Rover 620SLDi

Posted on 18/07/2010 by Sam Skelton

Dull, diesel, yet deserving... So what does £200 buy you nowadays? A nice bottle of champagne, a weekend away, 650 or so cigarettes? Or a car. I'm not entirely new to the idea of Bangernomics, but a Rover 600 with at least a year's life left in it and a full MoT for 200 sheets had to be worth investigating further. The car is my mate Oli's current daily hack, bought in April with 154000 miles for the sum named above to replace his 420 diesel - which he put 35,000 miles on in a year for Read more [...]

Rover SD1 Vanden Plas EFi

Posted on 19/06/2010 by Sam Skelton

A refined ruffian As regular readers of From The Captain's Chair will know, I'm not entirely new to SD1s. They hold particularly powerful memories for me, and are able to turn me misty-eyed at the turn of a key. Having been overwhelmed by Keith Adams' early 3500 manual, I wanted to try an automatic - I'm lazy, and I wanted to find out if the auto was as good as I thought it would be. I also hoped that my second taste of the SD1 would be in EFi form - is there a huge difference in the way they Read more [...]

A Roving Report

Posted on 17/05/2010 by Sam Skelton

Rover's largest cars may have been aspirational products when new, yet the last two decades have seen them depreciate badly, and many become scrapped as they reach the level at which they cannot depreciate further. With the earliest 75s beginning to reach this position, now is perhaps a good time to ask if history has been kind to the best of mainstream British. Sam Skelton pits three big Rovers against each other to find out if history should regard them well, and ultimately which he'd most like Read more [...]

Rover SD1 3500

Posted on 24/04/2010 by Sam Skelton

A dream realised My very first memory, earlier even than family events such as holidays and birthdays, is of my father's old SD1 Vanden Plas. A V8 automatic Series 2 in Moonraker metallic, it imprinted itself firmly upon first my young retinas and later my developing mind. I am sure that this car is responsible for my love not only of British Leyland, but of cars in general. Since these memories, maybe from the age of four, I have longed to drive an SD1 V8. And I didn't think my chance would Read more [...]

Rover 827Si

Posted on 23/04/2010 by Sam Skelton

As regular readers will know, this isn't the first 827 I've reviewed in From The Captain's Chair. I drove a Startins Regency back in October, and liked it a lot. I praised it's light steering, and it's feel of effortlessness. However, at eighteen feet long it was just a smidge too long for me to get a true impression of the car, so when Rich Clements passed me the keys to his 827 Si manual, it would have been rude of me to not try it out. It was also a manual, which made things more interesting - Read more [...]