ROVER 800 - The birth, the models, the buyers guide

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dollysprint
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ROVER 800 - The birth, the models, the buyers guide

Post by dollysprint » Wed Jan 29, 2014 10:02 pm

Rover 800 -The birth.
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Figure 1 There was a long way to go before 800 got to this but Roy Axe saw it through
The Rover 825i and Sterling was launched for sale to the public on July 10th 1986, the smaller engined 820, although launched at the same time wouldn't actually be seen on British roads for several more months due to hold ups with the engine being production ready. This wasn't the birth, more like the start of school, because the birth had taken place nearly 5 years earlier in November 1981 in Japan with an emerging automotive giant called Honda.
An entire book could and has been written on why Rover and Honda found themselves as bed fellows, I will attempt to condense this as quickly as possible as we are really only interested in one car, but it is an important part of the story.
From 1952 to 1968 the once fiercely independent companies that made up the British motor industry slowly went through merger after merger until finally, with a hard shove from the Labour Government of the day, one huge company emerged as the British Leyland Motor Corporation, or BLMC. This was the 4th largest producer of vehicles in the world, and none of the companies that out produced them were Japanese, or German or Korean. BLMC had 32 major manufacturing plants in the UK alone and subsiduaries in Belgium, Spain, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Imagine that for a moment, its staggering and everybody in the Government and in BLMC rubbed their hands with glee and patted themselves on the back, what could possibly go wrong?
Well the first thing that went wrong was the night after the merger party they all woke up with hang overs, went into work, picked up the phone and each CEO of Austin, Morris, Jaguar, Rover and Triumph spoke too their own engine plants, their own body plants, their own assembly plants, their own sales departments, their own development departments, their own parts suppliers(most of which they owned or had a stake in) and their own dealer showrooms and said "we've merged but its business as usual, nothing will change". You could drive down almost any High Street in the UK and within a mile see all 5 separate dealerships that now belonged to one company, and many were competitors, despite Austin and Morris being the same company since 1952, and Rover/Triumph being bed fellows since 1967 within the Leyland Truck empire. Jaguar had been merged into Austin/Morris(BMC) in 1965 along with the Pressed Steel and Fisher body plants, one of which was in my home town of Swindon and the other was across the road from the Morris Plant at Cowley. Lord Stokes, the boss of Leyland, was the man chosen to head up the newly formed BLMC, a self confessed salesman, who could sell sand to Saudi Arabia, an optimist and ,it has to be said, the man who has to shoulder the blame for what happened over the next 5 years which resulted in BLMC effectively bankrupt and nationalized.
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Figure 2 Lord Stokes CEO BLMC 1968-1975
Now some might say that’s a bit harsh to blame one man, there were factors out of his control, like BMC(Austin and Morris) being all but bankrupt in 1968,a fact kept out of the merger talks because BMC didn't truly realise how bad their finances were. This is hardly surprising when they didn't even realise they were selling the Mini at a loss of £5 per car, 65 years in business and they couldn't even cost out what it cost them too build a car, that one sentence says it all really. So half of BLMC was in trouble from the get go but it was still Stokes' name above the door. Just like an ocean liner it can take a long time to turn something as big as a car company, but from the moment the Captain says hard a port, that ocean liner will start to turn. If you don’t give the order the liner goes straight on, and Stokes never gave the order. So instead of 1974 seeing the launch of a new range of cars, sharing engines, sharing floorpans, sharing design offices in a streamlined BLMC, 1974 saw the bank manager ringing Lord Stokes to tell him the cheque had bounced.
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Figure 3 The woefully inadequate Ryder report of 1975
So one nationalisation and one woefully unrealistic Ryder report later and 1977 dawned with an ever worsening position. There was still no direction, the cars were over produced for a market share absolutely plummeting, but worse than that the build quality was appalling, rust came as standard along with line workers sandwiches under the back seat and clearly someone had forgot to order anything that looked remotely like body sealer. Meanwhile the docks filled up wih shiny and reliable Japanese tin. When despite ocean liners being slow Datsun could still send their cars over on one and have it parked on your drive before BL could get a car too you from Birmingham. And lets be honest here most of the time all BL had to do was fetch it from a field. Something had to change, enter Micheal Edwards, the little South African.
Now dont get me wrong, I don’t agree with everything Edwardes did, but he did do what Stokes should have done 8 years before, he gave the order from day 1 and the ship started to turn.
Edwardes had several problems, not withstanding the militant workforce, but then most UK industry had that in the 70's, no it was the ageing range of cars and, with the exception of Metro, nothing to replace it with. A company that had the capacity to produce almost twice the number of cars it could actually sell, ideas, but tax payers handouts in dribs and drabs, never enough to actually develop anything other then revamps of revamps and above anything else a lack of time even if the money was there. The average time taken for a new car to go from artists sketch to showroom is 5 years; even a facelift can take 2 years. Its 1978, most of the available money is being poured into Metro; Marina, Maxi and Allegro are already over the hill but will each have to soldier on with yet another facelift as will Princess, despite being relatively new. SD1 is okay for now if they could build it properly. Then what about Dolomite and the TR7, Spitfire and Midget and the MGB. Only the TR7 was young enough to survive if they could keep the men in work long enough to build it. There is no other word for it but ruthless, what Edwardes had to do was be ruthless. He had to contract back into the company’s heartland, cut, without sentiment, anything no longer viable, he had to build what they could better and he had to find a way to replace the range without serious investment and take what would remain of the workforce with him. A product led recovery, if he could do all that and find the product to do it with, it might just work.
If I run out of bread I don’t make a new loaf, I go out and buy one someone else has already made. This was Edwardes thinking, a way to get new modern products on the dealer forecourts for a fraction of the cost of developing your own. You dont make the profit that you'd get with your own design, but you do get a new design and you buy yourself time. Time to finish Metro for 1980, time to dust off a design for a modular hatchback and saloon sitting on the Austin design office shelf. Modular, now there’s an idea, 2 or even 3 cars for not much more than the cost of developing one. Maestro and Montego, the modular design from BL, years before VW thought of it, would see the light in 1983/4. But for now who too approach for a stop gap model. Renault perhaps, it was a possibility. How the idea came to approach a Japanese company better known in this country for motorcycles and the odd small car is not clear to me, Edwardes states an old friend who was British Ambassador to Japan made an informal approach on his behalf, but the fact that BL found Honda receptive must have been to Honda's advantage too. So in 1979 a deal was signed, the Honda Ballade was the car, built under licence in Britain and available in 1981 as the Triumph Acclaim.
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Figure 4 Sir Micheal Edwardes and Kyoshi Kawashima of Honda in 1979, this probably saved BL
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Figure 5 The first licence agreement produced the Triumph Acclaim
And even before the Acclaim had hit the road not only had a second licence deal been signed for what would become the Rover 200 of 1984 but also a full on 50/50 collaborative partnership too build the SD1 replacement and Honda's first executive car, the Rover 800/Honda Legend.
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Figure 6 The second handshake with Honda saw their 2nd generation Ballade emerge as Rover 200
The Rover 800 series had been born in November 1981.
Let me say here and now without Honda there was a high possibility that BL wouldn't have survived, but I'll counter that with had Stokes done what was needed in 1969 not only would Honda not have been needed but the cuts wouldn't have needed to be so severe and BL would still have been a large independent company in 1981. Then again had the Government invested the £2.3 billion in BL in one go in 1975 instead of investing bits of it over 12 years as each crisis popped up that may have made a difference too, then again it may not.
Either way circumstance had dictated that Honda was the way forward for the next 15 years. Building cars under licence is a completely different venture from full collaboration; under licence you are basically saying we are broke and out of time so can we please have one of your cars to stick our badge onto. Both BMW and Nissen started their car building careers building Austin 7's under licence, how gut wrenching it must have been then when 40 years later what remained of Austin was having to beg the same favour from Honda. With the deal to be a partner in the design and building of a new executive car the BL engineers must have sighed with relief, here they would have the chance to show Honda it wasn't the lack of talent that put BL in this position, just the lack of money. They would be the equal of their Japanese counterparts and regain some pride, they would have equal say on how the car developed and each company would end up with a car they would have built had they have gone it alone......................or would they?
