What a beautiful car. I was the SD1 club rep for Scotland. I owned most variants of SD1, but not the V8S. I had an early series one V8, registered 1/1/77 in the same colour with the manual box. I had series one and two, I prefer the dash of the series one. My last one was a Silver V8 VDP with the manual box. It was stolen which broke my heart. I stick to classic motorcycles now and have a small collection of classic Japanese bikes.
My dad had a '77 3500 SD1 until the mid eighties. Like you, I favour the Series 1 dashboard and dials and I also prefer the purity of the Series 1 bodywork over the Series 2 although the latter was generally better assembled. I also note that not all Series 1 cars had the full, solid Rover badge (black background) on the bonnet, irrespective of variant; instead they had the cheaper 'skeleton' silver one. By weird coincidence, one of my school peers whose family lived around the corner from mine is the F1 chief aerodynamicist, Shaun Whitehead (Red Bull and Williams) and they had a Series 1 2600 which had fewer dials than the 3500.
@@thomasgray5406 It was the series one 2300 that had the short dashboard. The 2600 had the same dash as the V8. I had a T reg 2300, it didn't have the rev counter and only had 3 small dials. It was either the voltmeter or the oil pressure gauge that wasn't there, I can't remember.
@@alistairshaw3206 Yes, come to think of it, you're right : the 2300 had the shorter binnacle not the 2600. I've had a series of Rovers myself and my two 800s never had the charm of the SD1. It's rare that a classic car by exterior isn't immediately identifiable to its era by the general public but the SD1 is one of those exceptions that doesn't look out of place against design phases over the last forty years.
Had a 1977 Mk1 V8 with the 3speed auto twin SU's and manual choke ended up selling it but oh boy do i miss the silky rumble of the V8. Drove it all the way from London to Middlesbrough and was just utterly relaxed the whole way cruising at 80mph and it didn't miss a beat.
Hi series 1's were listed as 3500 - 3500s (special) - 3500se (special equiptment=more extra as standard and finally top level was Vanden Plas, there was no factory Vitesse until the series two model...had seceral of these, my favourite was a series two Vanden Plas, totaly reliable and never faultered on ever, I found the bad press did more to damage the reputation than the bad build quality ever did.
I STILL absolutely LOVE SD1s! I almost bought a 2600 as my first car (until insurance and fuel bills brought me crashing to Earth! This being in 1991ish and when car insurance went MENTAL!) They have to be one of the British car industries best looking cars.
Nice video and review of the car. I love how you describe the car and go into detail. I don't now these cars well. I live in Belgium and they are very rare here. I go often to oldtimer meetings and also there you don't see them a lot. English cars have a bad reputation here and that's not always true. Really nice car and they have they same quirky design as the early Citroëns. I mean with that, they have character and that is the important thing about a car.
My dad got one of these in 1990 from 79, the body work was bad but it was pristine inside. I was a teen and I helped my dad restore it. It was good but we sprayed it black and kept the gold wheels. It was a beast it to 8 minutes to warm it up in the winter, it was the automatic, v8s 3.5, it has the sun roof. I even remember the registration, so many fond memories.
Now THAT is a beautiful car. That 3½ litre V8 has always had the most gorgeous exhaust note. It truly sounds like a 1960s American V8. I do find it rather funny to hear it described as a large engine. This was originally designed for what GM called their "Senior Compacts", the Buick Special and Oldsmobile F-85. When the models grew into true intermediate sized cars, this engine was deemed too small. Still, great torque, as Buick engineers focused more on inherent torque at lower revs compared to higher horsepower at higher revs. Makes for a very tractable, flexible engine. Just lovely. I've only seen a very few SD-1s in real life. They were rare here when new, and did tend to rot rather badly in our fierce winters. Keeping the carbs in tune with the wide temperature range is also nearly impossible. To be honest, I think the original intake with single 4bbl downdraught Rochester carburetor is likely more efficient, certainly easier to tune, and more reliable at -40 degrees. Still, nothing like the Rover for a lovely interior. Thinking about it, the dual glove boxes make sense. No need to change even that for left hand drive examples. Very informative and very well done. Keep up the good work.
Well, large is a relative term. To an anorectic, half a normal dinner is an enormous amount of food. A bulimic wouldn't be satisfied with 5x that. In Europe, the normal engine size was/is 2.0L, whereas U.S. had their 5.7's called "smallblocks" or something.
