look of its colour in sunlight, along with leather and alcantara seats.
Had always liked these and particularly the MG option, even came with a mesh stainless steel grill as I recall, sort of thing that they used to put into Jaguar XJR's. Bought it trade, (take it now, cash sale!) for a song just to use through the winter to keep the "decent motor" tucked up warm whilst all the salt and general winter road s**t was down.
Ended up giving it to one of my employees after a couple of years use as a tatting hack. He used it for a couple years more and the whole time, never let either of us down once, apart from tyres and service, averaged about 40 MPG ish and maintenance, just normal stuff, basically, it never really cost us a thing, tool box's, oxygen bottles, just knock the back seats down, all the site gear used to go into the back of it.
Great old car always badly "dissed" My opinion for what its worth, generally, a right "Good Shed" !!
Had always liked these and particularly the MG option, even came with a mesh stainless steel grill as I recall, sort of thing that they used to put into Jaguar XJR's. Bought it trade, (take it now, cash sale!) for a song just to use through the winter to keep the "decent motor" tucked up warm whilst all the salt and general winter road s**t was down.
Ended up giving it to one of my employees after a couple of years use as a tatting hack. He used it for a couple years more and the whole time, never let either of us down once, apart from tyres and service, averaged about 40 MPG ish and maintenance, just normal stuff, basically, it never really cost us a thing, tool box's, oxygen bottles, just knock the back seats down, all the site gear used to go into the back of it.
Great old car always badly "dissed" My opinion for what its worth, generally, a right "Good Shed" !!
Rob 131 Sport said:
I always thought this was the car that finished Rover. How they possibly thought it could compete with Alfa, Audi, BMW and Mercedes is beyond me.
Awful styling, dynamics and image. Whilst the Rover 800 was a dreadful car, and I should know having owned an 827 Vitesse Unreliable Rot Box, it did at least have a tiny bit of image and desirability.
The car won awards for styling, and dynamics. It was superbly built. My diesel is still strong at 220000m, no rattles inside or any major issues. It was the car that could have helped save Rover, but we all know what happened.Awful styling, dynamics and image. Whilst the Rover 800 was a dreadful car, and I should know having owned an 827 Vitesse Unreliable Rot Box, it did at least have a tiny bit of image and desirability.
sir humphrey appleby said:
everytime I see a 75, i can't get over the front headlamp arrangement, it looks to me that it was going to be a one piece design, like the 25 and 45, then at the last minute they changed it to the double lamps.
The pressing for the one piece unit is still there and I can't unsee it.
?? Are you getting mixed up between the different phases of the 25/45/75? Maybe a picture would explain what you mean.The pressing for the one piece unit is still there and I can't unsee it.
R400TVR said:
Rob 131 Sport said:
I always thought this was the car that finished Rover. How they possibly thought it could compete with Alfa, Audi, BMW and Mercedes is beyond me.
Awful styling, dynamics and image. Whilst the Rover 800 was a dreadful car, and I should know having owned an 827 Vitesse Unreliable Rot Box, it did at least have a tiny bit of image and desirability.
The car won awards for styling, and dynamics. It was superbly built. My diesel is still strong at 220000m, no rattles inside or any major issues. It was the car that could have helped save Rover, but we all know what happened.Awful styling, dynamics and image. Whilst the Rover 800 was a dreadful car, and I should know having owned an 827 Vitesse Unreliable Rot Box, it did at least have a tiny bit of image and desirability.
The 75 started off as a good car. Its flaws were the subjective stuff - styling, character and image. I think it's a shame (I wouldn't go so far as to call it a mistake, since the alternative was never really an option) that Rover went for the retro 'Auntie Rover' look, echoing the P4 and P5.
It's often forgotten that while it is now seen as the archetypal steak-and-kidney '50s British saloon, the P4 was daringly, strikingly modern in its styling when it was introduced and even when the facelifts dialled it down a bit it still had that strangely chic interior with the slab of solid wood and inset dials, like a bit of Scandinavian furniture. The P5, especially in Coupe form with the chop-top roof and Rostyle wheels, was also considered quite caddish and...whisper it...American when it was new. Its patrician image as the transport of choice for The Establishment came a bit later.
The P6 was effectively the British Citroen DS - a car that completely rewrote the rulebook in almost every way: structural engineering, suspension, engine design (how many other British cars in the early 60s had a square-stroke overhead-cam engine specifically intended to cruise at 80mph?), interior decor (strip speedo, two gloveboxes and a continual circuit of woodgrain around the waistline), consideration for safety, ergonomics and so on.