Now that the companies Executives had crossed the "t"'s and dotted the "i"'s the project could be handed over to the design and engineering boys so the real work could begin. The primary reason for a joint venture is to save money, at a time when the cost of building a new car was becoming increasingly expensive, and it’s the primary reason why most modern day car companies have more and more joint ventures. It’s also a way of breaking into new markets hence the explosion of joint ventures in China over the last decade as the big western manufacturers look to get a slice of the eastern action. For Honda it was their way into the executive market in Europe and the USA with a partner knowledgeable in the building of executive class cars. For Rover it was more important than that, survival, and it was these two opposing reasons for the venture in the first place that made Honda the dominate partner. Honda could go it alone if they had too, Rover could not. So despite all the motoring writers of the day insisting this was as much a Rover design as it was a Honda one, that isn't entirely true and never would be in the whole of the Honda/Rover relationship both then and what would follow in the future. If Honda were adamant that a certain part of the design had to be done their way then it would be done their way, with 800 this would mean Honda dictating both the width of the car and its suspension set up. Rover would also have nothing to do with the powertrain for the top end models. Once certain parameters are set in stone no matter how much freedom you have on the rest of the design it will never quite be what you would have wanted. This was true of 800, Rover would have made the car 2 inches wider with a different suspension system, but the argument was lost, they would just have to do the best they could with the rest of the car and make its shortcomings, in their eyes, as unnoticeable as possible. There was one more hiccup but I'll come to that later as it wasn't Honda imposing anything and both teams had to deal with it.
Apart from the two areas described above the rest of the collaboration is reported to have run very smoothly, indeed enjoyably so, much midnight oil was burnt and a mutual respect built between the two respective teams of engineers.
So who were the men who would design and engineer the 800? Clearly I cannot name them all, for literally hundreds of people are involved over half a dozen different departments and that’s just on the UK side.
Ray Horrocks and Mark Snowden are the first men of note, Ray being the head of the cars division and Mark the head of product development. Both men were involved in the initial agreement with Honda, as they should be, because it’s these men that would set out what BL wanted to achieve with the new car, and it’s these men that everybody else on the BL side would answer too as the project unfolded. It’s these two men that would then call in the heads of Design, Engineering, Marketing and Accounts and set out what the new car had to do for and within the BL range. Ray Horrocks wouldn't dictate it had too have 16in wheels and a CD player or be a certain shape and size even, other than too say it would be an executive class segment vehicle. Mark Snowden would dictate it had to be front wheel drive and incorporate the best of modern technology, not because Mark wanted it to be front wheel drive personally, but because that was the direction the company felt was the way forward, that was the future market trend even in a class of vehicle that had always been rear wheel drive. The men that would leave that room with this broad outline would be Gordon Sked, Product Design Director Exterior, working under David Bache, Director of Design, and the man that penned the SD1, although Bache would be replaced shortly afterwards by Roy Axe.
Steve Harper and Richard Hamblin would take care of interior design and Verdon Morris who would look after Chassis Engineering. For each one of these there would be a Honda counterpart and the two teams would be closely linked for the next few years. The whole design function of BL had been re-housed at the former Triumph factory at Canley in Coventry in late 1981 as the Dolomite lines closed and TR7 had been moved to Solihull to be built alongside SD1 earlier that year. Of course within months TR7 production would cease, SD1 would move to the South Works at Cowley, therefore determining where 800 would be built, and Solihull would be given over to Landrover only production.
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Figure 7 Rover SD1, badly built but iconic. Could XX replace this?
Talking of names, its at this point that the car division changed names from BL Cars to Austin-Rover, a company within BL Cars Ltd and its also at this point I will stop using the name Rover 800 and use its proper code name of XX. For at this point in time that’s all it was XX, and the Honda side of the project was HX.
The next few months saw the two teams locked in rooms determining what would be the "static" points of the new car or "Firm" points I believe they are called. In a collaboration or joint venture the whole point is to share the costs of developing the most expensive part of any new vehicle, and that’s the monocoque, or floorpan and sub structure. The part of the car that everything else will hang from or be bolted too. Several factors determine this, firstly the class of car you are building, in this case Executive or Class segment D, what powertrain is to be used, the size of it physically and the format of drive, front or rear and the means of chassis dynamics, suspension and sub frame structures. Each one of these kind of pre-determines a perceived set of measurements within the industry. For example, this is to be an executive car which means there should be enough length between the front and rear wheels to build a cabin capable of seating 5 people in comfort with a certain amount of leg and head room. This is not a consideration so much in say a super mini or Class A segment vehicle, where the desire is just to get 4 people in for a trip around town so who cares if you're comfortable or not. Okay that’s a bit simplistic and crassly put but it’s fundamentally what the class segments mean and determine their length. To build the former it is generally accepted that you need around 3 metres of space between the front and rear wheels. To build the latter you can do it within a metre and a half. Stretch it to 2 metres and it’s a class B car, 2 and a half is class C and so on. Within these classes it’s also generally accepted what would be the engine size or more accurately power output and therefore performance. It would be unacceptable and completely missing the aim to put a 1 litre super mini engine into an executive car for example, where between a 2 and 3 litre engine would have more the desired effect. Everything I have just written regarding segments and classes has now been completely stood on its head of course, the thinking today is more outside the box rather than in it, and it’s the reason why entire classes or segments have disappeared out of the market place.
Anyway I digress, back to XX. As written earlier Honda pre-determined 2 of these un-moveable "Firm" points. Firstly the car must not go beyond a certain width or track(the measurement between the wheels on any axle). This was wholly determined by a Japanese tax law that penalised any vehicle beyond this width, in the same way that certain European countries would later penalise engine capacity under their tax laws. Clearly space in Japan must be expensive but does one or two inches really make that much difference in the narrow streets of Tokyo?? I dont know I've never been to Tokyo, nor do I know if this law still exists but it was something that Rover couldn't change and meant the XX would be narrower than the SD1. Secondly Honda believe only in double wish bone suspension systems, Macpherson struts and beam axles are words that dont enter their thoughts, ever. I can only assume the roads of Japan are like glass, where the travel of suspension is unimportant, Had they have visited Europe and Britain they would have seen the limited travel of double wishbones could be a problem. Years later during YY/Rover R8 venture they would relent and allow Rover and European spec Concerto's to use Macpherson struts up front, although they still retained double wishbones in other world markets on Japanese built Concerto's. To use 2 different types of suspension requires different pressings on the monoque to house them, and therefore additional expense. So on R8 did Rover have the money on their own to insist on Macpherson strut and Honda agreed as long as it didn't cost them anything. Or on XX did they simply dig their heels in or did BL not have the money? Either way it meant XX would have double wishbone suspension without compromise and BL would have to deal with that. Dont get me wrong there are advantages as well as disadvantages to double wishbones, indeed for many years Triumph were advocates of the system, but given the choice BL would have gone Macpherson Strut on the front of XX.
The last "firm" point was the dimensions of the Honda sourced engine and gearbox. You cant argue this point, it is what it is and the same for both teams. As long as you know how much length, width and height you need to allow under the bonnet then that’s fine. Armed with dimensions of monoque, sub structures, suspension type and powertrain dimensions BL and Honda retired to their respective design studios to individualize this shared platform and by July 1982 not only did umpteen design sketches exist but a full size clay mock up existed at Canley. This original model was very aero-dynamic, with a chiseled front profile, flowing roof and rear deck line, barreled down the flanks with enclosed rear wheelarches, a bit like a stretched Citroen BX or a more chiseled version of the later Vauxhall Carlton. This isn't so surprising given the design thoughts of the day, indeed the SD2, an aborted Dolomite replacement of 1978 had this slippery design. In car design very little is completely discarded even if the original concept never sees the light of day, certain elements will survive. What is surprising is that Acclaim, Rover 200, Ambassador, Maestro and Montego all belonged to the very sharp, folded paper design school of thought and each progressive evolution of XX design fell back into this style rather than persist with the more rounded and flowing design of the first clay model. Now car design is not an easy science, you are trying to think 5 or 6 years ahead in terms of style and shape. Hoping that the buying public will be wowed by your efforts of flair and forethought. Get it wrong and the car will be considered old fashioned from the moment its launched with the subsequent loss of sales as you are left behind. In a way this is exactly what happened with Maestro and Montego in 1983/84. They were designed back in 1976, held up by the turmoil of BL in the late 70's, then re-instated late in the day without an update. They should have been launched in 1980/81, meaning Maestro was contempory with the 1980 chiseled Escort and Montego was modern compared to Cortina. Launching late left Montego looking out of touch compared to the new shape of Sierra and Maestro with only 18 months to run before the more rounded shape of the '86 launch of the new Escort. Its one of the reasons I say the Government should have invested a large sum in 1975 post Ryder, then Maestro and Montego could have gone ahead. I truly believe this error put BL,Austin-Rover, Rover and MG Rover forever half a season behind the industry for the rest of its existence in certain market segments. And when you think with the Maxi of 1969 they were years ahead of the game............could make a grown man cry!
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Figure 8 Dev 1- Too radical?
Digressing again, back to the plot. The original clay was somewhat conservatively pegged back through 3 styling bucks known as DEV1,2 and 3 and it was DEV 3 in early 1983 that was presented to management for their final thoughts.