There is a trace it goes even further back to a BMW design for the 508 series. Amazing how many cars it powered and the last 4.0 with Bosch injection, Crank, cam and knock sensors is a treat. A friend's Range Rover with that engine is at 365000km,no oil leaks no overheating.
My mate as a series 2 SD1 in the same colour as the one in the vid, he has gone through all of the bodywork and sorted out all of the rust. We built a 4.6 v8 for it with big valve gas flowed heads along with every other tuning trick that we could fit to it, it runs a heavily modified Edelbrock 500 carb, on the rollers it put out 315 BHP which we were very pleased with! The power goes through a Ford Cosworth gearbox running Quaife close ratio gears (close ratio in order to get a tall first gear). The diff is a Quaife LSD, it goes very well!
This was the time that Rover brought over the 3500 as a 3500 S. Sunroof, a/c, central locking, standard. And the most unique features were the round headlamps that were mandatory at the time, and fuel injection, because of Federal emissions (we had unleaded fuel only starting 1974). Of course, build quality killed them from being imported after 1981, a shame as I love this vehicle now more than ever! Great review Tom!
Build quality indeed! When the SD1 was as good as, if not better than most of the RUBBISH coming out of Detroit at that time. The fact that there are still a good number of SD1's still running, is testament to the quality of the car, despite what many critics suggest. British Leyland did undoubtedly churn out some crap, but the SD1 was a genuinely good car, and still looks great today, unlike many of the Studebakers, Oldsmobiles, and Buicks of the same period. I can't help wondering if Buick regretted their decision to sell Rover the rights to their wonderful V8? Credit where its due, it was, and is an AWESOME power plant, albeit a little thirsty. But it certainly helped to make Rover a legend of British manufacturing, and is still a coveted engine to this day. So hats off to American muscle. As regards the twin circular headlights on the exported models, they NEVER looked right on the SD1, and in fact, made the car look dated and ugly, even when they were new. And let's not mention the bumpers, that resembled a scolded child's bottom lip. The DMV certainly knew how to make a car look ugly, and deformed back in those days.
For some reason they had three mufflers. The rear one actually entered the muffler then had to do a 90 degree turn to go through the muffler. I had it removed on my 1986 series 2 . I could then get 200klm per hour out if it. Pity that Leyland workers did not take pride in their manufacturing skills. Near enough was good enough as far as body work was involved, gaps on either side of bonnet and boot millimetres different as well as the door gaps. But having said that, It was a great car to drive at high speed let down by the lack of pride in their work. Thank goodness the engine was not in their hands.
Absolutely beautiful car ..it was the most exciting car release I can remember .. the first really futuristic and powerful cars compared to everything else.
Thanks for your support as always, got a new series coming I think you’ll like. I need to drop you a message on Instagram just to ask your permission for something later on tomorrow :)
Platinum and Midas Gold were two different colours. My father owned a Midas Gold SD1 3500- there was no reference to platinum. Platinum was one of the colour options for the SD1.
I'm hankering after my old V8S in Triton Green with gold alloys like those and a Borg Warner 65 3 speed auto gearbox: FOJ687V. Used it go to the French Alps on holiday. The electric window switches kept failing and the swimming pool in the boot helped traction. I thought that the bumpers were chrome: perhaps the paint had come off mine! If I remember rightly the V8S was a limited edition packed with all the extras available at the time and the forerunner to the Series 2 VDP.
Had many series one's and a couple of series two's which always felt cheaper inside. The manual v8's always seemed really economical considering engine size.
The beautiful Rover SD1 styling remains undated and this early model looks amazing except for those gold wheels which is just to much gold for my taste, nice enjoyable video well captured and presented, my own series 2 from 1984 was great to drive and fabulously cmfortable unfortunatly the build quality was appauling and it was lost quickly to the demon rust. Thanks for posting!
I had two V8s...an early model.. base model...with the metal badge up front...Had twin strombergs. Then I bought a mint condition fully mechanically restored Vanden Plas in silver mink finish this was fuel injected.
A car in mint condition! A question from Spain where this Rover was really very rare: is it easy to find any units still in good condition? And what price can sellers be asking? Thanks in advance, Tom. Regards from Carlos
There are a few SD1s for sale at any time in the UK it seems. They range between £800-£1000 for a project and good cars seem to go for £2500+ now with V8, Vitesse, VDP and EFi models being £5000 starting and going all the way up to £12000
The v8s was a nice spec car. Owned one back in the day , but I think the "Halo" model was the ultra rare mk 1 vanden plas . Owned an x reg one in the coulor of the rover in this video, with chocolate brown leather!. Also the v8s did not come as standard with headlamp washers,a rare option.
