It’s finally happened, after many many months of trying, I’m back in a Rover again.
Related Project Links
Its been something like 10 years since I had my last Rover SD1, and I have regretted selling it since. I don’t know what it is, but there is just something special about the SD1 for me.
The story of this one is a long one, it took 14 weeks from being offered the car, to actually viewing it for the first time, but it was worth it. I previously viewed another red Vitesse, which although was manual, was suffering a combination of neglect and age and just wasn’t holding together so well. I knew after viewing the Vitesse that I wanted an SD1 for sure though.
The owner of the Vitesse has a small fleet of cars, partially made up of the red Vitesse, a super lush final day of production silver Twin Plenum Vitesse, a Moonraker blue Vitesse, and the Zircon blue Vanden Plas EFI. He has been loaning his nephew a Rover for a while now; he was the one looking after the Vitesse. When I reported back the condition of the Vitesse, it was the push the owner needed to recall the car back home and give it a tidy up to it former glory. In the meantime the Zircon blue VDP EFI was sent up here, and that’s when I was offered this car. There were many delays, including spending weeks in a workshop getting some oil leaks sorted out.
Anyway, I picked it up last night, and drove it home in the pouring down rain. When I looked at the car last week, it was pointed out to me there was some surging when driving and sure enough I confirmed this on a test drive, so the drive home was nerve-racking indeed, but it made it home in one piece.
There’s a lot of work that needs doing, but its all part of the fun. The most exciting part though is that I’m pushing to have this car ready for taking down south and having it as my wedding car. I’m also reviving the Speeduino project, and will be fitting it to this car once I have collected the parts required.
So far the things that I have identified that don’t work are….
The sunroof
The RH RR Window (which also happens to open itself)
The rear wiper
The radio
The tacho (which works intermittently)
The heater
The fog lights (fog lights are missing)
And of course the surging
Theres other things I haven’t tested yet, but that seems to be the bulk of it. Lucas, the prince of darkness, is in full swing here.
I did a quick intro video of the car, its my first video, go easy on me 😅
And took some photos of its current condition.
Some more recent photos
