The Dream Car You've Never Heard Of: Rover 3500 SDI Full History — Revelations with Jason Cammisa

(upbeat music) - The car behind me is everything an enthusiast could ask for. It has a very pulsating V8. (engine revolutions) A five-speed manual transmission. Rear wheel drive. Hatchback versatility. True pedigree in motorsport. (engines whirring) And supercar styling inside and out. The Rover

3500

is like a

dream

come true. In other words, a really cool-looking Porsche Panamera with a manual transmission and real racing trophies. And yet, if you grew up in America, you probably don't even know this car existed. And that's because sometimes the car of our

dream

s is actually the stuff of nightmares. (engine sputters) - Start, let's go, let's go, let's go.

I hate (bleep) this car. Come on, (beep) mother (beep) (beep). (engine roars) (upbeat music) Do you want to start now? This video is brought to you by the Hagerty Drivers Club, which includes a subscription to our award-winning magazine, 24/7 roadside assistance, and more. Join or learn more at the link below. First things first, what is this? Well, this is a Rover

3500

. It was produced for 10 years, starting in 1976, and was sold in North America. Sold is a strong word. It went on sale in North America. Who is Rover, you ask? Well, think of a Land Rover, but without terrain.

Rover cars, Land Rover trucks. The same company. Rover's first achievement dates back to 1885, when it created the Rover safety bicycle, which set the standard for all modern bicycles, two similarly sized wheels with a chain at the rear. In fact, Rover is so synonymous with bicycles that in some languages ​​the word for bicycle is

rover

. Around the turn of the century, Rover began making motorcycles and automobiles and, in the mid-1940s, jet engines for airplanes. And then the experimental cars powered by gas turbines, one that, by the way, raced and finished quite success

full

y in the 24 Hours of Le Mans of 1963 and 1965.

Their trams, however, were considered high-tech and very , very prestigious. Well-built. Halfway between a Rolls Royce and a Jaguar. The British royal family drove Rover vehicles. The Prime Minister drove a Rover. And while Rovers were literally fit for a queen, they weren't powerful enough for American luxury car buyers. America said Rover needs a V8. In 1963, Rover's CEO was in Wisconsin, trying to convince Mercury Marine to buy Rover's gas turbine engine, or its diesel, for use in fishing boats. And lying on the ground was a tiny V8. "What the hell is that?" he proclaimed. And yes, that is a real quote.

What that was was a Fireball V8 straight out of a Buick Skylark, an engine that GM had just killed after just three years of production, three historic years of production, because the Buick Fireball and its twin sister, the Oldsmobile Rockette . , was not only America's first all-aluminum V8, but it was also the lightest production V8 (inhale) in the world. It formed the basis for the first mass-produced turbocharged automobile engine. It was also used in the championship-winning 1966 Brabham Formula One car. In that same period, Buick cut two cylinders and swapped aluminum for iron, creating the first American V6.

Produced more than 25 million times in 47 years, you may know it as the Buick 3800. It was in everything from grandma's Oldsmobile to the turbocharged Buick Grand National to the supercharged Pontiac Grand Prix. General Motors gave up on its aluminum V8 because it cost too much to produce, but it was simply small, 26 inches wide, 27 inches tall, and only 28 inches long. In terms of British measurements, that's two shoes and a shilling. The point, though, is that it fit in every car Rover made, and not only was it just an inch longer than the two-liter four-cylinder, it weighed only 12 pounds.

Rover had to have it. (upbeat music) GM executives initially didn't believe anyone would be interested in the scrap aluminum, but they eventually agreed to a licensing deal that allowed the British to develop the design and produce the V8 as they saw fit. GM sent over 40 complete engines and all the blueprints, and then Rover would pay three pounds 10 shillings in royalties for each engine produced. That was less than $10 per engine, far less than it would have cost Rover to make its own V8. And by the way, GM tried to buy it back a couple of years later, and Rover's response was, "Sure, we'll make them for you for $2,100 a piece," even though it only cost Rover $400 a piece. build these things. .

Clearly, they saw the value in this engine and in fact it remained in production until 2004. That's 37 years. Almost as long as the V6 it generated. (upbeat music) Anyway, the now-Rover V8 came to Rover sedans in the late 1960s, just as the company was failing financially. Rover withdrew from the US car market in 1971, from the truck market in 1974 and, over the course of a few tumultuous years, eventually ended up trapped, along with all the other bankrupt UK car manufacturers, in a huge disaster of a corporate prison called British Leyland. Rover was thrown into the same cell block as Triumph and told that its two sedans, once direct competitors, would be replaced by a single combined car, the RT1.