My father had one of the first SD1's in 1976, a Brazilia brown 3500 auto with beige interior, electric windows and electric aerial!! Its design really was groundbreaking, and ahead of anything else, unfortunately the build quality let it down badly, and it didn't quite have the luxury of the Jaguar XJ6.
I owned a black "79 V8S Auto in the 80's brought up from London to Scotland then sold to myself from the 2nd owner. Registration was V8 --- but cannot remember the full plate,
they should have made a standard 3500 at 155bhp..they were really frugalwith the power .then they should of made the v8s at 185bhp then the vandan plas at 200bhp then the vitesse at 220bhp. .....but they didnt.u can tell straight away it was made before 82 because of the rear window without the angles in the bottom corners the early version has a better dash in my opinion the linear displays look a bit bare
Only two colours, Midas Gold and Persian Aqua. Both had the gold wheels. This car has had front end damage that's been poorly repaired and of course the new paint is probably hiding a multitude of sins.
Amazing to look at and amazing to drive spen king and Dave Bache did an amazing job unfortunately left it to the monkeys to put together but it’s still fantastic. I had a race with a 3litre capri In the first one I drove and destroyed it bless lovely thing 😁
Nice car with the AWESOME Rover/Buick V8. But I would suggest scripting your videos, as your dialogue was all over the place. You also at one point, mentioned that this was a Rover 800, @ 0:13 which it is not! So a little bit more thought is needed for a more polished result.
The GM180 auto did not come along until around 1983 (82 production). It should have a Borg Warner type 65, which was far better than the GM box. Manuals were totally pointless.
What engine? My dad had a 2.0, the smallest engine, it cruised at 110, and did 120 once downhill full of people and the wind behind us!! Loved that car.....👍🏼😎
You need to show what you’re talking about, like the rear door interior features. Also, get a haircut and your hair won’t touch the roof, even though the headliner is coming down.
We had a blue one and black. This young man makes me laugh ash tray is the word, tea shelf . The s was to use up car1980 saw the mk2 and vdp as top spc lux vitesse. Bess this young man he not had much experience of luxury car. I wa brought up on sdi jaguar xj / daimler Ford Granada mercedes se sel these where my childhood cars that my family used many school runs in the back of these cars. Trips to france and Spain we also had large lancia gamma which where very special. But this young does not travel in today xj and 7 series or s class. Rover today would be a 5 series e class Loved these rovers but xj was still my first choice in the morning
@@tomdrives love your enthusiasm and your excitement growing up around these car I sort of took them for granted but i love the way you are so passionate aboutvthese cars they where good take no notice of those who knock British cars they where good I still love them . I have lots of nice modern cars but I still love these cars from my childhood
Obviously....of course.....nice try. Remember its not about you, its about the car. Never previously aware of this model variant so was really interested. Tuned out after two minutes though.
This has to be the most tone deaf thing I’ve ever read, I don’t usually respond but I don’t understand this comment, it’s about my first impressions of the car, which is in the title, the patronising tone of your comment really says a lot of your expectations. If you are expecting me to spout a Wikipedia page, go elsewhere this channel isn’t for you.
Pre 1982 automatic versions had a Borg Warner gearbox, after this it was the GM 180 unit.
Don't recall the year as I was so young but my dad had a 3500 se in this colour. Seemed like a big beast of a car at the time
What a beautiful car.
I was the SD1 club rep for Scotland. I owned most variants of SD1, but not the V8S. I had an early series one V8, registered 1/1/77 in the same colour with the manual box. I had series one and two, I prefer the dash of the series one.
My last one was a Silver V8 VDP with the manual box. It was stolen which broke my heart.
I stick to classic motorcycles now and have a small collection of classic Japanese bikes.
My dad had a '77 3500 SD1 until the mid eighties. Like you, I favour the Series 1 dashboard and dials and I also prefer the purity of the Series 1 bodywork over the Series 2 although the latter was generally better assembled. I also note that not all Series 1 cars had the full, solid Rover badge (black background) on the bonnet, irrespective of variant; instead they had the cheaper 'skeleton' silver one. By weird coincidence, one of my school peers whose family lived around the corner from mine is the F1 chief aerodynamicist, Shaun Whitehead (Red Bull and Williams) and they had a Series 1 2600 which had fewer dials than the 3500.
