![]()
Back to this month's car of the month
|
|
Car Of The Month :
November 2016
'The Best Of Three' by Scaramanga
My first experience of a Rover 75 was as a passenger, back in 2008, when I used to travel around the UK to attend weekend national Karate courses.
It was in my instructor’s 1.8T midnight blue Tourer, and even tough it was a tip inside with all his rubbish; I was impressed by its graceful lines and luxurious interior styling.
He described to me as “A real mans’ car”.
Deciding to get my hands on my own 75, I was extremely grateful one day in July 2010 that most of my Peugeot 206s’ electrical components failed without warning.
This provided me with a very handy excuse to give to my wife, when I came home with this…a 1.8 club with only 60,000 miles odd on the clock and in very good condition. My first 75!
I didn’t pay the advertised price, settling for just under half in exchange for my electrically challenged hatchback.
I’d always had small cars and I now felt the Bees Knees driving this beauty of a saloon. I pampered and polished the car to within an inch of its primer,
unfortunately meaning that the wife became slightly neglected. Much to my dismay it contracted the dreaded Head Gasket Failure, that infamous fault that I was not aware of at the time.
After an undeserving display of ‘Roverphobia’ from my mechanics it went to the great scrappy in the sky, in exchange for a truly awful Peugeot (their quality had fallen drastically but I was just following orders).
SWMBO was not pleased that my car had failed after such as short time and I can’t say I was too pleased either. Anyway I was well and truly in the dog house for a while and Rovers were well and truly banned.
Time passed by slowly without a Rover and I was caught red handed many a time looking at 75s on Auto Trader. Eventually I found one I could not stop drooling over at a local traders and I could not resist a sneaky test drive.
She felt more powerful than the 1.8 and I remember shouting “Wooohooo” as she shot up the motorway. I just had to get another her no matter the cost (of divorce).
I bought her there and then, but hid her up the road for a few weeks from the wife before I built up enough excuses and courage prior to confessing. However not all was lost to the wife as she managed to bribe another baby out of me out of that!
It’s a shame I hadn’t found the OC sooner as I might have been able to save my Silver one. However I found and joined the forum in 2012 at the same time I bought this one, a CDTi.
Soon after joining I began to do all those mods that we all know well; she was treated to the 160 remap, leather seats, a real wood dash and wooden steering wheel, bullet chrome mirrors, badges that ‘Project Drive’ deleted and those all important seat belt bolt covers!
She was a dream to drive and never let me down. My family thought I was mad when I gave her a name. I called her Goldy - hence my forum username Scaramanga – ‘The Man With The Golden….Car’
After 4 years of pleasurable ownership I received an unexpected message in May 2015 from a fellow forum member SJC, in response to my posts that he’d read about me wanting a top notch V6 2.5 litre Connoisseur SE.
He’d sold his 75 and he encouraged me to contact Jules and ask if I would like to buy it when repaired. I was over the moon when Jules gave me first refusal
It was to be a year before I finally got her as Jules is a very busy man….but it was well worth the wait! By that time the wife had given up going on about my 75 obsession but even still the surprise trip to Conwy turned out to be even more of a surprise (to her) when we came home not by train as expected, but in my third 75!
To be fair, she puts up with a lot.
This 75 has all the features that I want most; an immaculate sandstone leather interior, wood steering wheel, a V6 engine and an automatic gearbox. I can finally use my driver’s side cup holder without it being broken by my knee.
As I’m sure you all know this 75 was featured on Fifth Gear having been driven and appraised favourably by Tiff Needle. This was all due to SJC’s hard work and I’m very lucky to be her current custodian, one of our clubs’ famous cars.
Originally I intended to keep both 75s and have a ‘collection’. Goldy was intended for running about and the V6 for weekends, but finances eventually forced me to choose between them.
To be honest it was no contest at all to decide which to keep and it was with a heavy heart I sold Goldy. She was beaten hands down by the luxury, refinement and history of the V6.
What wonderful cars these are! What a beauty this one is. Just look at those meteors and just look at the smile on my chops!
Article written by member Scaramanga
|
