HMC- Return of the Cheeky 500

[808 Estate]

That interior is properly lush.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Schaefft said:

You had to pay extra for your Rover to have coolant...?

No. Coolant (water, de-mineralised if you were lucky) was supplied. Anti-freeze was extra, to stop it freezing. Hard times, back then 😀

[N Dentressangle]

Interestingly, £1946 in 1971 would be about £24k today

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

You don't get a car anything like as nice as that for £24k these days

 

[EyesWeldedShut]

27 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

No. Coolant (water, de-mineralised if you were lucky) was supplied. Anti-freeze was extra, to stop it freezing. Hard times, back then 😀

Posh cars had stickers a bit like this ... plebs drained the block .... winter we'd drain the tractors each night with a teeny, tiny tap on the side of the block.

[High Jetter]

Some cars were just drained and left, in the cold months. Who was Bluecol's competitor? I remember having stacks of 5l tins (yes kids, even rolls of Sellotape came in tins) stacked up in windows of the Longlife shops I shirked worked in.

[Yoss]

3 hours ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Posh cars had stickers a bit like this ... plebs drained the block .... winter we'd drain the tractors each night with a teeny, tiny tap on the side of the block.

I still have one of those in my Triumph. 

[Sigmund Fraud]

26 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Who was Bluecol's competitor?

[High Jetter]

16 minutes ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

Yes! Not as generous though, I got several bottles of Remy Martin from Bluecol for sale volume. The now Mrs J enjoyed them!

[2flags]

18 hours ago, HMC said:

so the granny has been moved on to be collected next week- because at heart im more of a p6 man to be honest. What to do? - get hold of a P6 - i regretted moving the @NorthernMonkey p6 on last year.

our man @bramz7 actually papped the very same p6 in 2019….

copwright @bramz7 2019

I love these leylandised p6s for some reason, and this one has a cool interior specified from new…

I love the fact you had to pay extra for seat belts! They are not even inertia reels! To have to pay extra for the heated rear screen! No wonder the Japanese did so well when they came on the market as all this came as standard! [Is this where Mercedes and BMW got the idea to make everything an option. 'Oh, you want wheels, seats, brakes and an engine. That will be extra sir.] I do love a P6. Brought my eldest two home in one. Lovely cars. 

[barefoot]

How much petrol did you get for £3.80? I remember my old man moaning when it went up to 50p a galleon!

[Metal Guru]

27 minutes ago, barefoot said:

How much petrol did you get for £3.80? I remember my old man moaning when it went up to 50p a galleon!

J reg is 71-72, pre the first oil crisis in 1973. I remember the price doubled then from about 35p to 70+. So in 71-72 you’d be talking about 30p, so probably a full tank.

[2flags]

When I first had my moped in'73 petrol was 37p a gallon. I remember being charged over a £1.00 for petrol. It still ran out almost straight away. Felt properly ripped off by this, so it might have had a full tank, or could have been almost empty.

[flat4alfa]

15 hours ago, barefoot said:

50p a galleon!

Thats cheap

[flat4alfa]

In 1972 the average weekly earnings for men over 21 were £36.60, and for women over 18 £20.50. The average house price was around £4,000 and typically a bank would lend on the man’s income multiple only

Seat belts worn was not law until 1983.  They only became compulsory - with existing attachment points - in 1970. In 1974, there was a transitional regulation stating that seat belts should be retrofitted in all vehicles built after that date if the manufacturer had not already done so

Nice looking Rover. I kept a 3500 for a few years

[cort1977]

27 minutes ago, flat4alfa said:

Thats cheap

 

Was going to say, you could barely get a rowing boat for that these days...

[captain_70s]

2 hours ago, flat4alfa said:

In 1972 the average weekly earnings for men over 21 were £36.60, and for women over 18 £20.50. The average house price was around £4,000 and typically a bank would lend on the man’s income multiple only

So the average house price was only around double the avg annual wage of a man? Surely that can't be right?

[Rave]

https://www.schroders.com/en-gb/uk/individual/insights/what-174-years-of-data-tell-us-about-house-price-affordability-in-the-uk/

[mk2_craig]

1 hour ago, captain_70s said:

So the average house price was only around double the avg annual wage of a man? Surely that can't be right?

My father in law swears blind that the new build 3 bed semi house he bought in 1974 cost £7k, his weekly wage was £25, and exactly 50% of his earnings were taken up by the mortgage payment. 

[Rocket88]

20 hours ago, barefoot said:

How much petrol did you get for £3.80? I remember my old man moaning when it went up to 50p a galleon!

Seems cheap enough…

[HMC]

Last trip of the academic year out to exeter.

Id tapped up the live temperature from the hidden menu thing. quite a bit of stop start crawling….