@@thomasgray5406 It was the series one 2300 that had the short dashboard. The 2600 had the same dash as the V8. I had a T reg 2300, it didn't have the rev counter and only had 3 small dials. It was either the voltmeter or the oil pressure gauge that wasn't there, I can't remember.
@@alistairshaw3206 Yes, come to think of it, you're right : the 2300 had the shorter binnacle not the 2600. I've had a series of Rovers myself and my two 800s never had the charm of the SD1. It's rare that a classic car by exterior isn't immediately identifiable to its era by the general public but the SD1 is one of those exceptions that doesn't look out of place against design phases over the last forty years.
Had a 1977 Mk1 V8 with the 3speed auto twin SU's and manual choke ended up selling it but oh boy do i miss the silky rumble of the V8. Drove it all the way from London to Middlesbrough and was just utterly relaxed the whole way cruising at 80mph and it didn't miss a beat.
Had a V8 auto,mk 1, for 8 years. Absolutely loved it.
Hi series 1's were listed as 3500 - 3500s (special) - 3500se (special equiptment=more extra as standard and finally top level was Vanden Plas, there was no factory Vitesse until the series two model...had seceral of these, my favourite was a series two Vanden Plas, totaly reliable and never faultered on ever, I found the bad press did more to damage the reputation than the bad build quality ever did.
I went in one of these when they were new. It was metallic blue with gold wheels. ❤️
I loved the boot. My elderly dog Spitfire sat there in mine as a young man in 1986. He passed away in 1987. RIP Spitfire 1970=1987
I STILL absolutely LOVE SD1s! I almost bought a 2600 as my first car (until insurance and fuel bills brought me crashing to Earth! This being in 1991ish and when car insurance went MENTAL!) They have to be one of the British car industries best looking cars.
Interesting haircut Tom! Keep up the videos dude. Very cool, can't get enough of the rover mg brand
Thanks my dude :)
Great looking car
Thanks, real credit to the owner Tim. Absolutely stunning in person
Agreed! I love the way they look!
A beautiful design thé instruments at night looked like a Jet at that time and the noise was incredible ..it felt dramatic and fast.
Nice video and review of the car. I love how you describe the car and go into detail. I don't now these cars well. I live in Belgium and they are very rare here. I go often to oldtimer meetings and also there you don't see them a lot. English cars have a bad reputation here and that's not always true. Really nice car and they have they same quirky design as the early Citroëns. I mean with that, they have character and that is the important thing about a car.
My dad got one of these in 1990 from 79, the body work was bad but it was pristine inside. I was a teen and I helped my dad restore it. It was good but we sprayed it black and kept the gold wheels. It was a beast it to 8 minutes to warm it up in the winter, it was the automatic, v8s 3.5, it has the sun roof. I even remember the registration, so many fond memories.
What a gorgeous car. Love your channel my buddy, it's getting better and better.
Great video/review. I've always been a fan of the rover SD1 so it's great to see a review 👍.
My dad had a 1983 Y reg SD1 3500 SE. Ex police motorway patrol car. I was gutted when he sold it before I was old enough to drive.
Very rare beast Tom the V8-S love the shape still looks great 45 years on
Now THAT is a beautiful car. That 3½ litre V8 has always had the most gorgeous exhaust note. It truly sounds like a 1960s American V8. I do find it rather funny to hear it described as a large engine. This was originally designed for what GM called their "Senior Compacts", the Buick Special and Oldsmobile F-85. When the models grew into true intermediate sized cars, this engine was deemed too small. Still, great torque, as Buick engineers focused more on inherent torque at lower revs compared to higher horsepower at higher revs. Makes for a very tractable, flexible engine. Just lovely. I've only seen a very few SD-1s in real life. They were rare here when new, and did tend to rot rather badly in our fierce winters. Keeping the carbs in tune with the wide temperature range is also nearly impossible. To be honest, I think the original intake with single 4bbl downdraught Rochester carburetor is likely more efficient, certainly easier to tune, and more reliable at -40 degrees. Still, nothing like the Rover for a lovely interior. Thinking about it, the dual glove boxes make sense. No need to change even that for left hand drive examples. Very informative and very well done. Keep up the good work.