Figure 9 Dev 2 Squared up but short bonnet
They liked it, not only that but when side by side with Honda's effort it looked completely different and more refined, more sporting and yet elegant from any angle.

Figure 10 Dev 3 Almost there, note black mirrors, no chrome around the windows and no side repeaters
Little would change to the outside shape from here on in; it was basically the car we see today. Except, that is, for one final twist and its the hiccup mentioned earlier in the text. Almost beyond belief but Honda had mis-calculated the length of the engine and transmission by 9mm. Now it’s not much but this is supposed to be precision engineering and had to be added to the front track. Honda offered a sincere apology and financially compensated BL for the extra work involved in rectifying the problem. Gordon Sked was elated by this, it meant he could put a little more shape into the body side and gave the side panels a greater curvature than previous at no expense. Hondas' method of rectification? They extended the wheel arch lips by 4.5mm each side. This did however cost BL some time which would show later at launch time but more of that later. Fortunately for BL this was the era of computer aided design or CAD for short. With this technology processes that used to take 6 months could be done in a week.

Figure 11 Computer Aided Design or CAD for short


Figure 12 Making one in clay, note the short bonnet, this is actually a model of Dev 2
Days of accurate measuring on full size models could be worked out on computers in hours. Tiny changes to one part of the design in one area could be fed through to show the effects on other areas, even crashing the structure on screen could provide an accurate picture of what would happen in the real world. This part of BL was world class, it was a division wholly owned by BL and known as Istel. It not only gave BL an edge internally but earned money working for other companies outside the Automotive world. It was so successful it was the first part of BL to be privatised as a going concern later in the 80's.
Armed with accurate measurements and slope angles and curvatures of every surface and plane the draughtsman could produce engineering drawings that a tool maker could understand and the task of producing press tools could begin. A lot of this work was done at Pressed Steel Fishers factory at Swindon, which was a wholly owned subsiduary of BL having been purchased by BMC in the 60's.
I'll digress here for a moment if I may as this acquisition by BMC resulted in panic in the Leyland empire at the time. PSF Swindon had been opened in 1955 as an expansion to the factory opposite the Morris plant at Oxford. PSF being independent used to supply not only Austin and Morris(BMC) but also Standard Triumph at Canley, part of the Leyland group, remember this was pre-merger of 1968. Once BMC acquired PSF it meant that Triumph designs, both present and future could be seen by BMC, at the time a direct competitor in the market place. Triumph were horrified, their other panel supplier Motor Panels of Coventry weren't big enough too do the entire Triumph range. Triumphs Speke Plant, which had its own pressings facility, was only big enough to do Triumph 1300 pressings. Triumph 2000 MK1 bodies were pressed and completely welded in Swindon for delivery to Canley. It was a bizarre situation and warranted a huge sigh of relief from Triumph and Leyland when the 1968 merger resolved the issue.
My first memories of the Swindon Plant was seeing bare, unpainted TR7 bodyshells exit "B" Building on an overhead rail system, run for 30 yards down the outside of the building and then re-enter through another door. You can guess what happened if it was raining!! This was 1978 and as a 14 year old that didn't strike me as strange, I just wanted to own one of those TR7's.
In 1984, being a soldier and just married to a toolmakers daughter I found myself moonlighting for British Road Services whenever I had some leave. British Road Services used to supply HGV Shunter drivers to the factory, enter a boy in a toy shop. Dinner breaks would find me sat with my then new father-in-law in the tool rooms, I can still remember seeing the date stamp on his lathe, 1955, the year the factory opened, and yes he did some of the press tools for XX as accurately as he could on a near 30 year old lathe!
With the tooling up underway and internal dimensions firmly fixed interior design came to the fore at Canley. Steve Harper and Richard Hamblin would be the men to design what would universally be praised about the XX at launch. Hamblin would design the dashboard and Harper the rest of the interior, but clearly both men worked closely together and certainly had input into each others designs.

Figure 13 800 interior, this particular one being the 825i
A lot of thought went into XX interior, including the use of non reflective material coverings on the dashboard. Now this is something you don’t even notice until you get into a car that hasn't had this level of thought. My Rover 220 Coupe for example, where the dash reflection in the front screen is appalling and annoying. It’s not a problem suffered only by BL cars by any stretch, and the ever steep incline of modern windscreens exaggerates the issue. Thing is interiors are important to the overall impression of any car, it is, after all, the part of the car you will look at the most. It’s where you will spend many hours of your life. Dark, untactile and dull interiors can ruin a car but happily if BL/Rover were good at anything then it was interior design and execution. XX is a top of the range car, the flagship, not only that but this was the dawning age of technology and a lot of it had to be fitted in XX, most of which you wouldn't actually want to see.

Figure 14 Space age technology? It was in 1986
The wiring loom for example was one of the most complicated and lengthy ever fitted to any car up to that point, electronic control units and sensors controlled almost everything you touched, from the engine running to bulb failures, ice warnings to doors left open, and it all showed up on your very own vehicle information screen incorporated into the onboard multi-function computer. Of course not all models would have these new age marvels of sophistication, only the top models, but in 1983 it had to be deigned in and catered for. To say the interior was a huge success was born out in the 1991 facelift, when the interior design hardly changed at all.
There was only 2 parts of the design left to do now, powertrain and steering/suspension. Suspension had been set in stone by Honda, it had to be double wishbone, but that didn't mean BL couldn't "tune it" to their own preference and Verdon Morris did just that, including a self leveling set up on the rear. Suspension on any car is always a compromise and depends really on what you want the car to do. It can be uncompromising, uncomfortable and noisy but go round corners like a high speed train or it can be soft and wallowy, feel like you're floating on air and make you want to change your trousers at the mere thought of throwing the car into a bend with any vigour! And it can also be set anywhere in between the 2. I wont go into technicalities here with spring rates, rebound, travel, inclination angles and all the rest of it, suffice to say the XX is executive transport, designed to convey its occupants in comfort and to arrive unstressed and without pain, an I'll just add on roads that were once maintained by a novel idea called Road Tax. There is no doubt, from day one it was clear that XX didn't handle poor road surfaces too well and that today’s drivers would find the suspension soft, then again today’s 50 something’s find modern suspension back jarring, uncomfortable and a perfect example of how to make a car tramline all the way down he inside lane of any UK motorway.

