RE: Rover 75 V6 Contemporary | Shed of the Week
RE: Rover 75 V6 Contemporary | Shed of the Week
Friday 30th May

Rover 75 V6 Contemporary | Shed of the Week

Hard to imagine the Rover 75 ever being contemporary. Hard to imagine a more consistent shed contender either


During a low mood the other day, Shed was looking at a website that promised to come up with an accurate prediction of when he might pass away. Unfortunately, once he’d finished tapping his medical and lifestyle details into the boxes and pressed Enter, the site told him he should have died eighteen and a half years ago. Immediately after receiving this news, he then had to deal with Mrs Shed, who was demanding to know why a load of inheritance investment sites had suddenly started appearing on her feeds and where the money was. 

You’d think it would be easier to predict when Rover 75s might stop appearing in SOTW, but judging by the metronomic regularity with which good condition, low mileage cars keep coming up for sale, this is not something Shed is prepared to bet on any time soon. 

The car you are looking at here was first registered in December 2004, which means it is both a facelift model – that refresh happening in the Spring of 2004 – and also one of the last 75s built, what with MG Rover going bust in April 2005. As part of the refresh, Rover binned off the Classic SE, Club, and Club SE specs and introduced a new Contemporary badge to accompany what was left, i.e. the basic Classic and the Mrs Bucket-sounding Connoisseur. In Rover circles, Connoisseur is usually abbreviated to Connie. 

This one here is a Contemporary, which in Shed’s more rustic personal circle is shortened to Cont. What spec is that then? Well, you can never be entirely sure what kind of gear will be found inside a facelifted 75 as the company was constantly tweaking specs in its final months in a doomed attempt to keep itself alive. Of course, Shed will never let an absence of verifiable facts get in the way of a good (or even poor) story, so he is going to have a go at telling you what he thinks might have been in the Cont. You can join in the fun by playing Spec Bingo where you compare what he says to what’s on the pics, a process he can’t be bothered to go through. He’s saying there should be a black oak dash, black leather seats (heated and electrified, with memory settings on the driver’s side), rain-sensing wipers, rear parking sensors, Message Centre instrument pack, body-coloured door mirrors, 17-inch Star Spoke alloys, premium CD tuner with 6CD multi-changer and a Harmon Kardon 180-watt audio setup. 

There was also Trafficmaster alert, which was quite a good blockage-warning system at the time. Shed thinks it might have been rebranded as Teletrac at some point, and that it’s probably not around in any recognisable form now. He does remember the boss of Trafficmaster doing quite well out of it. Hard to imagine there being many similarly lucrative opportunities for automotive inventors and entrepreneurs nowadays as times have changed, the auto manufacturers not leaving much room or electronic permissions for anything that’s not been invented or entrepreneured by them. 

This 75 does look good with the typically excellent Rover paint standing up well to 20 years’ worth of attack by atmospheric toxins and exploding potholes. The car has only done 70,000 miles, fewer than a thousand of them since its last MOT test in January, which it passed with no advisories. The 174hp/177lb ft 2.5-litre KV6 engine is not known for its rip-roaring performance or Scrooge-like pumpish parsimony (26mpg), but it is a smoothie. It also has a decent reputation for reliability despite the switch from metal to plastic for the thermostat housing and variable inlet system componentry in the first Rover-redesigned-for-cheapness engines. 

It goes without saying that the VED bill is not low at £430, but it could be worse, viz another £300 or so worse. In auto guise as here, you can expect the 2.5 Cont to creep into the eights over the 0-60mph run. The notional top speed was 134mph. Shed very much doubts that any 75 2.5 driver will have ever tested that out, but he would love to be proved wrong. 

The nature and age of this car are best illustrated by the presence of just two buttons on the steering wheel, both of them for the horn. He presumes that pressing both buttons at once in straight-arm panic mode didn’t cancel out the noise completely. He would like to think that it would instead at least double the volume, not quite to a cardiac-inducing level perhaps but loud enough to awaken even the doziest fellow motorist or pedestrian. 

He has said plenty over the years about the excellent ride quality and handling of Rover 75s, so he’ll be giving that topic a swerve on this occasion. Hopefully, others will be happy to vouch for it on the forum. His simple message is: try before you decry.