Yes folks, thats 110 degrees c. Whilst shitting my pants, the main cooling fan kicked in and brought things down to just under 100. No steam or underbonnet meltdowns. The revs are raised as i was experimenting with holding the engine above idle and not under load to see if the water pump managed to lower the coolant temps at all. Yes i was bored in that traffic jam.

Its shows how useless the actual gauge is- which seems to show midway from actual values of about 65 to 110 (!) but i read online that the 1.8k does run at about 90-95 normally- which this does. And the fan on full usually kicks in at about 110-115 (which this does) 

So the HGF spectre hangs in the air like a bad smell  but its running on all 4, and isnt overheating as such, nor producing mayo or making a mushroom cloud from under the bonnet.

Plus I love cruising about in it. 

 

[Split_Pin]

Crikey that's hot! Diesels rarely tip over 95.

The hidden menu is brilliant.

[AnthonyG]

On 22/06/2024 at 17:41, HMC said:

 Were they used as government cars? I can see one parked outside the department for work and pensions c.2004 quietly boiling over.

A few prefacelift ones were used but they were nothing like as popular for government use as the 800 was.

Main issue was the lack of rear space, especially legroom, in comparison to the 800. So the most common ministerial vehicle (if you didn’t rate a Jag) in the later Blair era was the post facelift Vauxhall Omega, another subject of this thread. If you were a really junior minister you might have been ferried around in a Mondeo (Mk3 or 4).  Mk2 Galaxys were also used a lot in the Brown/early Cameron era. 

After about 2012-3 hybrids were used a lot more, and later on then electric cars for virtue signalling reasons. I’m reading Rory Stewart’s book at the mo, when he finally reached cabinet level as Minister for International Development in 2019 he got a Jaguar I-Pace. 

MG Rover did do a mildly lengthened 75 for the chauffeur driven market. The stretch was subtle enough to almost not be noticeable, like an ‘long wheelbase’  early 70s XJ6.  I think the City of Westminster mayor (as opposed to Red Ken or BoJo) used one of these. I don’t think there were any facelift versions, they were all built between 2000 and 2003. 

[Cookiesouwest]

Shirley if it was OMG HGF, it would have produced mayo by now?

[Rave]

3 hours ago, Cookiesouwest said:

Shirley if it was OMG HGF, it would have produced mayo by now?

I reckon it could just be a little hole between a cylinder and a water jacket, and all the oil galleries are intact?

I based my diagnosis of head gasket failure on it pressurising the coolant and eventually turning some test fluid green, but it took a while. Plus don't forget it's had a bottle of sealant in it so there's every possibility that it'll be fine for a while yet...

[wuvvum]

5 hours ago, AnthonyG said:

MG Rover did do a mildly lengthened 75 for the chauffeur driven market. The stretch was subtle enough to almost not be noticeable, like an ‘long wheelbase’  early 70s XJ6.  I think the City of Westminster mayor (as opposed to Red Ken or BoJo) used one of these. I don’t think there were any facelift versions, they were all built between 2000 and 2003. 

When did they bring out the LWB version?  I've only ever seen facelift ones.

[HMC]

I waved goodbye to the Granada earlier. @rob88h It was a pleasure meeting you, to a fanboi such as myself it was like having Rod Mansfield visit.

Meanwhile ive decided that the 75 is such a nice car i’ll get local mg rover specialist exeter road garage to pull the 1.8k to bits and thoroughly sort the headgasket and associated bits; channeling my inner Gandalf at the combustion gasses…

 

[2flags]

I do find it funny that those who slag off the Rover75 are, for the most part, people who have never owned or driven them. Those who have appreciate just what a lovely drive they are. For a car that was launched 25 years ago, they really are smooth and comfortable. The great thing about them now, is they are so cheap. If you haven't already driven one, I advise you to do so. but don't wait too long. They are fading fast. In five years, there will be very few left. 

[bramz7]

I had a 1.8 for a few months last year with beige velour and it was a really nice old thing to cruise in. It wasn't quick, but wasn't deathly slow. It even did a surprisingly good MPG. My only complaint was the gear change did not enjoy to be hurried at all, it was not particularly happy at town driving and the need to change gears frequently if in traffic. But on the open road, genuinely good. 

[wuvvum]

15 minutes ago, 2flags said:

I do find it funny that those who slag off the Rover75 are, for the most part, people who have never owned or driven them. Those who have appreciate just what a lovely drive they are. For a car that was launched 25 years ago, they really are smooth and comfortable. The great thing about them now, is they are so cheap. If you haven't already driven one, I advise you to do so. but don't wait too long. They are fading fast. In five years, there will be very few left. 

They're already getting rare enough that drivers wave at each other.  Well they do round here anyway.

[Split_Pin]

It's a weird one. It's way better than a Vectra but nowhere near as good as a 5 series. And of course, as it fell into neither category. They just 'are' and there's never been anything else like it. It's the one car of mine I'll never sell.