Figure 15 Suspension, idea by Honda, tuned by Rover
Steering came in 2 forms, one came courtesy of Honda, was power assisted and linked to speed and the other was Rovers excellent positive centre feel system, also assisted and generally more responsive and progressive than Hondas'. Early test drives by Journalists were clearly unsure about the speed sensitive system, it can feel vague at times and I'm not entirely sure it reacts fast enough to changes in speed which determines its assistance, its almost like the system is always a second behind what you need it to be, especially during spirited driving. When journalists finally got their hands on the smaller engined versions of the car with the Rover system they became even less complimentary about the Honda speed sensitive system. It’s unclear whether BL were stuck with the system when using the Honda engine or not, personally I can't see a reason to retain it, and certainly in the later 1996 facelift it would be dropped along with the engine.
Powertrains or engines and gearboxes would be supplied by both companies depending on what model your bank balance would stretch too, Honda would supply the all new 2.5V6 all alloy engine for the top models and Rover would supply the 2.0 litre 16 valve engine for the lesser models. Honda was never interested in a smaller engined HX but Rover had a tradition here, their executive cars had included a 2000 model since the P6 of the early 60's. The tradition had continued with the SD1 in 2 litre "O" series form, and it would continue now. It was also a pretty good idea if you wanted to sell your car in certain parts of Europe, where the tax system would come to penalize large engined cars.
The Honda 2.5 Vee 6 cylinder, designated C25 was born of Formula one technology, only twin camshafts but 24 valves, it featured a dual length inlet tract, full sequential multi-point fuel injection and computer controlled ignition, or PGFM-i as Honda named it. It was so advanced it could even tell you, via flashing l.e.d if anything was wrong with the system. Coupled to this would be either a PG2 5 speed synchromesh manual or hydraulically operated 4 speed automatic gearboxes. BL would take no part in its design; neither would they build any of it under licence in the UK. It would be built and sourced from Honda during its entire production run at cost to BL until 1995.
The Rover 2.0 in line 4 cylinder, designated M series was a hybrid of early and late technology featuring twin camshaft 16 valves all alloy head and cast iron block derived from the "O" series Austin-Morris engine of 1978. This engine could actually trace its ancestry back further to the "B" series Austin-Morris/MGB design but was designated "O" series for the update and was originally meant to power the facelifted Marina and Princess in 1.7 and 2 litre forms. It was also supposed to power the MGB and TR7 sports cars into the 80's, but with the exception of a couple of evaluation mules it never found its way into either of these. It did however live in the previously mentioned SD1 facelift of 1982 and go on to power the up market and sporty versions of Maestro and Montego of 1983/4 By this point it could be fuelled by carburetor or fuel injection and even went on to be dieselized in a joint venture with Perkins. In all these guises it remained single camshaft 8 valve configuration and in turbo carb form produced 150bhp for the MG turbo versions of Maestro and Montego. Considering when originally put into Marina in 1.7 form it was seen as underpowered and not much more refined than its predecessor it went on to be one of the best and most valuable engines Austin-Morris ever produced. Its strange that during XX design this engine in its current form wasn't felt to be good enough and yet was put into SD1, or maybe putting it into SD1 had proved the point that it simply wasn't good enough and would need upgrading. Shortly before XX launch this engine would appear in fuel injected form for MG Maestro and Montego producing 115bhp, yet it never went into SD1 in this tune. When launched in XX as the twin cam multi-point injected "M" series in 140bhp tune it could also be had in single point injected 120bhp tune and yet neither of these would ever appear in Maestro or Montego. And yet as we shall see later in the life of XX a 100bhp 8 valve version would find its way into the line up for a short period and for no apparent reason.
Anyway it was the 16 valve Twin Cam alloy head that transformed "O" series into "M" series and solved a bit of a mystery in the process. It’s difficult to believe now but the Lewis Dawtry designed Triumph Dolomite engine of 1970 had always been more powerful and efficient than its designer intended and it was never really understood why. Using the head of this 16 valve version of the Dolomite engine as a start point for the "M" series they finally understood that the shape of the pented combustion chambers gave better air/fuel mixture squish and thus combustion and improved exhaust evacuation. How a fully qualified engine engineer couldn't understand that beggar’s belief and if he didn't understand it why did he shape the combustion chambers that way to begin with?? Roland Bertado was responsible for developing the head into twin camshafts whereas the Dolomite head ran its 16 valves with just one camshaft, either way the pented chambers were kept!

Figure 16 The 16 valve M series, this particular one is the multi-point fuel injection 140bhp version
Coupled to this engine was a Honda derived PG1 5 speed synchromesh manual gearbox which BL did hold the license to produce themselves or a ZF 4 speed hydraulic gearbox took care of the automatic model.
Along with the earlier mentioned time delay due to Hondas' mis-calculation of the V6 engine dimensions , getting the M series engine production ready would also cause a delay post launch, the XX 2.0 litre would be late to market and this would give a perception to the great buying public that XX was expensive, but more of that later.
By October 1985 Honda launched the Honda Legend to the world, a full 9 months before Austin-Rover would be ready to launch XX. Its been suggested by motoring writers that when Honda told BL about the V6 dimension issue they only did so after Honda had already rectified the issue on their own car, therefore giving Honda a head start so they could launch earlier. Whilst any change to a design costs time I don’t believe it cost BL 9 months no matter when Honda told them. What was nearer the truth was that Honda operated differently to BL once a design was finalised. For one thing Honda get into the pressing tools process very early, particular the off tools panels. This is a process whereby a set of "soft" presses will be made to produce a few dozen of each panel needed to build a complete off tools car. When I say "soft" it means presses made of a hardened resin, they are far from soft in reality. But if you can imagine the pressure exerted on these in order to bend sheet steel into the complex shapes of body panels then it’s easy to think that a resin would start to lose the crisp lines and accuracy fairly quickly. Between 25-50 panels is the norm and then the presses are useless, but no matter they have done there job. You can now build real cars for ongoing design work, this process tells you a lot about what order the build can be done, they are infact invaluable and because the press tools were made of cheap resin instead of hardened steel they cost next to nothing to build. When Honda do this they will build 3 or 4 times the amount of cars that BL did, each department that needs a car for assessing will get several prototypes. BL will build about 3 initial cars and each department joins a queue to get there hands on one to do their particular thing. It sounds like a no brainer in Hondas favour, all departments do their assessments at the same time and conclude at the same time and bang, full scale press tools get given the nod at the same time component suppliers get given the go ahead to produce contracted parts. There is however one problem with this method that the BL system doesn't suffer. A prototype car arrives at the department that is going to decide where the battery is going to go. At the same time another prototype car arrives at the department who are going to decide where the air filter is going to go. They both open the bonnet and both see the same available spaces that are left to work with..............and they both pick the same space to fit their particular component. It’s not a disaster and of course gets picked when all the departments come together prior to final assessment, with one department being sent back off to resite and perhaps slightly modify their component. But it is the reason why on some cars you work on you will find yourself thinking, "Why the hell did they put that there!"


