Thread of Rover Borrowage NOW with Rover Returned.

[Guest Breadvan72]

I can HAZ done a borrowage of the very fine Rovaaaaaaahhhhhhh SD1 V8 owned by Sir Lord Skizzer of Skizzeringhamtopshire, as featured to general (non Triumph) acclaim at Shitefest '14.  The plan is to use it to take my old mum, my nephew and my squeeze down to Glynders dahleengs, rocking up in something smooooooth and classique, to listen to some stuff about Russians writing long letters, shooting their bezzy mates, and having a bit of a shit time really (the Russians, that is, not us).  

All this with a slap up feed in a basket in the boot, and some bottles of Co-op Prosecco, cuz we is that classy like. 

 

Skizzer suggested a collection thread, and I can offer the tales of woe and swearing, but no photoze as yet.     

 

Skiz is getting the arse end of this deal as he was supposed to get my Lancia Volumex in return, but has had to settle for an OK but actually a bit modern Alfa 156 (at least it's a pezzer with six cylinders), because the fuel pump on the Lancia is FUBAR.

 

After top secret key exchange and Negroni drinking at a suitably motoring related venue up that London last night, I rose early this morning and drove the Alfa the wrong way from South Oxon to Swindon, where Skizzer had kindly positioned it on Monday.

 

I got lost in Swindon's impenetrable maze of roundabouts, said many sweary sayings, got sent to several wrong car parks by well intentioned but shitfabrains locals, eventually found the right car park, freaked out as I couldn't see the Rover, and found it hiding in sunshine (literally couldn't see it cos too sunny and car too bronzey fabby).   I then flapped about starting it and sent bonkers fretty emails to Skizzer, who was having meetings of very importance up Smokeyville but maintained his imperturbable calm.  Then vroom vroom, and off I went, and what a motor it is.  

 

Such waft.  Very petrol.  So velour. Many seventies.  Wow.

 

Fotarz laters. 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Be careful in Sussex, Tchaikovsky will attract a lot of teary eyed oligarchs and gangsters.

The last time they saw an SD1 it was tailing them in their old jobs as cultural attache* beware of pointy umbrellas and cups of polonium.

[Guest Breadvan72]

To show how tough these old Rovers are, I drove it through this wall.  Not a mark on  the car.  Nails, it is.

 

 

 

 

[beko1987]

You still want to borrow some tools?

[oman5]

these are fantastic lookers. must have been mind blowing in '76.

[Guest Breadvan72]

FAKE money shot.  No actual pez bought here, as had bought posh pezzer earlier, but bonus Mrs BV gurning it up in this one. 

​Note additional bonus promotional material for Ginster's Buffet Bar of SHAEM and similar quality snack products.

[Sloth in a bowl]

I can HAZ done a borrowage of the very fine Rovaaaaaaahhhhhhh SD1 V8 owned by Sir Lord Skizzer of Skizzeringhamtopshire, as featured to general (non Triumph) acclaim at Shitefest '14.  The plan is to use it to take my old mum, my nephew and my squeeze down to Glynders dahleengs, rocking up in something smooooooth and classique, to listen to some stuff about Russians writing long letters, shooting their bezzy mates, and having a bit of a shit time really (the Russians, that is, not us).  

All this with a slap up feed in a basket in the boot, and some bottles of Co-op Prosecco, cuz we is that classy like. 

 

Skizzer suggested a collection thread, and I can offer the tales of woe and swearing, but no photoze as yet.     

 

Skiz is getting the arse end of this deal as he was supposed to get my Lancia Volumex in return, but has had to settle for an OK but actually a bit modern Alfa 156 (at least it's a pezzer with cylinders), because the fuel pump on the Lancia is FUBAR.

 

After top secret key exchange and Negroni drinking at a suitably motoring related venue up that London last night, I rose early this morning and drove the Alfa the wrong way from South Oxon to Swindon, where Skizzer had kindly positioned it on Monday.