Well, large is a relative term. To an anorectic, half a normal dinner is an enormous amount of food. A bulimic wouldn't be satisfied with 5x that. In Europe, the normal engine size was/is 2.0L, whereas U.S. had their 5.7's called "smallblocks" or something.
There is a trace it goes even further back to a BMW design for the 508 series. Amazing how many cars it powered and the last 4.0 with Bosch injection, Crank, cam and knock sensors is a treat. A friend's Range Rover with that engine is at 365000km,no oil leaks no overheating.
@@Salman-sc8gr What is the link with the BMW design?
My mate as a series 2 SD1 in the same colour as the one in the vid, he has gone through all of the bodywork and sorted out all of the rust. We built a 4.6 v8 for it with big valve gas flowed heads along with every other tuning trick that we could fit to it, it runs a heavily modified Edelbrock 500 carb, on the rollers it put out 315 BHP which we were very pleased with! The power goes through a Ford Cosworth gearbox running Quaife close ratio gears (close ratio in order to get a tall first gear). The diff is a Quaife LSD, it goes very well!
God i love the SD1! One beautiful car! Great video again Tom!
The sound of a V8 SD1, doesn’t get any better.
I agree, first time hearing one up close, best part was when I followed it behind walking, great burble
Yes it does... Triumph Stag V8.....
Great video Tom your chanel is one of my current favourites love the way you present
Thanks I appreciate it :)
and awesome car - always liked these!
11:34
The rear armrest folds upwards so that only 1 side of it needed to be padded, this saving space and cost.
This was the time that Rover brought over the 3500 as a 3500 S. Sunroof, a/c, central locking, standard. And the most unique features were the round headlamps that were mandatory at the time, and fuel injection, because of Federal emissions (we had unleaded fuel only starting 1974). Of course, build quality killed them from being imported after 1981, a shame as I love this vehicle now more than ever!
Great review Tom!
As informative as always, thanks for being here Frederick :)
@@tomdrives You're welcome Tom! I'm really liking your channel, your vehicles, and your passion for British classics.
Build quality indeed! When the SD1 was as good as, if not better than most of the RUBBISH coming out of Detroit at that time. The fact that there are still a good number of SD1's still running, is testament to the quality of the car, despite what many critics suggest.
British Leyland did undoubtedly churn out some crap, but the SD1 was a genuinely good car, and still looks great today, unlike many of the Studebakers, Oldsmobiles, and Buicks of the same period.
I can't help wondering if Buick regretted their decision to sell Rover the rights to their wonderful V8? Credit where its due, it was, and is an AWESOME power plant, albeit a little thirsty. But it certainly helped to make Rover a legend of British manufacturing, and is still a coveted engine to this day. So hats off to American muscle.
As regards the twin circular headlights on the exported models, they NEVER looked right on the SD1, and in fact, made the car look dated and ugly, even when they were new.
And let's not mention the bumpers, that resembled a scolded child's bottom lip. The DMV certainly knew how to make a car look ugly, and deformed back in those days.
Lucas the king of darknes did kill it.
I did chance most of the lucas parts,and it was very reliable after that.
11:55 The armrest was hinged that way so cut costs. They didn't have to pad it on the other side.
For some reason they had three mufflers. The rear one actually entered the muffler then had to do a 90 degree turn to go through the muffler. I had it removed on my 1986 series 2 . I could then get 200klm per hour out if it. Pity that Leyland workers did not take pride in their manufacturing skills. Near enough was good enough as far as body work was involved, gaps on either side of bonnet and boot millimetres different as well as the door gaps. But having said that, It was a great car to drive at high speed let down by the lack of pride in their work. Thank goodness the engine was not in their hands.
Superb cars. Ferrari Daytona inspired. But what a car. Especially with that brilliant V8…
Absolutely beautiful car ..it was the most exciting car release I can remember .. the first really futuristic and powerful cars compared to everything else.
I had a v8s mine was originally the same colour sprayed beige (not by me) all in all I owed 10 sd1's all v8
some manual some i changed to manual
Ah V8-S - my favourite SD1 - I always liked it in Triton green, with the gold wheels........
I’d love to see a Triton Green in person, it’s a great colour.
Nitrosilvia... project Dotty
My dad had a black one, OAH601W. Lovely car
Glorious Rover Sold for a Tenner.
all those years of Superb Engineering down the Drain .