Figure 17 XX shells going down the line in Cowley South Works prior to painting
The other reason for Hondas speed is they deal with their component suppliers in a different way; they keep them in the loop at every stage of design and production. In return the supplier is ready the moment Honda says "go" so the component arrives at the right time, in the right place and at the right quality. BL were notoriously bad at this throughout the 70's and early 80's, many of the standstills at BL factories were down to components being late or when they did turn up they would be faulty. It’s not for nothing that Lucas earned the name "the prince of darkness" for their shoddy electrical systems going wrong on BL products, and it was BL that lost the custom for this. Get it wrong with Honda and you'll be shown the door, but before you leave you'll be writing a hefty cheque to cover any line stoppage, in the 90's that worked out at £10,000 every 60 seconds.
Prior to the launch of XX in July 1986 there were 2 important spin offs that the public would see before XX. Both would have XX dna and both were designed by the same team as XX
Figure 18 The beautiful MG-EXE and its designers
One was the MG-EXE shown at Turin in 1985 and the other was CCV in 1986. Both were met with utter disbelief that BL could produce such advanced and beautiful designs, both put the design department, under Roy Axe on the world stage and both proved that given the money BL and Austin-Rover were more than capable. We'll meet CCV again later at facelift time.
Figure 19 CCV would be built but not like this
One last thing to do and that was to name the new car, and here it’s not clear how the name came about. Metro, Maestro and Montego had been named by ballot of the workforce given a set of names to choose from. In 1984 the second generation Ballade had been named Rover 200 and so it’s reasonable to assume that 800 stemmed from this with the 2 cars being at opposite ends of a future Rover cars range. Clearly it hinted that a 400 and 600 would be forth coming. But actually I have a sneak preview of the new car written by Motor magazine in October 1985 stating the new XX will be called the Rover 600. A name that would appear again 3 years later when the XX Fastback was due to be launched. So I believe that the 800 name was chosen quite late in the day so that the Fastback could be called 600 and Montego replacement could be 400. Now it didn't pan out that way but in early 1986 that’s probably how the range looked to management, albeit a management that wouldn't be there much longer, and hence how XX became the Rover 800.
It’s difficult to imagine now just how important July 10th 1986 was for BL and its car division Austin-Rover. The launch of Metro in 1980 was dubbed as the car that would save the company, 800 would be the car that made them money. Thing is small cars don’t make huge profits they just keep the wheels turning so to speak. Its large cars that make the money, they may cost more to produce but its not in proportion for what you can sell them for compared to small cars.
However BL did make a mistake when launching 800, due to production difficulties the "M" series engined 820 wasn't available until the autumn of 1986; infact Motor magazine couldn't get their hands on one to test until late October. They had done a sneak preview piece on the range topping 825 Sterling a whole year before, and had their hands on that model for test two weeks after launch. So for some 3 months after launch the range actually only consisted of two models, the Sterling and 825i or at least that is how it appeared. The Sterling listed at an eye watering £18,794 on the road, which was more than the newly launched, and by now independent, brand new Jaguar XJ40 low spec model. Now the public didn't see the specification differences, what they saw was a Rover costing more than a Jaguar and the motoring press seemed to enjoy pushing this misconception in true BL bashing fashion. What they completely forgot to mention was that the low spec 800, the 820e could be had for less than £11,000. No matter the damage was done and until 820 was available in numbers there was little Austin-Rover could do to put this in perspective.
However the Rover 800 range was priced at quite a premium compared to its opposition, the Sterling would cost you £60 more than a Mercedes 300E, and a whopping £3000 more than a BMW528i SE, it was even £1,700 more than the out going Rover Vitesse SD1. Premium pricing only works for you if the product is considered better than the rest, then the public will be prepared to put up with the premium, and thankfully by and large 800 was considered better than most, especially in 820 guise. In 825 there was however a problem, it was the 2.5V6 lack of mid range torque, which appeared even worse in manual spec due to tall gearing. Thankfully most 825's would be automatics which slightly masked the problem, but it was still there and was mentioned in almost every test by the press. The fact that within less than 2 years the V6 would be enlarged and tuned for more mid range torque was an admission that Honda had got it wrong and in 1988 would allow the press to print one of its favourite lines when testing BL products “it’s now the car it should have been at launch". In the real world of every day driving its unlikely Mr Average would even notice this lack of torque had the motoring press not pointed it out during their more spirited tests, but they did notice and its testament to how good the rest of the car was that they still placed it as one of the best executive cars money could buy.
Before we continue its here that the story gets political, which is a bit strange given that it had been political since 1968 and especially since nationalisation in 1974. By and large until 1984 BL had generally been run by car men, who every now and again had to go cap in hand to politicians for funding, Edwardes wasn't a car man but then he didn't try to run the day to day business of building cars, he left that to heads of department. Edwardes was more about structure, how big the company needed to be, and who were the right men to run it, and that those men should run it rather than the trade unions who had been allowed to run it due to inadequate managers at all levels prior to his arrival. It’s why I never blame the unions for BL's woes, it’s like a badly behaved child, you don’t blame the child you blame the parents. And unions just like naughty children only play up when they aren't happy, and there was plenty to be unhappy about in the 70's due wholly to poor management. Remember the men working in BL in 1983 were the same men working there in 1973, the fact that industrial relations had improved dramatically was down to better managers. Yes half the shop floor had been made redundant but so had the dead wood managers.
However by 1984 the government had entered its second term, privatisation of every state owned industry was their perceived way to improve the country, the final showdown with the trade unions was about to be won and there would be nothing to oppose the sell offs that were about to be announced in quick succession. Margaret Thatcher had no intentions of selling the crown jewels like BT and the energy companies but still find the government propping up the British car industry. It had always been clear that certain parts of BL were in better financial fettle than others and that even some of the struggling bits would be okay if they could be gotten out from under the financially draining Cars Division. The problem is, and every prospective buyer of companies know this, if you sell off the good bits the bad bits that remain are even harder to get rid of. No matter the decision was made to start selling off those bits that were deemed ready. Istel has previously been mentioned, Jaguar, which apart from being part of the Specialist Division with Rover and Triumph for a short period, had always been viewed and allowed to be its own master, and this was especially true under the management of John Egan since 1981. Leyland truck and bus could be sold separately too. GM the American giant then showed an interest in what remained of BL, as too did Ford. GM got to within 24 hours of signing the deal, then at the 11th hour Land Rover was mysteriously removed from the deal by the British Government and the deal collapsed. The reason; Tory back benchers threatening to revolt if British companies were sold to Foreigners following the debacle of the Westland Helicopters episode. Which shows MP's at the time had more courage than the ones that were to follow, because now everything is foreign owned!! Nothing is written on how much say Sir Austin Bide, BL CEO since Edwardes departure in 1982, had in this affair but by Autumn 1986 political wrangling and 2 aborted sell offs of BL had cost him his job. Graham Day would now head BL and the company would hence forth be known as Rover Group.
Austin-Rover had lasted just 4 years, there would be other casualties too, Ray Horrocks would be told his position was to be made redundant and Harold Musgrove was not a man Day could work with, in other words he was not a "yes" man. Harold Musgrove was a forthright straight talking man, he passionately believed in BL Cars, was accredited with being the force behind Metro, Maestro, Montego and Rover 800 getting to production and winning the argument with the Trade and Industry Secretary to get funding for the "K" series engine. Indeed he was also the man responsible for the naming of Rover Group following an assessment clinic in 1981 where the public was asked for their opinion on the strongest marque within the BL company. He couldn't rename the car division "Rover" in 1982 because the Austin name featured strongly on Metro and the soon to be launched Maestro and Montego but Rover was always the intention for future projects. Day chose to bring that re-naming forward to 1986 even though there were still 3 Austin’s in production. The name would be removed from the grill, the cars would be "Roverised", whatever that was supposed to mean, but really who was Day kidding at the time, it was just poor management which far from helping the company was infact the beginning of diluting the "core values" of the Rover name. Something that would haunt the company for the next 20 years.
Day had just 2 mandates from the government, stop spending tax payer’s money if at all possible and get the company ready to be sold. Understandable then that 12 months after he took over the annual financial report would show Rover Group in profit and viable. Creative accounting or the fruits of 10 years hard work and sacrifice by men who believed the company could make it, I'm sure it was a bit of both, either way it had nothing to do with Days' hard work.
And the point of the last 4 paragraphs is to show that with Days arrival it would bring in a change in Rover's future policy, the car men were gone, Day insisted that all decisions would go through him so he had complete control, complete control to sell off the parts of the business that were viable now and to ready the remainder for sale to a British buyer, to control the finances and to control what would go through for production and what would not. Just like he had done at British Shipbuilders.
Already signed off and financed was the next joint venture with Honda, YY or R8 as it would now become known, the replacement Rover 200. Also signed off and designed was the Rover Fastback, at this point to be called 600 but in May 1988 would be launched as Rover 800 Fastback. The design for the Fastback had been penned in 1983 along with the saloon and was always part of the model plan. There were hundreds of design drawings done between 1981 and 1983 including convertibles and coupes, many of which made it to full size model clays. Its deciding which ones will make you money in the market place that determines their fate.

