Rover 75 V8

[Fille]

Hello, a couple of R 75 V8 / MG ZT 260 questions...

1) Was there ever a Mk 1 Rover 75 V8, ie with the old style front end? If i understood correctly there are Mk 1 MGs around but all Rovers I've seen were with the new style front.

2 a) Are all R 75 V8s automatic and
b) are all ZT 260s manual?

Does anyone know for sure the ratio between the different models, ie how many ZT, ZT-Ts, 75s and 75 Tourers were made with the V8. Also the number of LHD vs RHD would be interesting.

I'm getting the V8 fever again, there's a ZT-T 260 for sale in Helsinki...

[Simon]

Answer to question 2 as far as I know is yes. R75 V8's were all 4-speed auto and all ZT260's are 5-speed manual.

Not sure about how many ZT260's to R75 V8's though but I'd say the ratio could be quite big.

[Mike]

1. no
2.a yes
2.b yes

hth

Mike

[Duotone]

Originally Posted by Mike

1. no
2.a yes
2.b yes

hth

Mike

On a factory tour of Longbridge in late 2003 we were shown 3 Rover 75 V8's, these had mk.1 front and rear bumpers.
There was a BRG. a Royal Blue and a Copperleaf Red.
We were shown the 3 cars at the end of the tour near the rolling road test.
The bonnet's were up, and we were even allowed to sit in the drivers seat.

I'm sure you are right Mike no mk1's were sold because I heard that the 3 were either scrapped or converted to the Rover 75 V8 bumpers..

Dave T

[Tim]

There were in fact a very few number of 260 auto's produced but as above with four speed auto boxes.

Unfortunately there is no audited figures which confirm the numbers but there are about 213 ish ZT mk1's 27 being ZTT's. This included as part of the 883 total. Of the remaining 670 about 120 were Rover 75's and of those we reckon about 20 were Tourers. Of the 550 mk2 mg's there could have been about 70 ZTT mk2's.

From MGR we only have car by car details of the first 226

[Keith]

Toms Silver ZT-T 260 V8 was an auto
Several in Aus I believe

[AURORA MG]

So far as I know there are 2 Mk1 Rover 75 V8's. Brown & Gammons baught them & were on display on their stand at Slverstone in June 2006 & sold them. I had a look at one in their showroom, they were both different shades of burgundy, one of which was Damson Red.

Having sad that, they wern't technically Rover 75 V8's even though they wore all the cloths of a 75 as they were actually built as ZT V8's!!!

[pmessling]

keep learning more and more about the V8. never knew they built some 75 V8 as mk1 ones. even if they were zt's

[miketata]

I beleive only about 12 V8s came to Oz and of these only two or three are 75 guise. Very few manual Rovers came here at all...The car was sold at a premium price (dearer than bmw at the time) so auto was expected....even in Zts.

Sadly the lack of support and parts means the cars are dropping in value fast ..now touching 15 grand which is about 4 and a bit thousand pounds, whereas they were fetching twice that.

Their reliability continues to astound ...no corrosion problems here or wet electrics.

Rover Australia had just introduced the zr and zs as mgr went belly-up, so there are a dozen of these cars as well/

[anglaslt]

Originally Posted by pmessling

keep learning more and more about the V8. never knew they built some 75 V8 as mk1 ones. even if they were zt's

There were no production Mk I 75 V8s.

A couple of development cars based on a Mk I 75 body, as mentioned, but they too were autos and at least one (if not both) was updated with Mk II front/rear bumpers.