 

I got lost in Swindon's impenetrable maze of roundabouts, said many sweary sayings, got sent to several wrong car parks by well intentioned but shitfabrains locals, eventually found the right car park, freaked out as I couldn't see the Rover, and found it hiding in sunshine (literally couldn't see it cos too sunny and car too bronzey fabby).   I then flapped about starting it and sent bonkers fretty emails to Skizzer, who was having meetings of very importance up Smokeyville but maintained his imperturbable calm.  Then vroom vroom, and off I went, and what a motor it is.  

 

Such waft.  Very petrol.  So velour. Many seventies.  Wow.

 

Fotarz laters. 

 

 

Lovely car to travel in, properly comfy and with epic comedy window controls. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't.

[brickwall]

It really suits that colour.

[rml2345]

These are FAB in the back, where I spent some of Shitefest pretending to be Michael Edwardes. 
Top....Errrrrr... Yes!

[Skizzer]

 

Extra points if you drove it into the wall sideways, in proper Bodie/Doyle style.

 

I was a bit worried about the, ah, starting issues, especially as I'd already cashed in my payment in Negronis and a rather tasty dinner.  Glad it fired up in the end.

 

Good luck getting those windows wound back up, by the way.  Remember - Daley Thompson's Decathlon on the ZX Spectrum.

[HMC]

Great place to take the old rover. Really tidy ones like skizzer's cut quite a dash, even amongst none car people. The bold seventiesness of it I bet went down a storm.

 

LOL at the Edwardes impression. IIRC he used a one off estate in a similar colour as his personal car

[Guest Breadvan72]

Operation Ãƒâ€°pater la bourgeoisie is on Friday.  I will get some photos of the Rover parked up in the disabled bay  (worry not, my mum is genuinely disabled and has a badge), perhaps with my languid, floppy haired undergraduate nephew being louche in the general vicinity thereof.

 

The starting issue was pure operator error.  Windows, as noted, are v comedy.  Passenger side window bobs up and down like an intern's head in the Oval Office.  The driver's one requires the muchly finger stabbage - hence the very apt ZX Spectrum reference above .

 

This car has a very pleasant and precise manual gearchange and the gearing ratios suit the car.  Rover really sorted the handling, live axle notwithstanding.  Compared to my last big V8 ride experience (Jensen), the Rover is much more handly, and the ride quality is ace.  

 

The brown vinyl and velour of the interior are pure seventies heaven.  Original Unipart tape deck still fitted - it's shit!

 

There were just two SD1 Estates, apparently,and Edwardes indeed bagged one as his personal wheels.  Haynes now have one, Gaydon another according to the Wikifibs page.

 

My dad is here this evening and will go mental with joy, I reckon.   He worked on the SD1 project and briefly had one to replace his company Princess when his boss was away for a while.  He loved it.

[Guest Breadvan72]

http://www.quicks.co.uk/news/2013/rewind-1977-rover-3500/

 

[Guest Breadvan72]

The Rover was so happy this morning when I took it for a gentle 5 AM blat to the M40 services near Oxford to buy teabags  (because YOLO), overtaking a 2014 Aston GT in the process, that the window on the driver's side went up in one smooth go.  

 

Skizzer is totes Mr Jam, because there are no other good ones of these on sale at the moment, as far as I can tell.   I am told that the 2.6s and so on are a bit meh by comparison with the V8.  There is an ex California car on sale, but that is LHD and well spenner and can FRO.

 

The effortless power delivery from the 3.5 V8 is immensely rewarding, and the engine is less lazy than the 6.3 Chrysler lump that I used to smoke about with. The car can be a wafty cruiser, or a hustly, sporty A and B road muncher.    It is roomy inside, but looks and feels low and compact on the road, and is dwarfed in a car park by modern Bimmers etc.    Great steering, decent brakes, great grip on the period looking Dunlop tyres.   It's all just Win City, Arizona.

 

The car is so quick that a Vitesse one must be mental, and a twin plenum Vitesse one must be mentally mental. 

