Prime Find of the Week : Rover’s Executive Express

Much has been written about the Rover SD1 – one of many British Leyland cars that showed enormous promise, it should have been a great success, but is generally remembered negatively thanks to poor execution and build quality of what was a superb design. Recently, however, the reputation of the SD1 as a good value classic seems to be on the rise, and this week we’re going to take a look at perhaps the ultimate version of the model for our Prime Find.

Introduced in 1976 and voted European Car of the Year in 1977, the SD1 was as different – at least to look at – from the P6 it succeeded as that car was from the P5. It did share the same Buick-derived lightweight V8, but that was actually a good thing.

Evolution

Designed by a team led by David Bache, the SD1’s styling was said to have been influenced by the Ferrari Daytona – and if you’re going to be influenced by anything, that’s as good a place to start as any – as well as Pininfarina’s design for the BMC1800 and the Citroën CX launched two years earlier, the SD1 sported a sleek fastback style, a modern interior devoid of the wood and leather finishes of previous Rover’s, a modular instrument binnacle that could be easily moved across for RHD or LHD versions, and thanks to that V8, it was also a good performer.

Spot the influences

Press reception was initially very positive – hence the Car of the Year award – although journalists also picked up on the quality problems. As a car to drive, however, the general reception was very positive, and to start with, the car sold well.

I started working for BL in 1979, in the Fleet Sales Division, and the SD1 was the company’s answer to the top-end Ford Granada – which dominated the middle-class executive sector – as well as the likes of the BMW E28, Opel Senator and Mercedes W123. Unfortunately the quality gremlins that started to appear as early as the first year of production were still present throughout my time selling the car – poor fit and finish, and frequent mechanical problems. But a good one was a really good car – I drove several and they compared well with the Granada especially.

Some of the alternatives

Available originally only with the V8, and sold as the Rover 3500, the SD1 was developed throughout its decade-long lifespan and the range was expanded to eventually include the four-cylinder 2000 in 1982, six-cylinder 2300 and 2600 from 1977 as well as the original V8 3500, all with various trim levels such as S, SE, and Vanden Plas. Initially built in Solihull, production was shifted to Cowley in 1981 and the Solihull plant switched to Land Rover manufacture.

There were two distinct series of the SD1 – the first from launch to 1982, the second from ’82 to 86. The Series 2 cars were lightly modified on the outside, with details such as badging, new bumpers and wheel trims, but the interiors were extensively changed – a longer, sleeker instrument binnacle, secondary dials were moved across to the middle of the dash and wood trim made a return.

It was in this second series that the 2000 as well as the 2400SD diesel appeared, the diesel unit coming from VM Motori in Italy. The other major new variant was the flagship of the range, the Vitesse, which made it’s first appearance in October 1982 at the NEC Motor Show, one where I had the deep joy of fielding “what’ll it do, mister” questions and trying to stop people stealing gear lever knobs and rear view mirrors – yes, really.

The name Viitesse – French for speed – had previously been used on Triumphs, most recently the 2-litre Triumph Herald-bodied sports saloon of the 1960’s. As the Triumph brand was gradually being phased out, Rover took the name, which was very appropriate, for here was a car equipped with a fuel-injected version of the V8 that now developed 190bhp, enough to take the Vitesse to a maximum speed of 135mph and a 0-60mph time of just under eight seconds.

External signs of this being the high-performance version of the SD1 range included a rear rubber spoiler on the tailgate as well as a deep chin spoiler, plus side graphics, and a smart set of BBS-style alloy wheels. The Vitesse looked fast and it was fast, and proved its mettle on the race track, with the works team run by TWR (Tom Walkinshaw Racing) winning the British Touring Car Championship in 1984 at the hands of Andy Rouse, taking first place in eleven rounds of the European Touring Car Championship through the 1985 and 86 seasons, and winning the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft in 1986.

The Vitesse was a hit with the motoring press, holding its own against strong competition from the likes of the BMW 528i E28 and the SAAB 900 Turbo, both of which What Car? Magazine tested in their May 1983 issue and while they had the German car as winner on points, they concluded that ‘given the Vitesse’s spectacular performance and for sheer excitement, there was no other choice for the enthusiast.

In it’s April 1983 twin-test with the BMW, Motor magazine declared that “There’s a new champ and it’s British. The Vitesse may be a more flawed design than the BMW, but where it’s good it’s great…. If there’s such a thing as the ‘poor man’s Aston Martin’, the Vitesse is it – a truly desirable car.’

Fast competition

There is an excellent and very detailed history of the Vitesse by David Morgan on AROnline, an excellent resource for all things British Leyland – The cars : The Rover SD1 Vitesse development story – AROnline

The final development of the Vitesse was the very rare “Twin Plenum” version; these Vitesse’s had two throttle bodies mounted on the plenum chamber instead of one, improving engine power and torque and were produced for homologation purposes for the 1986 European Touring Car Championship. Officially, power remained at 190bhp; unofficially, the Vitesse gained an extra 20bhp.

Rover built 303,345 SD1’s in total, of which just 3,897 were Vitesse’s, and only 500 of the Twin-Plenum versions were produced. 95 of the original SD1 Vitesse’s remain on UK roads; it’s not known how many are the Twin-Plenum versions.

It’s one of these – arguably ultimate – versions of the Vitesse that is our Prime Find this week. Regular Vitesse’s in good condition would normally be available within our theoretical budget limit of £20,000 – indeed SD1’s in general can be found for under £10,000 – but the “Twin Plenum” is harder to find and probably correspondingly costlier, but because our car is offered at No Reserve, we’re comfortable including it in our Prime Find slot.

Our car goes under the hammer at the NEC Classic with Silverstone Auctions on November 12th. It’s a 1986 car which the auctioneer sums up as “A good example of the rare Twin-Plenum with a detailed history file that includes the original service book and reams of historical receipts”. It also comes with an MOT that runs until September next year. First sold to someone in Jersey, the car has had only two further owners, and the 67,344 odometer reading lines up with the service record and receipts that make up the extensive history file.

It’s finished in Targa Red – a fairly common Vitesse shade, but none the worse for that – with an interior of two-tone grey fabric with wood veneer fascia and door inserts.  From the photographs that we’ve borrowed from the auctioneers’ website, both exterior and interior look in pretty good condition, as they should with such a modest mileage. As a Series 2 car – as all Twin-Plenum versions are – this Vitesse is missing the Series 1’s side decals and looks like a proper Q-car, with only the spoilers, wheels and under-stated badging giving it away – I think it looks great.

As it’s being offered with no reserve, there is no guide price – I imagine it will end up going for somewhere between £25,000 and £30,000 but that’s just my uneducated guess. Whatever it sells for, it’s a very fine-looking example of a particularly rare version of an already scarce car – and I would expect that any quality issues with it have long been sorted out.

You can see the full lot entry here – as always, should you be interested in bidding for this rare high-performance SD1, we recommend arranging prior inspection if possible – I shall certainly take a close look at it when I visit the show.

With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us be inspired by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek
@viaretro.co.uk