Figure 20 A convertible perhaps
The 2.7 revised Honda V6 was launched in February 1988 and corrected one of the cars few drawbacks and with this engine came the new electronic auto gearbox, with its own ECU and Sports mode. The Fastback would also herald the launch of the Vitesse model, a sports version of 800 which was no faster than Sterling but looked the part and would famously be the first car to complete the Isle of Man TT circuit at an average of over 100mph with Tony Pond at the wheel.

Figure 21 XX Fastback clay, close to the final production model
In August of '88 an "O" series engine version was launched in Fastback form only with a mere 100bhp. This we touched on before, there were other versions of "O" series that could have been used but just like SD1 before it Rover chose to under power the base model. Unlike SD1 however which gradually gained luxury in its 4 years of production and pulled in 20,000 sales for Rover, the "O" series 800 Fastback would gain no toys and would barely last a year in production. Although the base 820 probably sounds a bad idea Autocar actually found the car quite good, once you accepted its power limitations it was enjoyable to drive and, because of lower engine weight, reportedly handled better than any other 800 model. Then again you would have too say it didn't have the power to get the chassis in trouble.
In June 1989 the Rover 827 Sterling became the first British production car to offer a catalyst if you were willing to part with an extra £1000, which now made the range topping Sterling an eye watering £25,000 motor car. The 820 could also be so equipped if you wished
In July 1990 the 825 Diesel Fastback was launched in Europe and 3 months later it was launched in the UK costing £17,500 in one spec form only. It was the only British car ever to be launched in Europe before the UK where it sold 3 times better than here. Powered by a 2.5 litre version of the Italian VM engine which had previously been used in 2.4 form for SD1 and Rangerover it was highly liked by those that drove one and highly underrated in this country with limited sales.
And finally a limited (to 563 cars) 820 turbo was launched in Fastback and Saloon form. Tickford were the firm chosen to develop this "blown" version of the "M" series 820 which produced 180bhp, although Janspeed had already done the job in 1988 if you took them your 820i. The Tickford 820 turbo was expensive new, no faster than an 827, perhaps deliberately so and took a long time to sell with cars still available in 1992 with massively reduced price tags. It wasn't so much disliked by testers but more they just couldn't see the point, like the 827 Vitesse it was no faster than any 827 and if you tried to keep up with the 827 then the fuel economy was no better either.

Figure 22 1 of 563 Tickford tuned 820 Turbo's
In March 1987 the 800 was launched in the USA where the Rover badge would be replaced with Sterling, thus making that the brand name. First year sales were encouraging with nearly 15000 cars finding owners, although Rover was hoping for sales of around 27,000 per annum from then on. However quality problems plagued the 800 in the States, especially electrical ones, and in a country where consumerism rules, quality is king. Stacked up against a superbly reliable Acura Legend the 800 looked a poor relation yet cost more. Americans voted with their feet and walked away from the marque in ever increasing numbers, sales plummeted and by 1991; when Sterling was pulled from the market; less than 1900 cars were sold. Strangely for the now private Jaguar and the still owned Landrover, sales soared to new heights and I'm pretty certain these marques were no more reliable than 800. Only the 827 version was sold in the states and unlike Honda no Coupe was available, and yet there should have been, so why did it never arrive?

Figure 23 An early Coupe design sketch, no doubting which market this was aimed at
Just after the 2.7 v6 engine arrived in February 1988 a surprise approach by BAe was made with a view to purchasing Rover Group, or at least that’s how numerous press articles of the day reported it. I'm going to go off on a personal tangent here because I don’t believe for one second that BAe approached Rover or its owners, the government. More like the government approached BAe with a view to getting rid of the Rover problem, and I'll set out my reasons for this. When Ford made their approach Rover Group was valued at £800 million, strange then that 2 years later and the company now showing small profits the company was valued at a mere £150 million. When Ford and GM made their approaches no mention was made that the £2.3 billion debt to the taxpayer would be written off without negotiation, with BAe it was completely wiped clean, not only that but the government would give BAe £800 million as operating capital and wipe out half of an outstanding tax liability. So the surprise purchaser, BAe, was effectively given £1.1 billion to take Rover off the government books. But it’s the final stipulation that convinces me it was all a big lie, BAe had to keep Rover without sell off or shutdown for 5 years. That last stipulation was a wholly political caveat and one that would only need to be made if the government wanted distance from a potentially immediate scandal. Every other part of the former BL that had been sold, floated on the stock market or management buy out had had no such caveat. In each case money went to the government as you would expect in any government asset sale by whichever means of doing that. This asset give away to BAe absolutely stank in every respect, provoked widespread disbelief amongst several manufacturers and was even investigated by trade and industry bodies in Europe.
Giving away Rover, with considerable sweetners, to BAe was not only corrupt in my eyes but was also the worst outcome for Rover. To now find itself run by a parent company that had no interest in its long term survival was a disaster. Day remained as Chairman and would do just enough to ensure Rover survived long enough to be sold again in 1994 to BMW. BAe couldn't sell the company for 5 years but nothing stopped them from selling company assets deemed no longer needed, land for example, and BAe no longer saw Honda as a collaborative partner but more as a means of getting Honda cars to stick Rover badges on without the need to spend large sums of money on development. Synchro or Rover 600 would be little more than the second generation Ballade agreement had been of 1984, as would HHR or the Rover 400 replacement of 1995. MGF, R3(the new Rover 200 replacement for 1995) and Discovery would be born but only because they could be cheap re-skins of existing designs. Had Harold Musgrove not argued so strongly for K series engine funding in 1986 then these replacement models would also be powered by Honda power units, and BAe would have been more than happy with that. Selling three quarters of the Cowley site and the whole of Canley ensured that any future expansion would be almost impossible; indeed MGF and 400 Tourer would have their bodies built by outside contractors for this very reason.
This period of time would also have 3 negative effects on 800, 2 of which would grind with Head of Design Roy Axe for the rest of his career. The first he would have no dealing with and that was selling three quarters of the Cowley factory would see XX move from Cowley South works to the old PSF site of Cowley North works where Maestro and Montego were being built in ever decreasing numbers. The second would be the design of the second generation Rover 800 or R17 due for launch in 1991 and the third was the delayed launch of the CCV(Coupe Concept Vehicle) first seen in April 1986 and which should have been launched in 1988.