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Author
Discussion

JRaj

Original Poster:

76 posts

89 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
Aged well in that colour. Looks in fairly good condition for it's age.

el romeral

1,666 posts

153 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
Top shed. This looks immaculate inside and out. Luxury shedding with a V6 warble.

oilit

2,743 posts

194 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
The v6 is a nice motor - drove an mg zs with the v6 only last week….

fflump

2,437 posts

54 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
Always liked the design of these cars quite elegant even if a little old fashioned. Nice colour and a dark interior probably shows its age less. Capped off with a smooth v6. Seriously good shed.

humphra

552 posts

108 months

Friday 30th May
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Thanks for the smiles, Shed! I must say, it does look like a lovely cont. biggrin

Spidermoor

33 posts

23 months

Friday 30th May
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People of my age may say, there's still a gap in the market for a decent 'blockage warning system'...

Nice Shed.

Taz73

301 posts

28 months

Friday 30th May
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These have aged well I think, though I do prefer a pre facelift. That's a lot of nice car for the money, won't be cheap to run obviously but will be a nice place to while away the miles.

Andy86GT

679 posts

81 months

Friday 30th May
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I've often wondered how many different bumper designs /face lifts these (and the MG derivatives) went through over their lifespan.

sjc

14,994 posts

286 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
Used three versions of these in V6 guise as daily waft hacks /leave at pub/building sites etc for the last 16 years,doing about 300k miles in them.Brilliant NVH levels ( pre facelift much better all round),all the kit I need,and have been amazingly reliable. Total purchase cost for the three cars £4,700,got £1300 back and I still have one of them. Not great on fuel,but comfy,quiet,sounds nice. Even the banter about the image had been enjoyable!


Edited by sjc on Friday 30th May 07:40

georgeyboy12345

3,962 posts

51 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
Hate this facelifted version. A real polished turd. Even if it has “only” 70,000 miles, I doubt it’ll be reliable at 21 years of age, especially with that KV6 engine that also manages to be slow and thirsty.

Hippea

2,593 posts

85 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
I like this, top shed

jwwbowe

668 posts

188 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
Top shed. Not quite peak Volvo level of shedding but nonetheless comfortable wafting to be had here in an interesting piece of history.

wistec1

637 posts

57 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
Great shed and in my eyes a contender for the top honors award. A bit of risk still lurking but what a nice time warp cabin to be in when it goes tits up.

Our local councillor(now long deposed) had a black one of these and when on official duties he'd had a bonnet flag with the council crest of arms on it that was screwed into the middle end of the bonnet. When removed there was a chrome flat cap bung that filled the hole.

Full of his own importance and pissed with power people would at first glance think it was someone important wafting into town until they realized it was just a Rover 75 probably on marriage or funeral duties. He was actually a very good councillor and asset to the town, a bloke despite all his flaws got things done but his apparent flamboyanc was his undoing at the ballot box with some social media suggestions for a change of flag that were equally piss funny and uncouth.



sinisterpenguin

46 posts

35 months

Friday 30th May
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I see the appeal but I’d be looking for a Jag XF for shed money wafting. Probably have to settle with higher mileage though….

POIDH

1,926 posts

81 months

Friday 30th May
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Where's my golf jumper and driving gloves?

That's a solid shed for waftage to the masonic lodge....

7 5 7

3,898 posts

127 months

Friday 30th May
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Classless car I think, could be parked anywhere and kind of fit in, seems to have a wide following whatever your demographic.

Looks like a good solid car, do these rust at all?

7 5 7

3,898 posts

127 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
sjc said:
Used three versions of these in V6 guise as daily waft hacks /leave at pub/building sites etc for the last 16 years,doing about 300k miles in them.Brilliant NVH levels ( pre facelift much better all round),all the kit I need,and have been amazingly reliable. Total purchase cost for the three cars £4,700,got £1300 back and I still have one of them. Not great on fuel,but comfy,quiet,sounds nice. Even the banter about the image had been enjoyable!


Edited by sjc on Friday 30th May 07:40
Looks well suited on a gravel drive as much as anywhere else, looks great that.

AndySheff

6,773 posts

223 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
Shed is in top form this week.

el romeral

1,666 posts

153 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
humphra said:
Thanks for the smiles, Shed! I must say, it does look like a lovely cont. biggrin
Missed that bit in first skimming through. Hilarious!

someoneelse

99 posts

198 months

Friday 30th May
quotequote all
That looks like a very tasty cont.

I think these are heading into modern classic territory as a quirky 27 year old design.