Rover 75 – Driven To Write

A year (and a half) with the MG ZT 190

A much delayed one-year owner’s report

As I write this, it is 5 months to the day since I promised DTW’s esteemed editor a one-year report on living with what was, at purchase, an unusually pristine and little-used example of MG’s last-chance, last-shout, last-hurrah (and doomed from the start) sports saloon. My attempt at winning the ‘most delayed DTW article’ award aside, how has 18 months with the ZT190 been?

To start with, the ZT has been, by a comfortable margin, the unluckiest car I have ever known: In the short time I have owned it, it has been crashed into by other drivers twice (at low speeds but still necessitating costly repairs), has lost two tyres to a fight with a sharp piece of metal and just plain lost one of the brackets holding the exhaust in place. To its credit, not even the last of these could be said to be the car’s fault (a replacement exhaust fitted before purchase had not been screwed on properly) and only the tyre puncture left me stranded. Continue reading “A year (and a half) with the MG ZT 190”

Last Chance Saloon: MG Edition

Initial impressions of the Rover 75’s rebellious younger sibling.

Regular DTW readers may by now recognise my curious obsession with the ill-fated products of the late MG Rover company and may also recall a recent report on spending nearly a year with a 2.5 litre Rover 75 Sterling. At the time, I intimated that the Rover had been replaced with something related that was just a little bit rare and special.

Whilst I came very close to Continue reading “Last Chance Saloon: MG Edition”

Rover 75: Long(ish) Term Test

Almost a year with a Rover 75 2.5 litre V6.

I have, on a number of previous occasions, regaled readers of with tales of my odd obsession with Rover’s last (chance) saloon and a number of you were kind enough to express interest in an update regarding my second example of the breed; a 2002-registered (though built in 2001) 2.5 V6 Sterling, known as Connoisseur in the UK market. This car was purchased almost a year ago and has been in regular use as my sole form of motorised transport since then.

My beautifully blue Rover was blessed with two apparently-careful previous owners, who had not neglected its maintenance, and had, for its very nearly 20 years of age, a low kilometerage, to which I have added a good eleven thousand or so. Said car is also one of the most over-specified conveyances I have ever encountered – its original owner having ordered the topmost trim level, added a dark blue personal line leather interior (a lovely thing to have on the 75) and then ticked every other cost-option box on the order form for good measure. Continue reading “Rover 75: Long(ish) Term Test”

Country Club or Brand Values?

Today we muse upon the supposed relation between cars and their countries of origin.

Many years ago, in a British car magazine, I read an interview with an American car company executive about his employer’s attempts to crack the European car market (this was back in the days of efforts like Chrysler’s Neon sub-brand) in which he waxed lyrical on the subject of typically American virtues such as spaciousness in cars. Given that, certainly at the time, my primary association with the concept American car was the TARDIS-in-reverse quality of a typical land-yacht cabin, it wasn’t a terribly convincing argument. Nor did the executive in question seem to Continue reading “Country Club or Brand Values?”

Phoenix Follies (Part Two)

Today, we feature the CityRover, a cynical and poorly executed attempt to plug a perceived gap in MG Rover’s model range.

In 2000, the newly independent MG Rover found itself without a contender in the sub-B city car segment. As the formerly BMW-owned Rover Group, it had continued to field a version of the long-running 1980 Austin Metro, subject of three major facelifts before being renamed Rover 100 in 1994.

Despite its antiquity, it remained popular, at least in the UK, where it was valued for its compact size and nimbleness. A disastrous Euro-NCAP crash test in 1997 however, where the 100 received a uniquely poor one-star rating for adult occupant safety, caused sales to collapse and the model was discontinued the following year. Continue reading “Phoenix Follies (Part Two)”

Recovering A Dream

Oops, I did it again… A belated defence of the Rover 75.

My first contribution to Driven to Write, in the spring of 2018, was to recount the tale of my replacing a V6 Rover 75, following a brief period of ownership, with a new twin cylinder Fiat Panda (as different a car as one could imagine). It was a tale of disillusionment and naivety; of an enthusiast who had not driven regularly for many years aspiring to a car he had admired when new, which turned out to be not entirely suited to his present circumstances.

