Rover

More than ever, Range Rover represents the pinnacle of luxury travel, making every journey a treasured experience whether driving or being driven. Conceived nearly 50 years ago for the country set to use on the estate and then drive to the townhouse, Range Rover has continuously evolved to lead the world around it, remaining the peerless luxury SUV.

Rover V8 – the Story of the Engine by James Taylor tells the fascinating story of the engine that created a legend in its own lifetime. Starting life as a General Motors design in 1961, but withdrawn three years later in favor of cheaper technology, it reached Rover by chance in the mid-1960s. Few other British companies then had V8 engines in production, and Rover immediately gained a special status when the V8 entered UK production during 1967. This was an extraordinarily compact design and also extraordinarily light, thanks to its all-aluminum alloy construction. It was not a temperamental high-performance engine, but had a well-proven and simple architecture that made it both reliable and easy to work on. Small wonder, then, that the Rover V8 was bought by sports car makers who needed a light, compact and powerful engine. Small wonder […]

Due to my recent purchase of a Land Rover Discovery with V8 engine, and honestly due as much to my life-long lust for the Rover V8, I picked up a copy of the book The Rover V8 Engine by David Hardcastle. My desire for this engine and anything that might be powered by it go all the way back to my teenage years when I drug home a decrepit Rover 3500S just in hopes of securing the engine for my MG. Long story short – nothing about that entire adventure worked out. But, my hopes for the magnificent V8 continued. This work, on dust jacket and Amazon listing, is billed as, “A thorough technical assessment of the Rover V8 engine and all methods of tuning for increased power output. Filled with the V8s transatlantic origins and production, its competition career in rallies and in saloon […]

For students of the history of Jaguar Cars, a book written by Chris Cowin, first 2012 and republished 2014 may be of interest. The book, British Leyland: Chronicle of a Car Crash 1968-1978 is simply packed with interesting history. This is the comprehensive story of a collection of once great and diverse British industries, primarily automotive, and their slow but relentless move toward destruction with only a few surviving pieces, Jaguar and Land Rover. For Jaguar only followers much of this book may be irrelevant as it deals in great detail about the downward spiral of the largest indigenous British car companies beginning about 1968 but this date is approximate.

Available again after a long absence, Veloce Press is reprinting a number of classic automotive titles relating to MG, Jaguar, Rover, and Lea-Francis. All of the titles listed below are scheduled to be released on the 15th of this month and are available directly from the publisher, from Amazon, and many other sources. The MGA This book is the definitive study of the MGA, for the author has gone back to factory records and to the people who worked on the car in the ‘fifties, to find out how it was conceived, manufactured and marketed. Here is the real story of the MGA’s engineering, body styling and every aspect of the car’s development and production – including MG’s strategy to beat its competitors.In seven years of production, there were major successes and sad disappointments. The MGA was the car that […]

Our Video of the Week this go-round is on the story of an often forgotten car from a seldom remembered brand in the US – the Rover SD1. Rover and British Leyland were beset by problems in the mid-1970s. Out of this cauldron of mismanagement came the Rover SD1 in 1976. It was called SD for the Specialist Division and 1 for the first car to come from the in-house styling department. Despite a dramatic, innovative design both inside and out, the option of classic V8 grunt, and more or less universally praised dynamics, the SD1’s reputation and its longevity suffered at the hands of a company in meltdown. And it could all have been so different. The car, which was styled by Rover’s design genius David Bache, had some grand ambitions. It had been designed to look like a […]

Visitors to Classic & Sports Car – The London Show will not only be able to feast their eyes on the world’s most amazing period cars – but they will also be treated to a host of eye-catching historical photographs celebrating British motoring and motorsport. The inaugural show will take place from 30th October to 1st November 2015 at Alexandra Palace. Located in Alexandra Palace’s West Corridor, these amazing installations will provide real insight into automotive history featuring images celebrating Jaguar Land Rover and British F1, thanks to pictures sourced from the world’s leading automotive image agency, LAT Photographic. Jaguar Land Rover is sponsoring a 24-metre gallery featuring the top 20 iconic moments that have defined 80 years of Jaguar and 45 years of Range Rover. Entitled ‘Jaguar: 80 Glorious Years 1935-2015’, it will feature a range of imagery from […]

Nowadays affectionately known as the ‘Aunty’ Rover, the dignified P4 series of cars was launched in 1949 to carry Britain’s Rover company into the postwar era. Rover’s well-deserved reputation for building high-quality cars and the marque’s upmarket image ensured that the P4 series appealed to the company’s traditional clientele – doctors, solicitors, bank managers and others of similar social rank. Despite the rather staid image of the P4 series, over the years the cars had many interesting features like the original ‘Cyclops’ central headlight, disc brakes, a freewheel device and overdrive. The larger-engined versions were also rather nifty and could whoosh their occupants along at a very unauntie-like pace! Production continued through several model variations – but always with four or six-cylinder engines – until 1964. In the meantime, Rover experimented with gas turbine power units in P4 bodies and […]

The iconic Range Rover celebrates its 45th birthday today. Reaching the important milestone is the latest in a series of 2015 highlights for the world’s most desirable luxury SUV. At the New York International Auto Show in March, Land Rover revealed a new Range Rover flagship in the form of the exclusive SVAutobiography and the landmark six millionth Land Rover was a Range Rover Vogue SE, which rolled off the Solihull production line in April. Over the last 45 years Range Rover has delivered a series of industry firsts as it has evolved into the peerless SUV we know today. As well as introducing a host of advanced technologies, many of which have since become industry standards, the original Classic model was cited as an ‘exemplary work of industrial design’ when it became the first vehicle to be displayed at […]

The accountancy firm Deloitte has had a £14m fine relating to its dealings with collapsed car maker MG Rover cut to £3m after an appeal. The reduced penalty was announced on Monday after an appeals tribunal earlier this year threw out eight of 13 charges against the firm in a case brought by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). It also cut the fine imposed on former Deloitte partner Maghsoud Einollahi from £250,000 to £175,000 and reversed his three-year ban from the profession. Instead, he and Deloitte were given a “severe reprimand”. MG Rover entered administration in 2005 with debts of £1.4bn and more than 6,000 job losses. It had been bought by directors known as the Phoenix Four for a token £10 five years earlier. The FRC filed a formal complaint against the firm and Einollahi in 2012 and the […]

Land Rover will unveil the Range Rover SVAutobiography at the 2015 New York International Auto Show, adding even more luxury, design sophistication and performance to an enhanced line-up. Speaking ahead of the exclusive model’s world premiere in New York, Land Rover’s Design Director and Chief Creative Officer Gerry McGovern stated: “With the SVAutobiography we have taken the opportunity to optimise the Range Rover’s luxury execution and precision while delivering beautiful detailing that considerably enhances the customer’s experience of our flagship vehicle.” Exclusively crafted at Special Vehicle Operations’ (SVO) Technical Centre in the UK, SVAutobiography features unique exterior design enhancements, an exclusive premium leather interior with unique trim finishes and the option of a 550PS 5.0-litre V8 supercharged engine for the first time. As a result, the SVAutobiography is the most luxurious and powerful series-production Range Rover in the model’s successful […]

The week we have a video documentary which traces the rise and fall of a great British brand that is largely unknown in the US, Rover. And no, we don’t mean Range Rover. Well, not totally. In the days when Britain’s car industry was the envy of the world, Rover epitomized everything to which the driver of taste aspired, but in 2005 it reached the end of the road. The film explores how Rover cars went from defining their eras to becoming victims of their times, telling the story behind the key models to the controversial joint ventures with Japanese and Indian manufacturers in later years.