Such memorable days 5 up with mum and dad puffing away! Windows all closed obviously!
Really interesting insight into a beautiful machine 🎉
Really enjoyed watching this 👌 one
Thanks for your support as always, got a new series coming I think you’ll like. I need to drop you a message on Instagram just to ask your permission for something later on tomorrow :)
@@tomdrives OK I will look out for it
My childhood memories of the SD1’s my dad had. Wet seats because of the sunroof. Sagging roof lining, rust.......the list goes on.
My dad had a 3500 V8 it was a beast. sadly they were notorious for rust but very powerfull.
The audio in the first 50 seconds is a bit messed up. Love the car though!
yeah I added that as a note in the description unfortunately my microphone had a bit of an issue at the start so it’s getting sent back
Another AWESOME video. How do you make so many of these? :-)
Platinum and Midas Gold were two different colours. My father owned a Midas Gold SD1 3500- there was no reference to platinum. Platinum was one of the colour options for the SD1.
I'm hankering after my old V8S in Triton Green with gold alloys like those and a Borg Warner 65 3 speed auto gearbox: FOJ687V. Used it go to the French Alps on holiday. The electric window switches kept failing and the swimming pool in the boot helped traction. I thought that the bumpers were chrome: perhaps the paint had come off mine! If I remember rightly the V8S was a limited edition packed with all the extras available at the time and the forerunner to the Series 2 VDP.
Had many series one's and a couple of series two's which always felt cheaper inside.
The manual v8's always seemed really economical considering engine size.
This SD1 was sold for measely sum of 975£ to the current owner. Because i've saw it on facebook in SD1 group
Just discovered your channel I am liking and subscribing.
Good presentation.
The beautiful Rover SD1 styling remains undated and this early model looks amazing except for those gold wheels which is just to much gold for my taste, nice enjoyable video well captured and presented, my own series 2 from 1984 was great to drive and fabulously cmfortable unfortunatly the build quality was appauling and it was lost quickly to the demon rust. Thanks for posting!
I went to an old car bookshop and found some lovely catalogues, wish could share with you folks.
I had two V8s...an early model.. base model...with the metal badge up front...Had twin strombergs. Then I bought a mint condition fully mechanically restored Vanden Plas in silver mink finish this was fuel injected.
A car in mint condition! A question from Spain where this Rover was really very rare: is it easy to find any units still in good condition? And what price can sellers be asking? Thanks in advance, Tom. Regards from Carlos
There are a few SD1s for sale at any time in the UK it seems. They range between £800-£1000 for a project and good cars seem to go for £2500+ now with V8, Vitesse, VDP and EFi models being £5000 starting and going all the way up to £12000
I had to watch this video again as this SD1 V8S is just so stunning - still not sold on the gold wheels though!
The v8s was a nice spec car. Owned one back in the day , but I think the "Halo" model was the ultra rare mk 1 vanden plas . Owned an x reg one in the coulor of the rover in this video, with chocolate brown leather!. Also the v8s did not come as standard with headlamp washers,a rare option.
Great video but when are you doing the one about the rover 400?
Still trying to get my hands on one
Very rare car and aimed at the American market
Bloody love this
Cheers James, was a great day :)
Very VERY nice motor! 👌
My father had one of the first SD1's in 1976, a Brazilia brown 3500 auto with beige interior, electric windows and electric aerial!!
Its design really was groundbreaking, and ahead of anything else, unfortunately the build quality let it down badly, and it didn't quite have the luxury of the Jaguar XJ6.
I owned a black "79 V8S Auto in the 80's brought up from London to Scotland then sold to myself from the 2nd owner. Registration was V8 --- but cannot remember the full plate,
That V8 roar
Beautiful car. M.
J'ai exactement la même ( même couleur ) mais pas le même moteur 😭 j'ai le 2600 6 cylindres en ligne , je rêve du modèle V8..
Tim, get that headlining sorted!
Apparently not on these, but definitely did on the P6. The owner posted above.
@@preynolds900 ???
they should have made a standard 3500 at 155bhp..they were really frugalwith the power .then they should of made the v8s at 185bhp then the vandan plas at 200bhp then the vitesse at 220bhp. .....but they didnt.u can tell straight away it was made before 82 because of the rear window without the angles in the bottom corners the early version has a better dash in my opinion the linear displays look a bit bare
122 mph for the auto and 126 mph for the manual fast for that era!
