Post
by zaphod » Sat Feb 09, 2013 6:12 pm
Not clutch issue on this one.. its an Auto.. there are a lot of romours about how much BMW influence there was on these, but it's not based on a 3 or a 5 and BMW were a bit embased to fine when they looked at the75 they found Rover engineers had made a car that was 50% stiffer than their own then new 3 Sereis.. and then banned all thoughts of the MG version as a result and forbade the car to have any sporting pretentions hence the nice ride (ever wonderd how the MG 'Zed' version was developed so quickly after BMW dumped Rover?)A lot of issues with these are not really down to much esle than bad maintanace (although the afore mentioned clutch was just Bad (BMW indcidentally) design). The 'Z Axle' was sort of forced on it as the Rover engineers had been faffing for ages about what to do with the rear suspesion and BMW got fed up and said 'use this, and thats final' or so the story goes.
This one is very very early, in fact its one of what are known as 'Dealer Launch' cars. These were sent to the dealers to put in the showroom on the day of the launch and as they were epected to be in the limelight at launch were finished a little better than normal. They can be spotted, they are all the same colour, are very near top of range, never have reversing sensors or the dimming mirror and have a sunroof (which at this age is not common on the AC cars) This one was built at Cowley before they moved the production line to Longbridge (Or so I was informed by 'Club-75'..)
But as an attempt to rescue rover.. it could have done had it been give the chance its very well screwed together, handles well rides well, and is a nice place to sit if you like retro or course. It is a bit small interior wise but it's also very very quiet, makes a rolls sound noisey! I have wanted to try one beofre they all became badly maintained uncared for cars which is where they are heading. In my eyes it's a fascinating look at 'Paradise Lost' as this one is a very well kept almost pamperd example and is at 67K I think they will soon be an endangerd species though as the Post march 2001 v6 petrols all fall into the top tax band and will soon be worth less than a years tax and the gooing rate for a cam belt (It has 3 of these by the way!) change won't leave much change form £600, the 1.8 likes a diet of head gaskets (althogh its not hard to change, but add labour its more than another running car) and the deisel.. that shares its engine with the 320d and 520d.. so will either become cheap spare engines or donors to convert 316i and 320is to desiel.. or scrapped as soon as the DMF fails which it will
1999 Rover 75 Conneseur 2.5 V6 auto
1994 TCT Exclusive manual (Half of them)
1992 Range Rover Vogue SE
1985 Golf GTI
1975 MG Midget
1959 Austin Healey Sprite Mk1
in here!
Very classic retro looking. I've done a tad of spannering on the diesel version where access issues makes the XM look easy everywhere... 