The name stood for Rover Triumph 1, and the car was later renamed SD1 when the Rover Triumph Group was renamed the Specialist Division. At the time, it was still unclear whether the SD1 would be sold as a Rover, Triumph or even Leyland. But it was decided that it would have the suspension of the Triumph TR7 sports car, front struts and a solid rear axle. Triumph's new five-speed stick would be mated to one of two new Triumph straight-sixes, or the old Rover V8, now broken down to six grand compared to its original 4,750 RPM redline. Very unusually, the SD1 would be a five-door hatchback, a body style that had recently been invented with the Renault R16 and Austin Maxi.

But style-wise, it would be pretty bland, if we're being nice. Ah, but there's no point in being nice, because Leyland came to the same conclusion and hired Triumph's historic Italian design house, Michelotti, to submit a proposal. This must have lit a big fire under the buttocks of one David Bache, who was Rover's head of design, because he borrowed a Maserati Indy from a friend and locked the entire design staff in the studio for a weekend. , grafting the descents and curves of the supercar. in the hard points of the Rover. He designed the turn signals after the Ferrari Daytona and incorporated Ferrari's signature concave scallop throughout the car.

He later took inspiration from another Ferrari, the Berlinetta Boxer, for the interior, seats and door panels. And more than anywhere else, from the driver's seat. Hello, Ferrari Momo steering wheel. Everything about the gauges, from the font to the hands and the black bezels that surround them, screams Ferrari. And the rest of the board screams cost reduction. This is a perfectly symmetrical board. It has two identical glove boxes, and that's so Leyland could save money by making a dashboard for left- and right-hand drive cars. The instrument cluster was a podular design that simply sat on top and, at least in theory, could be swapped back and forth.

On that side, where the steering column would be on a right-hand drive car, there is a vent. On this side of this left-hand drive car is the steering column and the vent is relocated between the tachometer and speedometer, allowing you to enjoy fresh air. (the wind blows) The Rover SD1 debuted in 1976 and won almost every award you can imagine, even beating out the Mercedes W123, BMW E24 6 Series, Audi 100, Porsche 924 and Volkswagen Golf Diesel to take the European car award. Award of the Year. The reviews were scandalous. Embarrassingly positive, if I'm honest, prompting a British car magazine to write: "The hymn of praise was so unconditional that the p

rover

bial reader from outer space would have been under the impression that the new Rover 3500 was in fact the only car produced on the planet." Earth." Hey, the SD1 was designed to be all things to all people, and it was. (upbeat music) - Ooh! - Wow. - The rear seats fold down to offer more cargo capacity than the current Range Rover Sport With the longest fifth gear in the industry, it consumed no more fuel than cars with half the displacement.

It had a self-leveling rear suspension with nine inches of suspension travel, so it didn't hit bumps in the temple. when all the other cars had a bell. (car chime) Its steering was only 2.7 turns lock to lock, as fast as today's Porsches It looked as exotic as Ferraris, Maseratis and Mercedes, and it was a rocket. from the Malaise era, faster to 60 than a basic Corvette. Oh, the good old days, when fast cars were pain

full

y slow, kids didn't wear seatbelts, and Rover could make a painfully misogynistic video about the abilities of his car. car. Here is my favorite. (child speaking foreign language) (mother speaking foreign language) (mother speaking foreign language continues) - If that little bambino had kept his mouth shut, his mom would

never

have realized they were traveling over 120 miles per hour . - And that little snitch with no belt in the back wasn't even in a Vitesse.

In French, vitesse means speed, and the SD1 Vitesse had plenty of it. 190 horsepower, 7.1 at 60. The Vitesse had four-piston AP Racing calipers. It got a stiffer suspension, a body kit and at least 500 of them got a twin-throttle setup, initially designed, built and installed by Lotus. This was more than just a sports package. It was a homologated racing car. (engine whirring) And the SD1 had an incredible racing career. It was Rover's first victory since 1907 in the RAC Tourist Trophy. It took first and second place in its class in the 1981 British Saloon Car Championship. It won again in 1982, when it also won the French Saloon Car Championship.