[RobT]

Great stuff shiters lending motors to eachother.  Anyone want to borrow a Rover 416 in exhange for a Jensen Interceptor?

 

No, thought not...

[oman5]

2600 manuals are not bad at all. they like an oil change every 100 yards though if you want them to last. but can be made to produce much power by simply opening up the inlet tracts a bit..they were detuned when new as they were producing 150 bhp which is damn near what the range topping (and more expensive v8s) were getting.

[Junkman]

One of my Granduncles was corrupt enough to ride on the gravy train of the Stalinist regime our poor Alpine republic had to endure in the Seventies.

This enabled him to trade in his P6 V8 for a new SD1 V8 in 1977, right when it became available at BL Austria. It was screaming yellow with a brown interior.

The car caused a sensation when it was launched, something that actually hasn't happened since, so younger readers may not understand that there once were times,

when a new car launch could actually cause a sensation.

I loved the car and used every opportunity to have a ride in it. It did indeed cause quite some stir wherever it was parked, even in a metropolis like Vienna.

Even my father, who is not a car guy at all (he had taken delivery of a new screaming yellow R16 TX just weeks before), was impressed and liked it,

but it was severely out of his reach, him being a commoner having to fend for a family in the private sector.

[Guest Breadvan72]

[insert standard "Junkman, stop being such a fucking Nazi, it's not like you're Austrian like that dude with the moustache or anything" comment.]

 

 

Check out this SEVENTIESTASTIC Interior.  Also Mrs BV doing a Joan Didion.


I is want a blue one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[barefoot]

I'm guessing that Joan Didion was an inept hairdresser?

 

I'll go google

[Guest Breadvan72]

Cultural commentator and novelist and shiz.

[Guest Breadvan72]

Mrs BV is a TV film maker, and she made a South Bank Show about Didion a while back, and always likes to do the Didion car shot in old motahs.







 

[Junkman]

Corvette is quite w00t, though.

[Guest Breadvan72]

Tis Woot.  Here is Mrs BV getting her Didion on in me old Excel, now being refurberooned by Des of this Parish  (car, that is, not Mrs BV).

 

Also in a rented Pokkaboxsta.  There is one of her doing a Didion in the Fabboceptor somewhere, but it is lost in the depths of Facebook, or some such silly place.

 

[Guest Breadvan72]

Didion and Mrs BV both like to do that leaning on sporty cars shiz.  Well, Didion is quite old now, but she used to like all that.

 

 

 

 

 

[urpert]

these are fantastic lookers. must have been mind blowing in '76.

I will forever regret not talking my father in law out of scrapping the 2 tatty examples he used to run (before he was my father in law). Perhaps my favourite British car EVAR

 

(He now has a garage stuffed with 800s but I've never seen the appeal. Too sensible by half.)

[Guest Breadvan72]

Hey, this car is ace for picking up birds.

 

Whoops.  I wasn't even going that fast, honest.  Young bird, bit inexperienced, sorry. 

 

 

[urpert]

 

The effortless power delivery from the 3.5 V8 is immensely rewarding, and the engine is less lazy than the 6.3 Chrysler lump that I used to smoke about with. The car can be a wafty cruiser, or a hustly, sporty A and B road muncher.    It is roomy inside, but looks and feels low and compact on the road, and is dwarfed in a car park by modern Bimmers etc.    Great steering, decent brakes, great grip on the period looking Dunlop tyres.   It's all just Win City, Arizona.

 

The car is so quick that a Vitesse one must be mental, and a twin plenum Vitesse one must be mentally mental.

 

Don't forget to mention the ludicrously cool "R O V E R" and "3 5 0 0" badging on the back.

[urpert]

ah, I'd forgotten the vent which points directly at the passenger's navel

[eddyramrod]

Oops!  Did it survive?

[Guest Breadvan72]

 

Don't forget to mention the ludicrously cool "R O V E R" and "3 5 0 0" badging on the back.

 

 

 

 

Viz:-