620ti Cayman blue

[geof]

Hi folks one of two of my recent purchases. A good friend recently acquired this rare Cayman blue ti and I just had to have it.
The car itself is being looked after by my good friend until Jan next year as I'll be getting rid of this:



It's a great car with quite a few mods to give it a 320+bhp punch I'm just more of a sucker for your older (cheaper) rare cars.

The ti is a last of the line 1999 'v' plate in a rare as hens teeth Cayman blue (I think) currently wearing the private reg.
It's running standard power with a few subtle mods
18 inch alloys
Dump valve
Boost guage
Possibly lowering springs.
Condition wise it's fantastic, this really has been looked after by a previous keeper of only 2 that had the car 13-14 years.
I'm over the moon with it, future plans are to preserve and enjoy it as a weekend toy.
Apologies for the photo I have from one of the sales ads as I have copied it from my phone
Comments welcome

[RS Grant]

I have a soft spot for the odd left field choice and have fond memories of a twin cam Honda-engine'd Rover 216GTi... there can't be many 620ti left on the roads these days, they were hardly a common sight when they were new!!

I'd be wanting to change a few bits on that, wheels and dump valve being the first to go, but I look forward to seeing more pictures and following what you're going to do with it.


Cheers,
Grant

[daemon]

Lovely car.

I'd a black 620 TI with black half leather.

Fantastic car.

[AndySpecD]

Had two 620 Ti's previously, both nightfire red. Great cars and getting rare to find.

Personally, I'd ditch the aftermarket wheels and get a set of 17" Vitesse Sport rims.

[RolyRetro]

I worked at Rover in the 90's when BMW bought the business, and had a succession of 600's including a ti, which I loved. I also had a 620 diesel that blew a turbo on the M40, leaving it with the pulling power of a sickly kitten. The engine block had a crack in it that had to go back to the factory for investigation!

Happy days though, those cars were class compared to the crappy old Maestros and Montegos that we were still peddling at that time.

[Buff Mchugelarge]

That good Sir, is a very cool car indeed.

[exgtt]

Very nice, I've had 2x 618's - bombproof. If you haven't done already give the rear arches some love, they are usually the first to rust. Great seats!

[MJK 24]

The Rover 600 has aged very well indeed.

A reasonably common site on the roads of NZ. They were shipped out in kit form and assembled in a factory that built various cars from various manufacturers from kits. All done to exploit a loophole in import of cars in certain volumes I think.

[SamR380]

Brilliant, more Rovers are required on PH.

[geof]

Thanks for all of your comments guys. Deffo going to look at ditching those18s for a set of 17 inch vitesse or worst case scenario the standard 16s. The car will be purely used as a weekend/ fun car. At the minute I feel it's going to be a keeper as it's rare and I like rare lol.

Whilst the ti is going to be covered in wax and used sparingly this on the other hand is going to be my Dailey hack.





This little black pearl phase 1 was advertised around the corner on gumtree as a non runner.
Again having owned one of these back in the year 2000 (brand new) 16k I paid, I could not resist. The last owner of 5 years was fed up with it as he has ploughed hundreds into it. Inc the following
Cambelt&dephaser
Clutch
Idle control valve
Stainless steel exhaust and the list goes on.
The Clio was still miss behaving with a few jobs which is why it remained stood for 18 months.
You guessed it I handed over the cash without hearing it run as the guy seemed really genuine.

A few days later I organised a flat bed to recover it to a local garage to have it looked over and put through the m.o.t.
After a week or so I had a phone call to say the car was a runner and had passed m.o.t. Relief!!!
The car required the following
Battery
1x tyre
An air lock fixing
2x rear shocks
A few bulbs.

I have now done 500 plus miles in which time I have carried out a full service and replaced the scorpion box with a standard one. Other than a burnt out wiper motor it's been fault free. I'm really happy with the work hack and it's still on 99k

Hope you like it as it has me grinning every time I drive it. With this and the ti in my life what else would you want lol

[geof]

A few more pics of the ti. Apologies for the poor quality I will try and get some decent ones soon

[geof]

[Usget]

I echo the calls for those alloys to go in the bin. Other than that - love it, rare car now.

[AM7]

What a cracking pair - so much character! I remember my uncle having a black Rover 600 of some flavour I can't remember which model exactly, but it seemed a rare choice even back in those days, lovely car though. "Older" cars like these make me all warm and fuzzy.. they're just so far away from the generic (bland?) modern cars that we see everywhere nowadays. I hope you keep this updated over time, refreshing sight!

[Mr Tidy]

Lovely car OP!

Look forward to seeing the updates.

[Petrolize]

That's lovely. Well brought!

[grenpayne]

Good skills on the Phase 1 172, they're also getting pretty rare now!

[egor110]

The clio's exhaust must of been so loud.

When i got my cup i test drove it and came back on the motorway and couldn't go faster than 50mph as the exhaust drone was horrific , a new quieter one was ordered as soon as i got it.

[rb5er]

I'm very surprised for the amount of love going out to the Rover. Fair enough if you like it.

[geof]

Here's a few pics of the challenges I face with the 172. It's just a little ashtetically untidy, most jobs can be sorted over time for not a lot of money. Question is how much do you pump into a Clio that cost £500. As long as the mechanics are good and the bodywork is tidy I'm more than happy as its my daily. As the weather was great today I gave the engine a bit of a winter de-grunge and had a go at tidying the seats.






Today I used a technique I had spotted on the Clio sport net. I was a little jubious of the potential results however I was over the moon with outcome.

Using a razor I carefully shaved all of the bobbles off and then used a wet vac to do the seats.


I replaced the mongoose exhaust with a stock item and made £110 in the process. Well happy as this has paid for all of the service items I have replaced so far. Here's the back with the stock exhaust

This is a pic of the stainless I polished in preparation for sale

Fingers crossed I will have some fresh pics of the 620ti very soon as this is about the ti however just want to keep this going with reporting on equally as interesting read. Hopefully
Forgot to add pic of degreased bay