Rover Sd1 - Car of the year 1977

[JamesRadioReplay]

The glove boxes would fill up with water overnight and they rusted really badly.

[whattheheck1000]

This car is interesting... I want to talk to someone who got to ride in one before 1982. Especially under *awesome* circumstances (your best friend drove one, you really loved them at the time, you begged a professor for the entire Spring 1978 semester to ride in one, etc, etc, lol)

January 20, 2012 12:17 am

[darren2514fv]

it was designed as a sports saloon the result Leyland decided to use it for touring car racing rather than the heavy Jaguar XJ6 V12

[Hancockified]

What can I say apart from, I want one lol. There's a red 3500 Vitesse that goes round my town & I want it so much. I may be 17 next month but I still love all these old cars. No body kits needed to turn heads when you have an SD1

[mig189189189]

Cool video!

Cool retro car!

[galbmw]

didnt dis car come with a v8?

[mrspivvy]

@galbmw oh yes. 3.5 litre ex-buick v8, good engines

[sanjayj1432]

@galbmw yes,a 3.5 litre v8 producing 155 bhp

[galbmw]

@sanjayj1432 thats a bit low on the power figure isnt it?

[sanjayj1432]

@galbmw yes...but at that time it was ok and much better then other leyland cars

[galbmw]

@sanjayj1432 i guess im sort of used to italian and american v8 figures so when you say 155 it seems low. especially when my 4 cylinder car has exactly the same power lol

[galbmw]

@sanjayj1432 i really like its shape the ferrari california front and the cool rear. it really looks nice

[sanjayj1432]

@galbmw yeah...it was based on the the ferrari daytona....

[galbmw]

@sanjayj1432 daytona not california. my bad and ye it does look ALOT like it from the front good idea to base it on that car

[sanjayj1432]

@galbmw yes u are right.....

[galbmw]

@sanjayj1432 and i bet it was more reliable than the ferrari. i know BL was horrible at building cars but old ferraris go wrong worse than old homless person's teeth

[sanjayj1432]

@galbmw yeah and whosoever buys the sd1 he realizes that yes i have a ferrari daytona with a suroof and a hatch upon it...

[galbmw]

@sanjayj1432 doesnt have the signature lights but for some reason if you mod it a bit it looks amazing. i dont mean put huge spoilers and shit like that just a nice dark colour and i owuld like to see suspension a bit lowered. that would look amazing in some ways better than ferrari

[sanjayj1432]

@galbmw then go for the rover sd1 vitesse

[galbmw]

@sanjayj1432 i already have a car and im going to buy a race car in about 2 weeks so i cant afford another one

[ChrisHenniker]

@galbmw I was even thinking of a salt flats style car. You know: lowered, Moon Livery, Moon discs, roll cage, etc.

[galbmw]

@ChrisHenniker would do good lol. it is quite aerodynamic for a car that age

[justas525]

Cool car. Rover sd1 is best car british leyland ever made

[24765968]

I had one, admittedly only a 2.3 but on an E plate, a hand me down from the father-in-law. Was a mint, always garaged beautiful car, fully loaded, and in a straight line was great,but on bends was like a greasy sausage in a non stick pan.Were the V-8s set up differently on the suspension?

[mrspivvy]

@24765968 no not really unless you had a vitesse. it always helped lowering the suspension slightly and having decent rubber on the back..

I owned a 2.3 as well, found it lacking in torque once you'd got to 3rd gear

[pfnmartins]

For me, it was one of the best cars ever made!! Above it all.... it's a ROVER

[jbrand2002uk]

i currently own a 1978 series one 3500 in its original carribean blue which i use everyday and am doing a rolling resto on the paintwork has only done 97000 miles and runs like a dream makes me grin fron ear to ear when i boot the throttle :D

[M374EVL]

i have owned and cherished one of these cars

[psykotanks]

Its' a cool car i think! I like the agrassive looking front! Reminds a little about Ferrari actually.

[mrspivvy]

@psykotanks that was intentional- design was borrowed slightly from the ferrari daytona

[justas525]

@psykotanks Rover's sd1's design was based on ferrari daytona and another italian supercars at the time when it was developed

[psykotanks]

@justas525 Thanks a lot!

[helmuthoorn]

The fact that this product was made car of the year in 1977 proved the bad standard of the European automotive industry during that era.

They looked good in the showroom, but their building quality and reliability was generally bad. This was the case for most European and American cars at the time.

With the exception of Volvo, Saab, Mercedes and Audi/VW.

No wonder the Japanese took over.

[gentil79]

you Forgot BMW... in 1977 the new 7 series got 3rd place, in 1975 the 3 series got 2nd place. but in 1976, the 5 door Chrysler was the european car of the year... a complete piece of shit.

