I guess we can blame the Government & British Aerospace for this as it was them that sold out to the Foreighners!

Ah Just thought of another one....the spitfire....should have come with an option for the triumph straight six 2.0L engine...not the 2.5 as this would have isolated the TR6...the 2.0 sounded fantastic....actually the famous Mungo jerry hit..'in the summer time' wasnt that a triumph Vitesse reving up in the background? a very distinctive exhaust note...

'In the summer time when the weather is fine you reach right up and touch the sky...in the summer time...you got women..you got women on your mind' hmm hmm hmm..

I have a distant memory, of my uncle and his mates doing some engine swap on a spitfire, and a 6 cylinder was mentioned, however, said car was written off on its 1st test drive when my uncle put it through a hedge, and rolled it down a steep embankment. He was thrown clear, but ended up breaking both his legs and 3 ribs at the same time, and the policeman who attended the crash said if he had been wearing his seat belt he would have been killed, as there was very little left of the car.

Didn't itcome in coupe form as the GT6?

As for the song, didn't it go "Doo, d-doo, ch"? Once heard a DJ introduce it as being by Munge Jerry.....................

Malcolm

I think the 600 and what Rover could do with it was severely restricted by Honda - only allowed to be sold in certain markets and all that jazz.

It did, affectionately known as the poor mans etype...very cool coupe and much better handling than the spitfire as it was much more rigid...there were lots of folks who dropped a spitfire body onto a GT6 chassis...but not the same as a production model....

my spitfire was a 1.5 which i had 'breathed' some life into in full race tune they developed around 150bhp but the bottom end was easily cooked and big end rumbles were common on the 1.5 engine. It was an exciting car to drive tuned but the handling was unpredictable and it didnt always go the direction you expected. My boss years back crashed in a spitfire, rolled and was in a coma for months....no rollover bars in those days...guess what I made sure was fitted to mine? you guessed it.

Just looking back through the last MG Rover Brochures and cant help thinking there should have been a engine between the 190 and 260, it surely wouldnt have taken much to sleeve the KV6 up to 3.0 or 3.5 litre to produce a fire breathing V6...the 2.5 isnt eaxctly slow, but imagine how much quicker it would have been with and extra 1000cc, 250-270 bhp maybe?

AND...in using the rear wheel drive chassis of the 260 it couldve been lightening quick with out the ultra heavy V8 motor in there.

Ever wondered why they didnt just use the old Rover V8? It was bored out to 4.3 wasnt it for the Range rovers, in a hot state of tune it was good for 300+ bhp.

Another missed opportunity?

I think that was for emmisions? The Rover V8 sadly just wasn't good enough for emmisions regs.

I do think a V6 diesel and tiptronic auto would have been good in the 75 diesel.

I'd go as far back as to blame William Lyons on the death of the Rover marque. Once Leyland (Leyland Trucks, Rover, Triumph and Alvis) had joined BMC (Austin, Morris, Jaguar etc), Lyons was intent on letting nothing being better than his pride and joy (Jaguar). As a result - the Rover P8 that was signed off for production was cancelled (by Lyons). This car was aiming to be the best car in the world. 4.4 V8 engine as standard, vast saftey improvements, modern and dynamic styling and robust Rover build quality. But no - Lyons stuck his ore in. As a result - we had a Jaguar with serious build quality issues partly down to the prehistoric production line and Jaguars generally lazy build quality.

Then Rover is forced down market with a low cost Rover SD1. Lovely design but built by a disgruntled workforce, cost cut engineering, a range of dodgy triumph engines (as as such the death ultimately of Triumph - as Rover was forced down as not to compete with Jaguar).

As a result - we have Jaguar who have haven't really ever made profit since pre-BMC and the loss of two historically great marques - Rover and Triumph.


So in a nut shell - the best car Rover never made was the P8. By not making this car, it allowed the first cut to be followed by many many more.

i would like to have seen a rover 800 and a 75 convertable, and i would like to see a 75 coupe.