Variants we never got

[jmsguzzi]

5 hours ago, Motown said:

Proper little detective! Nice work much appreciated. Do you think the plates may have been moved/sold on or its actually the concept car? If it is the car i would love to see it or at the very least know more about it. 

It's definitely not a real car, the picture posted is just a computer rendered image probably made by a Rover fan. There's no way Jaguar would of even built this as a concept car. Who actually owns the rights to the Rover name and badge now?

[quicksilver]

14 minutes ago, jmsguzzi said:

It's definitely not a real car, the picture posted is just a computer rendered image probably made by a Rover fan. There's no way Jaguar would of even built this as a concept car. Who actually owns the rights to the Rover name and badge now?

Fun* fact: MGR never actually owned the Rover name and licensed it from BMW. As I understand it, after MGR went kaput Ford bought the name from BMW to prevent it falling into the hands of a competitor and causing confusion with Land Rover, so it presumably now belongs to JLR. I'm sure I've seen that 'SD1' before and it's just a Photoshop creation, possibly based on a photo of the actual XJ with that reg.

[2flags]

6 hours ago, New POD said:

I have anacdotally heard about 3 door mk2 escorts built by mistake, marinas with drum brakes on one front side and discs on the other.  Avengers with a different shade of green paint on each side (due to one painter saying "what colour is this one" and the other saying "Apple green" and the first hearing "fucking green, twat" 

I know for a fact that there was a Marina with disc on one side and drums on the other as we had one in for a service with the driver complaining of it pulling to one side on braking! It was sent back to the factory.

[Motown]

6 hours ago, Stanky said:

Thats the tough bit, the plate could have been moved to an actual XJ, or never left the actual XJ and just been used for the publicity shots you have shared, and its just on some leggy XJ somewhere. It seems to be doing a decent mileage between tests, 7-10k per year so whatever the plate is on is driving about somewhere in the wild.

 

Googling the reg turns up a small number of pics of an ACTUAL XJ in pale blue with that reg

so it may be that the concept never saw the actual road, and just had the plate of this car stuck on for the pics?

Agreed the concept car probably never saw the road and just had the Jag plate. Id love to know what happened to the concept car. If Rover still existed I’d buy one tomorrow.
 

I suppose a man can dream eh.... 

 

[New POD]

12 minutes ago, 2flags said:

I know for a fact that there was a Marina with disc on one side and drums on the other as we had one in for a service with the driver complaining of it pulling to one side on braking! It was sent back to the factory.

There was more than one.  A lecturer at Coventry University used to work for AP brakes.  He was sent to the factory to investigate, because they had a few cars that the end of line road test inspectors had quarantined due to braking pulling to one side. 

[Motown]

1 hour ago, jmsguzzi said:

It's definitely not a real car, the picture posted is just a computer rendered image probably made by a Rover fan. There's no way Jaguar would of even built this as a concept car. Who actually owns the rights to the Rover name and badge now?

You could have let me down lightly 😆

I believe Jaguar Land Rover owns the rights to the name and badge it’s about time they brought it back in my opinion. Surely there’s a market for affordable British cars in 2020. 
 

If Rover returned and made affordable cars that were manufactured or at the very least assembled in this country I’d buy one in a heartbeat. Granted they would need to start small don’t want history repeating itself.  However I think some nod or acknowledgement to Rovers past/heritage needs to be implemented within the marque

Look at me banging on.... Its a pipe dream

[2flags]

1 minute ago, New POD said:

There was more than one.  A lecturer at Coventry University used to work for AP brakes.  He was sent to the factory to investigate, because they had a few cars that the end of line road test inspectors had quarantined due to braking pulling to one side. 

This was just typical for the time. "We've run out on disc brakes here!" "Never mind, just chuck the drum brakes on. They're in the bin behind you!" It's no wonder with things like this happening that people lost faith in them.

[2flags]

2 minutes ago, Motown said:

You could have let me down lightly 😆

I believe Jaguar Land Rover owns the rights to the name and badge it’s about time they brought it back in my opinion. Surely there’s a market for affordable British cars in 2020. 
 