Figure 24 R17 facelift saloon of October 1991
The R17/18, saloon and fastback facelift re-introduced some of the rounded elements of the original XX styling buck Dev 1. The covered in rear wheelarches of Dev 1 had fallen out of favour by 1988 and the glass house of R17 wouldn't be as imposing as Dev 1 but there were definite stylng cues taken from it. Its here that the BAe policy of spending controls would start to bite, for in order to save money R17 would use XX door assemblies so replicating a mistake made 20 years earlier on Austin 1800/Maxi. Using an existing floorpan makes sense, it is after all the most expensive structure to design and manufacture, but given a free hand you can still make a car look completely different from its previous incarnation. But if you then restrict design by using the previous door assemblies you have more or less pre-set the shape of the sides, pre-determined where the roof line must be and waist line where door glass meets the bodyline. Given these constraints R17/18 were never going to be a radical change. The new car was said to be more imposing on the road, it was given more "presence" as it were but would it be enough change to keep 800 ahead in the executive class over Ford and Vauxhall? Thing is using the same door assemblies to save money could almost be forgiven if it did save money but by the 1991 launch the XX door presses were so worn that new ones had to be made anyway for R17, so it saved nothing in reality and was a case of "bean counters" running Rover rather than engineers and designers. On the whole though the re-skin did look good and R17/18 would be gifted with 2 new elements which were universally liked. The first was during the design of Synchro/Rover 600 in 1989 Richard Wooley had drawn in a front grille design to echo the days of old Rover, probably because to make 600 individual from Accord(synchro) was going to be a whole lot more difficult than it had been on 800/Legend. Simply because again BAe didn't want to be equal with Honda it was much cheaper to be followers rather than leaders. The grille was liked by management, R17 could incorporate a similar design at next to no cost, it would be launched before 600 so making it look like the flagship car would start the trend and not follow a lesser car in the range. And the newly launched R8/Rover 200/400 could follow the trend at first face lift in 1992/3. The other new element would be a further development of the "M" series engine to become "T" series. The new engine on paper looked almost identical despite many changes, bore and stroke were the same and hence displacement of 1994 cc, Brake Horse Power was the same at 140 (without a catalyst) at 6000 rpm but the big change came in torque, not the amount it produced but where it produced it in the rev range. Where as "M" series had always had to be revved hard to feel brisk, by which time it was quite audible, "T" series produced it maximum torque 1500 revs below "M" series at a lowly 2500 rpm, infact 80% of its torque was available from just 1500 revs.
R17/18 would be launched in October 1991 and received good reviews by and large, a few journalist picked up on the re-used doors, liked the new 2 litre engine but questioned whether this facelift was capable of giving the car any longevity beyond 3 years or so. Dynamically would it be different enough to not grow old before its time? Model line up was largely unchanged except just like the last of the 2 litre XX's the four pot would not have a lower state of tune like original "M" series had. A turbo version would continue and this would receive 2 states of tune by 1993, being 180 and 200 bhp respectively. The turbo model would also relieve the sporty 827 version of the Vitesse badge. I, Si, SLi and Sterling would be the other denominations in the range with the 820 stopping at SLi, for now. The diesel which at launch in 1990 had only been available in one spec would now be extended in luxury and eventually be available in all but Sterling specification. 800 maintained its position as top selling executive car in the home market but the USA dream was over, they would never see R17 and ironically they would never see a car specifically designed for them, the Rover Coupe.

Figure 25 The Coupe Roy Axe wanted but couldn't have
The MG EXE shown in 1985 was never meant to be a production model, it was designed by the team that did XX and shared some of its sub structures. The CCV however was built on the XX floorpan, sub structures, suspension and powertrain, it was meant to be productionised for the American market by the middle of XX production in 1988/9.
Figure 26 One idea for the Coupe interior complete with 20 JPS cigarettes!

Honda had already done their version by late 1987 and it was selling well but then again so was their saloon version(Honda never did a Fastback). Rover by contrast had stumbled after a promising start, second year stateside sales had virtually halved and the third year would half again. Against this background CCV's viability was called into question, could the expense of producing CCV be justified, for whilst it used XX underpinnings everything else was new. By the time BAe took over in mid 1988 CCV was seriously behind schedule and yet US dealers had been promised the new Coupe for the 1989 season. At this point Roy Axe will tell you that the CCV project should have been scrapped and yet no one seemed to be willing to let it die. If CCV could be brought into the R17 facelift project and use as much of that structure as possible then surely money could be saved, it could be viable, it could still make the US market. CCV was never meant to be an 800 coupe, it was a new model using 800 underpinnings and to Roy Axe and his team that was a huge difference, but once it was in the R17 programme it could be nothing other than an 800 Coupe. And yet ironically just like trying to save money on the doors of R17 and then having too make new press tools anyway, almost every panel on the Coupe would end up being unique with the exception of the bonnet and windscreen. Even more ironic was by the launch of summer 1992 the USA market was no longer an option and so the Rover 800 Coupe would never be sold in the biggest coupe market in the world.

Figure 27 The Coupe America never got, An accountants view of CCV?
So Rover now had a car, but no market in which it was ever going to make serious sales, Europe was not the home of big luxurious cruisers. The 827 Sterling was already topping the £25,000 bracket and yet here was a car above that, that would need a price above that and at least try to recover some production costs. Even Jeremy Clarkson liked the Coupe but as he pointed out in his Top Gear test of the model, £30,000 was an awful lot of money in a very competitive market of some serious luxury brands.

Figure 28 R17 Coupe styling sketch
In the UK the Coupe could only be had with the 2.7 V6 at first, but in 1996 the smaller engine was adopted too in normally aspirated and turbo form.
There is no doubt that the disastrous sales of XX in the States had a lot to do with the CCV being both late and along way from its original conception. Although, unlike its designer, I don’t see too much wrong with basing a coupe on your flagship model, in fact it almost makes more sense to do that. Would it have sold in America in either form? Almost certainly but then again it wasn’t the design of XX that Americans had a problem with; it was the quality issues. So why did Acura Legend sell like hot cakes and gain rave reviews, and Sterling fail so badly over the pond. Perhaps more research might reveal a definitive answer but I pretty much suspect that the way in which Sterling was sold in the States might have something to do with it. Austin Rover Cars of North America or ARCONA for short was a joint venture operation part owned by BL and part owned by Norman Braman, an American businessman, with the cars being sold largely through existing Cadilac dealerships. Dale Charles, known as the “Sterling Fixer” an American mechanic with his own workshop has written “even the supplying dealers couldn’t fix these cars, they didn’t understand them”. Honda of course had their own dealerships and perhaps this was the difference. Rover would take sole control of ARCONA for the 1990 model year in the hope that they could revive the operation until R17 and its now Coupe sister could be put into production, sadly it was too late for that.
The period from 1989 until 1994 would now probably be seen as Rovers’ last hoorah, a time when confidence was high and the company could seemingly do no wrong. The cars were well received even better than the competition in many respects and it appeared as if Rover was back. This would contradict all that I have written about BAe’s financial constraints would it not, about their failure to invest any serious money or to renew infrastructure. So how can I condemn their tenure of Rover Group and yet say these were the golden years or at least better than the 70’s had been. It’s because most of what they did or appeared to do was actually already in motion, signed off or paid for when they took office. The only project BAe really spent money on was P38 Range Rover and that was because they knew Landrover was instantly saleable whenever they wished and probably to any one of a dozen different manufacturers. Slipping back to little more than licence agreements with Honda when it came to 600 and 400 and having MGF bodies built by Motor Panels of Coventry because of lack of production space left the car division in a very weak position for the future, as BMW would discover to its cost.