He won 11 of 11 rounds in 1983, winning both the overall and manufacturers' championships before being disqualified for a rules violation. But he won again in 1986, the same year he also beat the venerable Mercedes Cosworth 190E 2.3-16 to take overall victory in the DTM, the German championship. But all that came later. In 1976, the SD1 innocently debuted as a do-it-all family saloon. In the UK, the SD1 was an immediate runaway success, with waiting lists and distributor profit margins. It took four years to get to the United States, and when it got here, the reviews were off the charts. "Road & Track" called it viceless. "Based on its price, performance, handling, styling, comfort, and overall equipment level, it should do very well in the U.S.

But, and it's a big but, the car will either stand or fall completely standard. of quality control." But that's exactly why you've

never

heard

of the Rover SD1. Its unreliability was legendary. Listen to what my former coworker at "Automobile Magazine" wrote about the SD1. - "Chief among the new Rovers' many enemies was the diabolical build quality that only Britain's centralized cadre of exceptionally inept managers, ridiculously militant unionists and shoddy suppliers could guarantee." - And he had an SD1 when he wrote that. While many politicians and royals had previously been interested in driving Rovers, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was not interested in the SD1. - The new Rover represented everything that had gone wrong in British manufacturing.

Mrs Thatcher wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. She made sure the MoD bought a dozen P5s in black so she would never have to drive a Rover SD1. - "Autocar" in the UK was not friendlier. "The finish of the car on delivery was poor by any standard, but compared to a nearly £5,000 car it was downright disgusting." (Audience gasps) We're not talking about Tesla-type panel gaps here. We're talking about big things, like, uh, an innovative new electric dipping process that uses an electrical charge to attract the primer to the metal, creating the perfect bond to ensure corrosion resistance.

However, the current was applied in the wrong direction and instead created an air pocket between the metal and the paint, causing corrosion and causing the paint to peel. We are talking about a car designed and built in the most humid country in the world and that was as waterproof as the Titan submersible. A British road tester complained about this in the most English way possible. He said: "Every time the fan was used, this expensive shower came into play. We had to put up with foggy windows and cold, wet feet." The funny thing is that he turned off the fan and the shower stopped, and thereason is that the SD1 did not have a ram air ventilation system.

You turn off the fan and the airflow basically stops. Which is incredibly ironic, because one of the SD1's other innovations was a system designed to keep the side sills rust-free by forcing air through them to dry out any water that had gotten in there. It came through this vent, came down here, through a channel, and came back down again. And guess what? It didn't work. The only thing we've talked about so far is the 3500, the three and a half liter version. That was the reliable one. There were several other versions, none with a Rover engine.

The only thing they had in common? British Leyland. The turbocharged, intercooled, direct-injected, jet-powered nuclear dumpster, full of bureaucracy, cost-cutting and labor disputes, is so dysfunctional that it couldn't have built a good car if it had started from scratch and built a factory specifically for it. he. , which is exactly what he did with the SD1. Which simply meant that a completely inexperienced workforce could be added to SD1's long list of problems. The yawning chasm between what this car should have been based on its engineering and what it ended up being based on its assembly is something we've never seen before and hopefully never will again.

Well, we saw it once later, when the Rover 3500 was replaced by the Rover Series 800, sold in the United States as the Sterling 825, and later, 827. Those cars were literally Acura Legends designed to look like the SD1. And while the Legend topped the reliability rankings, the Rover 800 series was, uh, built in the same plant as the later SD1s. And as you can imagine, it was one of the least reliable cars on sale. But I digress. To be fair, on the SD1 3500, what was really problematic were the electrical systems and equipment, the first done by Lucas, the Prince of Darkness.

In fact, the engine and driveline were quite robust, which is one of the reasons why the SD1 was so popular in the UK as a police car. In fact, law enforcement reports show that they were spectacularly reliable at that job, and that's probably because they didn't have power windows or door locks that could be broken. And who cares about wind noise or water leaks in a police car that can accelerate and control better than all the bad guys' cars? Its ubiquity as a police car in the UK is no doubt responsible for much of the nostalgia that the Rover SD1 inspires on that side of the pond.

They were once everywhere. Rover sold 300,000 of them. North America received only 1,254 Rover 3500s. Those Rovers were glued to the showroom floor, with a force far greater than that bonding paint to metal. (laughs) Which was a shame, because if it weren't for Leyland's attempted cost-cutting, the SD1 really was an enthusiast's dream come true. (motor revving) (motor whirring) (motor whirring continues) (motor whirring continues) (motor whirring continues) (motor whirring continues) (motor whirring continues) (motor whirring continues) (motor whirring continues)