After a kind reception by the readers of this site, I wrote a follow-up article in which I reviewed my tuned twin-air turbo Panda in more detail; a car that delighted me daily for two and a half years, so much so that I could Continue reading “Recovering A Dream”

Relative Values

Rover’s great aunt marks her 70th. Time to pay our respects.

Reputation can be make or break. Whether it be gained through dynamic prowess, stylistic excellence, or for other, more negative traits, once it has been established, there is little chance of a well orchestrated perception being altered. Certainly by the time production finally ceased, the image of the Rover P4 as stuffy, outdated and overtly conservative had been broadly codified in the consciousness of the press and thereby the public. But it wasn’t always thus.

By the outbreak of the second world war, the Rover motor company was established as the purveyor of finely engineered, upmarket driver’s cars of quality and bearing, favoured by the establishment and by what might have been termed, the professional classes. Dignified, conservative, but by the time hostilities had ceased, somewhat old-fashioned in design and execution.

Like everyone else, Rover’s senior management, led by the Wilks brothers (Maurice and Spencer), were keen to Continue reading “Relative Values”

Summer Reissue : 75 into 190

Reflecting upon the 75’s younger, leerier brother.

The Rover 75 is one of those cars which will probably form the basis of reflection and examination for decades to come. On paper at least, perhaps the most comprehensively realised Rover Group product of all, yet it proved to be a flawed product, courtesy of its problematic K-Series power units and what transpired to be a somewhat quixotic marketing proposition.

But I have not gathered you together today in order to Continue reading “Summer Reissue : 75 into 190”

Small Is Beautiful… and Why Modern Cars Are (usually) Better

Sometimes driving the dream isn’t quite what it is cracked up to be. New contributor Chris Elvin outlines why he’s done a’ Rovering…

Despite passing my driving test shortly after my seventeenth birthday and having been enthusiastic about cars from toddling age, I managed to retain the position of being the only person in my immediate family never to have owned a car until quite recently, in my late 30s.

A combination of city-centre living and having spent most of my adult life in another country to that in which I learned to Continue reading “Small Is Beautiful… and Why Modern Cars Are (usually) Better”

Mercury White Moonlight Makes Landfall on the Littoral

We recently explored the matter of how long it takes to align two ranges of cars when one company takes over another or there is a merger. In the cases of Ford and GM, covered earlier, the process seems to take under a decade. Are there counter examples?

BMW didn´t know what do with this: autoscout24.de

Today I will take a look at the case of Rover, which marque came under the control of BMW in 1994. Rover (when under BL) had already been part of a co-operative venture with Honda.

That process began under the Triumph brand when BL decided to use a slightly modified version of the Ballade as the basis of the Acclaim. The cooperation changed tracks slightly when Triumph was shuttered and Rover began to Continue reading “Mercury White Moonlight Makes Landfall on the Littoral”

Leaving Off The Saws

It’s now autumn, a time to reflect. Recently, DTW has been driving Lancias and we have discussed the decline of this once noble marque. It is not the only brand to have faded away.

In the diagram I have marked the timelines of two other defunct brands: Rover and Saab. Rover closed in 2005 and Saab shut up shop in 2011. You’ll notice that while Rover had no new models in the Phoenix years (I don’t count the MG versions), Saab had new product in the pipeline right until the last minute. Lancia’s demise is more muddled.

First, the badge engineering of Fiat cars increased and then swapped around 2011 to Continue reading “Leaving Off The Saws”

Throwbacks: Examples and Non-Examples

What do the Triumph Toledo, the Ford Taunus and the Rover 75 have in common?

For a very long time the general trend in automotive drivetrain layouts has been to move from rear-wheel drive to front-wheel drive. It started in earnest in the 60’s with smaller cars from mainstream manufacturers though of course the pioneers were specialists, Citroen and Lancia. Thus a trickle of front-wheel drive superminis exploited the packaging efficiency of front-wheel drive and showed the way forward. Then the Golf/Kadett/Escort class yielded as follows: 1974 for the Golf, 1979 for the Kadett and 1980 for the Escort. Things took a little longer to Continue reading “Throwbacks: Examples and Non-Examples”