If Rover returned and made affordable cars that were manufactured or at the very least assembled in this country I’d buy one in a heartbeat. Granted they would need to start small don’t want history repeating itself.  However I think some nod or acknowledgement to Rovers past/heritage needs to be implemented within the marque

Look at me banging on.... Its a pipe dream

What about a line of small electric cars? Would be a great revival to use that name in a small family sized car powered by electricery.

[New POD]

9 minutes ago, 2flags said:

This was just typical for the time. "We've run out on disc brakes here!" "Never mind, just chuck the drum brakes on. They're in the bin behind you!" It's no wonder with things like this happening that people lost faith in them.

I did some work down at Lucas Car brakes in pontypool, on the rear brake machining line.  The project manager came up with a great plan which meant they only needed half the tooling on the rotary transfer machining centres.  Instead of buying 8 sets of left and 8 sets of right tooling. And making 2000 left brakes followed by 1000 right brakes, and then have the machine fail,  they made a left followed by right and then a left and a right and so on.

 So if the machine stopped there was an even number of each side manufactured. 

[sheffcortinacentre]

By the mid 70's ford said UK buyers of mid & large saloons ( esp higher spec versions) didn't like "  clambering in & out of the rear passenger compartment"  hence the general reduction in higher spec MK3 cortina 2drs in facelift form ( no 2000E was every built from my research) & only base/ L MK4/5's were sold here, similar insight was gained by the poor sales of the MK1 Granada coupe.

[Motown]

30 minutes ago, 2flags said:

What about a line of small electric cars? Would be a great revival to use that name in a small family sized car powered by electricery.

Great idea! Although I have to say am not against elecy I just don’t think the technology is there yet... The infrastructure needs expanding for a start I don’t want to run out of juice on a smart motorway  because the range is shite and there’s no charge station for 40 mile 😳

[2flags]

6 minutes ago, Motown said:

Great idea! Although I have to say am not against elecy I just don’t think the technology is there yet... The infrastructure needs expanding for a start I don’t want to run out of juice on a smart motorway  because the range is shite and there’s no charge station for 40 mile 😳

It's also the price. Jaguar F Pace £40,860 start price, Jaguar I Pace £65,195. I can buy an awful lot of petrol/diesel for £25,000. I know these are starting prices, but even if you put £10,000 extras on the F Pace there is still one hell of a gap.

[sierraman]

3 hours ago, Motown said:

You could have let me down lightly 😆

I believe Jaguar Land Rover owns the rights to the name and badge it’s about time they brought it back in my opinion. Surely there’s a market for affordable British cars in 2020. 
 

If Rover returned and made affordable cars that were manufactured or at the very least assembled in this country I’d buy one in a heartbeat. Granted they would need to start small don’t want history repeating itself.  However I think some nod or acknowledgement to Rovers past/heritage needs to be implemented within the marque

Look at me banging on.... Its a pipe dream

I can’t see them bringing back the Rover name, to anyone over 30 it’s synonymous with old folks cars. The moment has passed, the whole brand went down the pan by 2005. 

[Mrs6C]

On 18/12/2020 at 00:27, bunglebus said:

Renault 7

/

Didn't someone on here buy one of these a couple of years ago?

[somewhatfoolish]

@panhard65 I think.

[Motown]

3 hours ago, sierraman said:

I can’t see them bringing back the Rover name, to anyone over 30 it’s synonymous with old folks cars. The moment has passed, the whole brand went down the pan by 2005. 

Am well over thirty and never viewed them as old man cars however I do see a lot of old men driving them so your probably right. I still believe they made some great cars and were in some ways innovative P6 and 800 are two such examples. The 800 interior must have felt like a spaceship in 86/89 when the saloon and fastbacks were release. 

[artdjones]

Did you get the diesel Fluence over there?

[artdjones]

Or the various Corolla saloons?