The Range Rover was also an almost entirely fresh automotive concept - not an American-style SUV of the time which was effectively a station wagon with four-wheel drive, but a purpose-built vehicle to combine the comfort and performance of a P6 with the off-road ability of a Land Rover. A function-led styling job that was good enough to exhibit in an art museum, four-wheel disc brakes, permanent four-wheel drive and so on.
Even the SD1, which had the 'Rover-ness' diluted a bit by being jointly developed by Triumph, was a bold and forward-looking design - styling drawn from a mix of Pininfarina concept cars and Ferraris, a five-door hatchback in an era of three-box executive saloons and an interior out of Space:1999.
Other posters have already mentioned Rover's pioneering gas turbine work - the JET1, the T-cars, the BRM-Rover racer (with its corduroy interior...) the P6 being designed for a turbine power unit and so on. They also built one of the first automotive high-speed diesel engines in Britain (the 2.0-litre developed for the Land Rover in 1955) and then combined that with their work on turbines to make experimental turbocharged intercooled diesels in the mid-1960s. Their work with suspension development for the P6 led to experiments with a Citroen-style hydropneumatic setup, finessed by the addition of an active anti-roll system developed by AP. Basically the Citroen 'Activa' system 30 years ahead of time. Before they sourced the ex-Buick V8 they looked at five-cylinder engines, and then had a turbocharged 5-pot under test in the late 1960s. They also had the P6BS, which was a three-seat mid-engined V8-powered sports car which was then worked up into a finished styling job - the P9 - which looked like a Lancia Stratos with a quad-lamp rear end.
Contrary to the image it picked up in the latter bit of the century, the independent Rover Company was an incredibly forward-looking, innovative and engineering-led company that in the 1960s was, justifiably, put in the same company as Lancia, Citroen, NSU, Saab and Mercedes.
Obviously those glory days were long, long gone by the time the 75 saw the light of day, and there had been any number of clunkers and porridge-like mediocrity in the meantime to sully the Rover name and image. But that's the heritage BMW had in their hands and I think that had they been more brave and made the Rover 75 more akin to the P6 in its style and character than the P4, it would have done much better than it did, and achieved the success it deserved as a fundamentally good product. I absolutely understand why BMW didn't go down that path, but it's shame that they didn't.
Of course it would also have helped if the boss hadn't stood up at the car's launch and said that the people building it were all workshy scroungers and the future of the entire company was under consideration - exactly what you want to hear when your big hope for conquering the executive market has just been launched to near-universal press acclaim...
Edited by 2xChevrons on Thursday 11th August 12:25
I worked for Rover back in the day and was on the 75 launch team - I did a few hundred miles in the development cars and I really liked them. The ride and refinement were amazing and far better than the stiff Germans everybody was buying in droves and the cabin was like an old school Jag. I think the 75 was the car exec buyers needed (well appointed, effortless on the motorway, refined, looked good, would impress the neighbours) rather than the pov spec 3 series that they actually bought.
This lovely V8 lives near me.
This lovely V8 lives near me.
R400TVR said:
Rob 131 Sport said:
I always thought this was the car that finished Rover. How they possibly thought it could compete with Alfa, Audi, BMW and Mercedes is beyond me.
Awful styling, dynamics and image. Whilst the Rover 800 was a dreadful car, and I should know having owned an 827 Vitesse Unreliable Rot Box, it did at least have a tiny bit of image and desirability.
The car won awards for styling, and dynamics. It was superbly built. My diesel is still strong at 220000m, no rattles inside or any major issues. It was the car that could have helped save Rover, but we all know what happened.Awful styling, dynamics and image. Whilst the Rover 800 was a dreadful car, and I should know having owned an 827 Vitesse Unreliable Rot Box, it did at least have a tiny bit of image and desirability.
Cool 3 Series
or Rover 75
Rob 131 Sport said:
Car manufacturers need cars to sell and desirability is a key ingredient. I was 26 when the Rover 75 was launched and the choice of that or an Alfa, Audi, BMW or Mercedes, the Rover didn’t stand a chance.
Cool 3 Series or Rover 75
I own both a 75 cdti, and an E46 330cd. On the motorway the 75 is miles ahead in comfort and refinement. The engine in the 330 is somewhat better though!Cool 3 Series
or Rover 75Many misconceptions written about here. I run a R75 V6 Connoisseur which has all the gadgets most will need. Sun roof, leather heated seats, memory electric seats, Jatco box, so smooth and comfortable ride. 25 mph around town, 35 mpg on a run. Also diesel tourer Re mapped to 160 but which transforms the car. With BMW engine some have notched up over 400,000 miles. Never had problem with spares with help of really excellent R75 Forum. Have owned many cars in my time but have never tried of driving either of my R75s.
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