[helmuthoorn]

You mean the Simca 1308.

And yes l agree with you fully.

In fact l had the awfull misfortune to own one of them as a father of a young family in the early 80-s.

Made me yearn back for my good old rusty, ugly, rambling, but relyable Lada.

They stole it once and l was actually disappointed when the police managed to track it back. /__\

[FrightfulAccountant]

You can't watch it falling in love with it.

If Honda today would say:

"We buy Rover back and we start building those bloody SD1 again."

I guess I would instantly order one...

[gentil79]

totally agree with it. the bloody industrial action in the 70's killed the whole automotive Brtitish industry. the cars were poorly built due to the workers... and cut cost management policy.

[MasterBattle2000]

Rover used to make great cars like the P5,P6,SD1 Vitesse and Vanden Plas but now they just make junk and the Princess was more luxury but that was in a different league

[EXTREME4YEARSTOCOME]

the sd1 was tyled to look like a ferrari daytona and it does and i like that

[Pergiacomo]

@EXTREME4YEARSTOCOME

Right.

[Greig300]

Where did it all go wrong Rover :( they made some great cars yet the Goverment tossed it aside

[AdamAdamant2001]

I own a very nice 1984 3500SE in Australia. After all these years, it is still a head turner and the best to drive!

[BLHeritageFilms]

pop a video up

[galbmw]

@AdamAdamant2001 i seen a brown one on gold coast once, is that youyrs?

[unigateman]

my first car was a 79 Burgundy 3500 bought for 1500pounds in 1982, with 150000 miles on the clock. kept it 3 years and resold it for the same money. bought a later 1982 3500SE in cream, manual box. remember touching 130 mph on the M3 great cars, looking for another today. would like black vandan plas, with cream leather .

[tom1980uk]

remember having the corgi toy of one of these and always wanting one!

[BLHeritageFilms]

Hehe, you could still get one...

[kazimann]

Best BL of the lot!

[BLHeritageFilms]

I agree

[joh2]

BL might have had many wasted opportunities - but it was a bold decision to build a large V8 powered 5-door hatchback - even used for touring car racing... The only car the SD1 reminds me of today is BMW's upcoming 5-series GT hatchback...

[BLHeritageFilms]

True

[whattheheck1000]

Beautiful car.

[BLHeritageFilms]

Cant agree more

[ianmax69]

Did the contiential SD1s just have one door mirror?? spoils the whole look of the car but thats BLcost cutting at the time:(

[joh2]

Thats a surprising one - come to think of it even the Rolls Royce Camargue was offered with one door mirror only...

[musicalpyramid]

If so it's odd - all continental Princess models had two door mirrors as standard, so can't think why the Rover 3500 would only have one.

[BLHeritageFilms]

The princess was more "Luxury"

[Gamingboy69]

@BLHeritageFilms The rover was a sportscar and they wanted to save weight :P

[FM77]

lovely ...well done.

Got 4 of `em with a turbo V8 for one of the sixes.

[whattheheck1000]

The BL design themes really grow on you.

[musicalpyramid]

When I was a kid the SD1 and the Princess stood out to me as the most exciting big cars around to look at. They still have that affect on me!

[BLHeritageFilms]

Same, i have never seen a real princess though,

[TheSaintST1]

Aww man, I wish the workers had built this car properly because it's such a *great* car when you have a really solid one to drive. I drove a late SD1 Vitesse EFi and I was addicted to it.. too bad my Dad sold it :( I would soooo love to have one now.

[Anglichanen]

beautiful car. Shit build quality though which is what you get when the mass oversized communist unions fucked up the company. It never stood a chance.

[musicalpyramid]

Yeah, and the worst union agitators were under direct orders from Moscow to bring down the company.

[Anglichanen]

yes thats true. A former KGB agent himself admits that it was the policy to infect soft heads in the west and destroy us from within. It was quite lethal and effective and there are still programed robots to this day, especially amoungst government and teachers where they can rule and the teachers brainwash the next generation. Nowadays Moscow is refreshingly unpolitically correct unlike us idiots who have Marxists running the country

[rxj1]

I still own a 1985 model. Luckily most of the issues were ironed out in the later years. What a great car to drive and the shape is still modern even by todays standards.

[trevorwel]

An absolutely gorgeous car (that fell apart a little bit more every time you drove it). But heck did it look good parked outside the house.

[mrspivvy]

yet another wasted opportunity. If they'd built these properly it would have been a world beater. There was a huge waiting list when they first came out

[arospeed169]

@mrspivvy strikes at the solihull plant didn't allowed it