Figure 29 Cowley, the outlnes in white show how big the site used to be, what remains is the bit marked BMW, formerly Cowley North Works. The 2 outlined areas to the left of the roundabout were sold off by BAe, formerly Cowley South Works and home to Rover 800. The area of land directly right of the roundabout was also part of Cowley and was known as the “de-mousing bay” for cars being brought in from the surrounding fields. I delivered brand new SD1 exhausts there in 1985 to replace the brand new rusty exhausts on the laid up cars!
In 1994 BMW would pay £800 million for Rover Group, a familiar figure to Ford and GM executives and for government handouts to BAe! Although BMW were a foreign company 8 years had passed since the aborted buy out by GM, government back benchers couldn’t revolt against the prime minister because a private British company had sold a business to foreign interests could they, it was nothing to do with the government was it? Besides Thatcher had gone and no blame could be leveled at John Major, and BAe had fulfilled its undertaking.
Rover 600 had been launched in 1993 and HHR/Rover 400 was ready to go, and 800 still used the C27 Honda V6 and gearbox. But the buy out by BMW had left a sour taste with the Japanese company who knew little of Rovers’ impending sale, Honda, in short, felt betrayed by it British partner in which it held a 20% stake. Rover held a 20% stake in Hondas’ UK operation; within weeks these holdings would be swapped back under mutual agreement and Honda went away to lick its wounds, but it would have the last laugh.
BMW disliked relying on Honda for engines in 800, besides it was getting rather long in the tooth, and immediately gave the go ahead for the KV6 which was designed under BAe but not funded. When it came to 600 the full implications of the original agreement between Honda and BAe hit home, not only could they not replace Honda engines and gearboxes, there was very little wriggle room for replacing any of its content at all. Building 600 was going to become very expensive for BMW by 1996, which left the model almost untenable. With HHR(400) there was more freedom to use Rover engines, which remember they only had because of Harold Musgrove, but Rover could not re-design the main structure in any way. And the reason for that was R3(200) was nothing more than a shortened R8 platform, the last true joint venture from which Rover had equal say.R8 had been a huge success for Rover, selling nearly a million cars and spawning 5 models from the same platform. Honda was not about to let that happen again especially when Rover’s input into HHR was minimal. The HHR platform would remain wholly owned by Honda.

Figure 30 Honda of the UK Manufacturing
It may help to understand how the Honda connection to Rover worked pre BMW and what changed after the BAe sale. Honda of the UK Manufacturing set up an inspection facility in Swindon in 1986. Built on the site of the old Vickers aircraft company this plot was huge and had its own runway. By 1989 Honda had turned this into a full assembly plant for production, it was less than 2 miles from the Rover Pressings Plant who would provide panel pressings and full sub assemblies to the Honda assembly lines. So although in 1994 BMW found themselves having to purchase Honda engines, however distasteful that was at least the cost could be off set against supplying Honda with panels. In 1994 Hondas press facility within their new plant was tiny, it could only press about half the outer panels required and none of the smaller but more intricate sub-assemblies like chassis rails and bulkheads. By 1996 Honda had increased their press facility and whatever they couldn’t press they outsourced as much as possible, anything to get away from relying on Rover/BMW as the relationship became ever more sour. The effect as written earlier made 600 almost worthless to Rover and its one of the reasons 600 had barely a 5 year production run, the only cars they could make money on in the end was the “T” series turbo and its dieselized version the “L” series, which was also sold to Honda for their Accord.
This then was the climate during KV6 engine development and perhaps a reason why it was rushed into production in just 2 years and hence its fragility in its early fitment to the 1996 facelifted 800
Facelift is really too strong a term for the ’96 onward cars, with the exception of the new KV6 engine very little had changed. The body trims and bumper tops now became body coloured, The Sterling model could be had with the 2 litre engine, which had become wasted spark ignition and this engine now also found its way into the Coupe in normally aspirated and turbo form in the UK market. There had been some cost cutting in terms of bulkhead insulation, rear disc guards and underbody wax but on the plus side handling had been improved with thicker roll bars and trim levels improved as standard. New colours were available both inside and out and the twin air bag dash became standard on all models.

Figure 31 The 800 kv6 engine. £10 million pounds worth of brilliant fragility, a real shame.
That was about it for 800, its production would cease in September 1998, along with the good but no longer cost effective 600 and the assembly lines given over to the car that would replace them both, the Rover 75. Within 18 months BMW would bail out of Rover citing ever increasing losses as the reason. Before they went though they would sell Landrover to Ford and keep the new Mini and the Cowley assembly plant to build it in, Swindon Press plant would also be retained. The designs for the new Rover R30(200/400 replacement) would also go with them, what was left would be sold to the newly formed Phoenix Consortium for £10. MGRover as the company would now be known was left with one modern design, the 75, and cleverly BMW had learnt a trick from Honda, for the 75, one engine and a lot of parts would have to be sourced from BMW or German companies.

Figure 32 Post '96 Vitesses in Coupe and Saloon form


Between July 1986 and September 1998 a total of 317,126 800’s would be built.

MK 1 production from July 1986 to September 1991 would be 193,531 cars. Of these some 34,872 would find buyers in America between 1987 and 1991. The MK 1’s best sales year was 1987 selling some 54,434 cars in total for all markets.

MK 2 production from October 1991 to September 1998 would be 123595 cars. None of these would be sold to America. The MK 2’s best sales year was 1993 selling some 32,825 cars in total for all markets.

The 2 litre version would be by far the biggest seller in the UK across both models.


The Model range

So the 10th of July 1986 saw the long awaited launch of the Rover 800 range, and at first the choice would be limited to just 4 derivatives, and 2 of those, the 820's would take a couple of mouths to filter through into the showrooms. But if you walked into a Rover showroom for a brochure, or if you'd bought an SD1 recently you'd probably be sent a brochure, then this was the choices available to you.
Rover 820i at an on the road price of £11820.47, available as a manual only at first but the auto would be available by December if you were willing to pay another £647.99 for the privilege. Other options were available depending how deep your pockets were and included;-
Alloy wheels @ £471.99
Headlamp power wash @ £160.99
Black paint @ £106.00
Clearcoat metalic @ £157.00
Manual sunroof @ £387.00
So if you wanted an 820i auto in black with all other options available then you would have to part with £13,594.44.
Of course there were toys as standard, you wouldn't have to slum it with the low spec 800 model, and as long as the salesman hadn't shown you the Sterling first then the 820i would look pretty attractive, tempting you with its standard spec of;-
Twin cam 16 valve multipoint injected 2.0 litre M series engine
5 speed manual gearbox
Independent double wishbone front suspension with anti-roll bar
Independent rear suspension with anti-roll bar
Power assisted steering
Ventilated front and solid rear disc brakes
14 inch steel wheels 195/70 low profile tyres and full width prestige wheel trims......................tea time!!
Last edited by dollysprint on Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
1988 Sterling saloon 2.7 Auto Pulsar over gunmetal
1990 Sterling Saloon 2.7 Auto black over storm
1993 Coupe 2.7 auto white gold 1
2005 Ford Transit 2.4 lwb, Club van
2007 Jaguar X Type 2.2 manual Estate

Alan.F
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Re: ROVER 800 - The birth, the models, the buyers guide

Post by Alan.F » Tue Feb 18, 2014 3:46 pm

Cracking read thank you
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torque2me
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Re: ROVER 800 - The birth, the models, the buyers guide

Post by torque2me » Fri Mar 28, 2014 7:42 pm

[quote="dollysprint"]Rover 800 -The birth.
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Yes, a real good informative read.

Kev

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