[Rod/b]

16 hours ago, Motown said:

Yup the modern version never got further than one concept car with Jaguar underpinning i think 

This never got further than some fanboy doing a rendering. 
https://www.autobild.de/bilder/autos-die-uns-fehlen-teil-4-3766083.html#bild13

 

[warch]

On the subject of Rovers in addition to the rather jolly looking V8 engined North American Specification Land Rover, and a rare 60s era six cylinder variant with a high performance head and limited slip differential I would like to have had the option of buying this.

Land Rover South Africa sold a Defender with the super smooth 2.8 engine out of a Beemer situated where that rattly old diesel lump normally lives. The bastards...

[HMC]

Lancia thema estate. I’m hoping they did (or someone has since made) an 8.32 version. Something Gianni Agnelli would have arranged as a one off for himself perhaps.

Edit- such a car was a thing (with Agnelli as owner too

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/13162/lot/222/

 

[sierraman]

4 hours ago, Motown said:

Am well over thirty and never viewed them as old man cars however I do see a lot of old men driving them so your probably right. I still believe they made some great cars and were in some ways innovative P6 and 800 are two such examples. The 800 interior must have felt like a spaceship in 86/89 when the saloon and fastbacks were release. 

A mates dad had an 800 Vitesse. Fantastic car, went like stink. 

[Landy Mann]

On 12/17/2020 at 6:55 PM, sierraman said:

Thinking today about the shite we never got for some inexplicable reason, most disappointingly we didn’t get the Mk1 Megane Estate. 

Small estates are underrated, I looks like we might not get the next Dacia Logan MCV... Either

[155V6]

11 hours ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

By the mid 70's ford said UK buyers of mid & large saloons ( esp higher spec versions) didn't like "  clambering in & out of the rear passenger compartment"  hence the general reduction in higher spec MK3 cortina 2drs in facelift form ( no 2000E was every built from my research) & only base/ L MK4/5's were sold here, similar insight was gained by the poor sales of the MK1 Granada coupe.

I remember a facelift MK3 2 door GT being parked on a local driveway in the early eighties,I don't think I've seen another one since.

[Rod/b]

Think yourselves lucky that the UK didn’t get the LR Defender 3 V6 fitted with the 4.0 Ford Cologne lump that we had over here. It’s alright in the Explorer but was a bit shit in the LR3. They do seem to last forever though. 

[cms206]

22 hours ago, sierraman said:

Like these, still a fairly common sight in some parts of Spain. The last ones with the smoked rear lights looked great. 

Never mind those, South America's Chevy Monza was where it was at.

[cms206]

Another estate we didn't get; apparantly only sold in the home market for utility and police use, and 1400cc only.

[Supernaut]

4 hours ago, artdjones said:

Did you get the diesel Fluence over there?

I remember @Tayne telling me about one of these being the UK. I think it was him anyway.

[Asimo]

I like two door cars, base-models with big engines, luxo-barges with economy engines etc etc so have always had a bit of a sulk about the bland, compromised, middle of the road models sold into the British market.

This enough-doors Corsair has just turned up on eBay, a South African import. I don’t think I have ever seen one before, were they ever sold here?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1965-Ford-Corsair-2-door-yes-2-door/143890608115?hash=item21808c6ff3:g:FkkAAOSwTuxf3Pza

 

[willswitchengage]

13 hours ago, Motown said:

You could have let me down lightly 😆

I believe Jaguar Land Rover owns the rights to the name and badge it’s about time they brought it back in my opinion. Surely there’s a market for affordable British cars in 2020. 
 

If Rover returned and made affordable cars that were manufactured or at the very least assembled in this country I’d buy one in a heartbeat. Granted they would need to start small don’t want history repeating itself.  However I think some nod or acknowledgement to Rovers past/heritage needs to be implemented within the marque

Look at me banging on.... Its a pipe dream

It would be amusing to see it as an economy brand like Dacia or Datsun (Sainsbury's Basics cars?) but margins on cheap cars are negligible to negative - I think VW loses money on its small cars, which is subsidised by highly profitable premium cars. I think even making cheap stuff in Eastern Europe the manufacturers barely break even.