Epic Rover SD1 touring car for sale
Need a new retro race car for next year? You won't do better than this
The Members’ Meeting has become a real highlight of the classic motorsport calendar since its reintroduction to the Goodwood line up back in 2014. If FoS is too busy and too commercial, Members’ Meeting is purely about great cars and great racing. The additional expense of attending is justified by the quality of the motorsport on show. Even watching on YouTube after the event is a real treat.
The touring cars are typically the best bit of Members’ Meeting, huge saloons fighting small ones around the Motor Circuit for the Gerry Marshall Trophy. There have been some epic David v Goliath battles over the years, plucky Minis taking on mighty Mustangs and the like in races that compel you to watch every second. If you see any motorsport next year, make the 80th Goodwood Members’ Meeting top of the hit list.
Or, even better, compete in the 80th Members’ Meeting, with this old Rover. It’ll cost just a little more than membership and a ticket, at £125,000, but what an incredible experience it promises to be. If this particular SD1 look familiar to regular Goodwood goers, then it should - this is the JD Classics built machine that’s been up front in so many Meetings. With Chris Ward and Andrew Smith driving, it won both Gerry Marshall races in 2014, a feat it repeated in 2017 with Ward driving alongside Gordon Shedden. Proven Goodwood race winners don’t come up for sale all that often, and ones that look quite so brilliant - brown velour upholstery and all - even more seldom. This isn’t a homage car or similar, either, but a Patrick Motorsport built car that first competed in the 1982 British Saloon Car Championship. Its results from back then aren’t quite as glorious as its recent record, but who cares? The Rover has real provenance and history to its name, in case it wasn’t madly desirable enough already.
With a freshly rebuilt diff (handy given its oversteer obsession) and what looks like a race ready condition, battle scars and all, the Rover seems all set for another season of crowd pleasing action in 2023. There must be a host of classic touring car events it could race in as well as the Goodwood extravaganza, and even if you don’t win it’s going to be the coolest looking (and probably best sounding) car on the grid. Presumably, too, the old bus wouldn’t cost an absolute fortune to run, a far less complex tin top racer than the later Super Touring cars. But we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here. Just shout if you need a guest driver, or mechanic, or tea boy. We’ll be there. To think of the millions people spend on old race cars - £125,000 never looked better spent.
My father had an SD1 3500 Vitesse manual in silver, 1985/B Reg, he 'lent it' to me while I was doing my A Levels as my 1275 GT mini was off the road, again ... that was a wild couple of weeks!
He never let on about the insurance cover but this was in the days when being a 'named driver' in something powerful was still possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1SLQsUVb48
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qBWvZ4vpKw
more epic video and a good race finish.
Fabulously period:
My father had an SD1 3500 Vitesse manual in silver, 1985/B Reg, he 'lent it' to me while I was doing my A Levels as my 1275 GT mini was off the road, again ... that was a wild couple of weeks!
He never let on about the insurance cover but this was in the days when being a 'named driver' in something powerful was still possible.
The Sierra (which I did drive) was rolled into a ball of metal by one of our best customers from a telecoms company at Macleans corner Donington.
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