Only two colours, Midas Gold and Persian Aqua. Both had the gold wheels. This car has had front end damage that's been poorly repaired and of course the new paint is probably hiding a multitude of sins.
I think the interior was that colour so smokers felt at home.
Of course.
Amazing to look at and amazing to drive spen king and Dave Bache did an amazing job unfortunately left it to the monkeys to put together but it’s still fantastic. I had a race with a 3litre capri
In the first one I drove and destroyed it bless lovely thing 😁
Jesus. How many nappies did they inspect before deciding on that interior colour?
Nice car with the AWESOME Rover/Buick V8. But I would suggest scripting your videos, as your dialogue was all over the place. You also at one point, mentioned that this was a Rover 800, @ 0:13 which it is not! So a little bit more thought is needed for a more polished result.
The sound is a bit crap!!!!!!!!!!! but the content is really good 👍👍
The GM180 auto did not come along until around 1983 (82 production).
It should have a Borg Warner type 65, which was far better than the GM box. Manuals were totally pointless.
The S denotes it is a manual transmission.
See above, S was the trim level, with auto and manual both offered.
Will the SD1 go up it value?
Yes, they already are
What were they thing with the inset headlights 🤦
I may be wrong but is mine the one thats in a garage? Always getting told to finish it 😬
Rover 800? You mean SD1!!!
Sheldon might sell you an SD1 haha
I may already have one lined up but we’ll see, Sheldon is a top lad, love his stuff.
more sound plz
And where did you get the top you're wearing in this video - I want one!
Urban Outfitters but it was a while ago
None of the exterior trim is chrome on the SD1- it's stainless steel ;)
My dad had one of these in blue. I never got it to go above 108 mp/h...
What engine? My dad had a 2.0, the smallest engine, it cruised at 110, and did 120 once downhill full of people and the wind behind us!! Loved that car.....👍🏼😎
@@preynolds900 3.5 litre, a monster!
@@titmus312 must have had a serious problem, meat to have over 120 mph top speed officially!
@@preynolds900 Oh, it could have done 120+ easily, i just didn't have the bottle at 17 or 18!
👌👌
Guy needs to buy himself a microphone
You need to show what you’re talking about, like the rear door interior features. Also, get a haircut and your hair won’t touch the roof, even though the headliner is coming down.
Classic droopy headlining. Only had 135 bhp which is'n't much for 3500cc. Bit rusty in the tailgate. But a nice car.
Headliner now fixed, 155bhp actually, this is my car.
It’s not a Rover 800 mate ..
Have you ever heard of someone perhaps… misspeaking?
We had a blue one and black. This young man makes me laugh ash tray is the word, tea shelf . The s was to use up car1980 saw the mk2 and vdp as top spc lux vitesse. Bess this young man he not had much experience of luxury car. I wa brought up on sdi jaguar xj / daimler Ford Granada mercedes se sel these where my childhood cars that my family used many school runs in the back of these cars. Trips to france and Spain we also had large lancia gamma which where very special.
But this young does not travel in today xj and 7 series or s class. Rover today would be a 5 series e class
Loved these rovers but xj was still my first choice in the morning
This is an older video Keith and I am from a family who didn’t have cars, lived in an estate in Scunthorpe.
@@tomdrives love your enthusiasm and your excitement growing up around these car I sort of took them for granted but i love the way you are so passionate aboutvthese cars they where good take no notice of those who knock British cars they where good I still love them . I have lots of nice modern cars but I still love these cars from my childhood
The S models were all manual boxes. Same as the P6's.
Nope…autos were optional and more common….this is my car so I know.
I thought that too, car companies love to confuse us!!
ASHTRAY
Sent me to sleep. Beef it up lad and make it more interesting
This is a very old video, not one of my best. I'd perhaps look at the newer stuff. I keep this one up because the videography is really quite good.
Obviously....of course.....nice try. Remember its not about you, its about the car. Never previously aware of this model variant so was really interested. Tuned out after two minutes though.
This has to be the most tone deaf thing I’ve ever read, I don’t usually respond but I don’t understand this comment, it’s about my first impressions of the car, which is in the title, the patronising tone of your comment really says a lot of your expectations. If you are expecting me to spout a Wikipedia page, go elsewhere this channel isn’t for you.
@@tomdrives sorry. It was about you then. My mistake.
Great video, really enjoyed it.