Rover: A History in Cars

The new Range Rover Velar is one of Land Rover’s most desirable cars yet, but while the model is new, the Velar name is not. Our video this week comes from the folks at AutoExpress and is a drive in one of the original Velars – the vehicle that became the Range Rover. The first Velar-badged cars appeared on the roads in the UK in the late 1960s, when Land Rover wanted to hide its Range Rover prototypes during testing. Taking its name from the Italian word ‘velare’ – which means ‘conceal’ – seven prototypes were built, and later crushed. However, a handful of pre-production models survived, and we’ve been for a spin in one to get a sense of the new Velar’s heritage. If you are interested in AutoExpress’s take on the new, and much more modern, Range Rover […]

A detailed electronic service and repair manual known as the MG TF RAVE disc is now available to MG TF owners from all XPart AutoService centres and wholesalers. MG TF owners can now access valuable service and maintenance information for their cars with an electronic workshop manual, available from all XPart AutoServices centres and wholesalers. The first disc of its kind to go on sale to motorists, it offers extensive technical advice for owners of MG TFs manufactured by MG Rover between 2002 and 2005. It contains a greater depth of technical detail than can be found in paper manuals, together with comprehensive search and cross-referencing functions, and the option to enlarge diagrams and print pages of interest. “Modern cars have a great deal more complex mechanical and electronic features than cars built even ten years ago,” explains Barry Smith, […]

This story from the San Francisco Chronicle…. Richard Haas is a marketing consultant based in the Peninsula. A Bay Area native, he was brought up in the United States, South America and Europe. I grew up with British motorcycles and cars – BSAs, Triumphs and MGs. My first motorcycle was a 650 side valve BSA with sidecar I bought with an older friend. I remember my Mom’s black MGA fondly, and my first college car was a Sunbeam Alpine. One day in 1996, my future wife and I were driving past a gas station on Camden Avenue in San Jose when we spotted a green MG Midget with a “for sale” sign. We called the guy who had left it there – it was a repo (thanks to too many traffic tickets), and he wanted $1,600 for it. It looked […]