Hello Wedge (Part III): Rover SD1
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uring the Sixties, Rover had enjoyed considerable success with their P6 model. This car, along with the Triumph 2000 had basically created the template for the middle management car: larger and more plush than family man's Morris or Ford, but not as grand as the director's Daimler. In the prosperity of the Sixties, these two cars had carved up this new market between themselves and had both been profitable ventures for Leyland. Both cars had been developed throughout their lives, the Triumph receiving a new and more aggressive Michelotti “face” and an upgunned 2.5-litre engine; the Rover most successfully receiving the ex-Buick 3528cc V8 engine, in the process becoming a car loved by the pushy young executive and the Police alike.

As Rover and Triumph were now part of Leyland cars, it seemed logical that both cars would need to be replaced by a single car. Devising the best plan to achieve this, however, was not so straightforward. Rover and Triumph still operated separate management structures, possessed separate drawing offices and were still fiercely competitive with each other. As detailed in previous chapters, the merger was taking its toll on management, so the engineers and product designers were pretty much left to get on with things themselves.

Rover had been quietly working on some interesting projects, such as the P6BS supercar and the P8 “super saloon”, intended to replace the P5 saloon, so oft-used as ministerial transport. Triumph were busying themselves with the gorgeous Stag and working on rationalising the Toledo/1300 range. Development of a replacement for Rover's P6 and Triumph's 2500 only got underway in 1969, with each division working on its own model.

Work by Rover began in earnest following the launch of the Range Rover in March 1970, and the new car rapidly took shape. As with the P6, David Bache did not want a contemporary design; when it came to his new car, he wanted something that was ahead of the game, and with the P10, he decided very early in the development phase that he wanted a hatchback configuration, and that he wanted the Rover to look exclusive.

Whilst Spen King and David Bache worked on Rover's model, initially to be called the P10, Harry Webster's design team worked on the Michelotti-styled Triumph model – codenamed Puma – in consultation with William Towns. Basically, this internal competition was brought to a close when Leyland's management, headed by Donald Stokes, brought both teams together in February 1971, with a view to the better of the two cars becoming the new large Rover/Triumph saloon. In this “head to head” competition, Rover's car was adjudged to be superior by Donald Stokes and John Barber, so development resources were exclusively directed to David Bache's design.

This result proved to be a happy coincidence, as there was already a feeling that the new large car should be marketed only as a Rover. After all, Triumph's range at this time consisted of smaller cars (later to be umbrella'd under the Dolomite name) and the slightly cheaper of the two ranges in the 2-litre class (Triumph 2000/2500). Thus, it was decided that a smaller car could be developed in the future to replace the Toledo/Dolomite, and badged as a Triumph. It was at this point in the development of the car that the P10 was renamed RT1 (denoting Rover-Triumph), to signify that this was a car that integrated both Triumph and Rover engineering.

By late spring 1971 Jaguar, Rover and Triumph were grouped together under the Specialist Division banner because of internal re-organization within British Leyland, and thus led to the project being re-named once more: it was now SD1.

In July 1971 and after much engineering development work, the SD1 had reached the full-scale model stage and when management viewed the project, they were very impressed with the designs that were being mooted. At this point the styling had yet to be finalised by Bache, but the British Leyland board gave the SD1 the green light for production.

One thing was very evident on the engineering front: the range of engines available for the new car was very limited. The then-current 2-litre Rover engine was inefficient and unrefined, and it was deemed that the six-cylinder Triumph engine would (with some development) be much more suitable. This was not a bad-marketing ploy, as executive car buyers were becoming increasingly demanding drivers; nothing less than six cylinders in their wagons would do.

Because the make up of the six-cylinder engines was finalised after development of the SD1 had started, it was decided that the new car would be launched in two phases: the V8-engined model coming first and the six-cylinder models later – when the new engines came on stream – thereby giving the SD1 two bites of the cherry as far as publicity was concerned.

While the issue of engines was being decided, development of the SD1 continued apace and Bache continued his work on the SD1's styling. In November 1971, a further full-size clay model, looking remarkably like the finished article, was presented to the British Leyland board. Bache had changed the look from that of RT1 because he felt it too angular, so he had evolved the shape by making it more curvaceous, to become the SD1 as we know it today.

The board's reaction to this design concept backed up their earlier enthusiasm for how Bache was developing the look of the Rover. At this point the SD1 was all but finished, but it wasn't until 1973 that the styling was finally signed-off for production.

Bache maintained that designers will come up with broadly similar cars for their intended markets given similar environmental stimuli and resources, and was bourne out the fact that in the mid-1970s, we were presented with the Rover SD1, Citroën CX, Lancia Gamma and Renault 20/30 – all six-light, fastback designs with wedge-shaped bodies and good attention to aerodynamic detail. There was also the matter of the 1967 Pininfarina BMC 1800, which undoubtedly had a fair influence on these cars. When speaking in an interview with Car magazine in 1982, Bache actually cited the Ferrari 250LM and 365GTB/4 Daytona as the major influences on the SD1 - and this can certainly be seen in the style around the front end of the car; the headlights and indicators are practically a facsimilie of the classic Ferrari's. Another feature that the SD1 shared with the Daytona was its side swage lines, which managed to add practical as well as aesthetic benefits to the SD1: dirt kicked up from the road was caught in the side creases and the upper flanks would therefore remain relatively clean – there would be no mucky hands when pulling the door handles of the SD1!

With the exterior styling of the SD1 settled, Bache worked on the interior, which like the body styling was also a complete departure from the P6. He moved to a more “industrial” design, forgoing the “wood and leather” ambience of the “olde-worlde” P6 in favour of an almost stark, Germanic style. The dashboard and steering wheel were textured from soft-feel plastics, a move which in itself was ahead of its time. The design of the dashboard was cleverly made symmetrical in order to facilitate the assembly of both left- and right-hand drive cars. Throughout the interior, clever touches abounded: fully-adjustable steering column, ample small storage areas including nifty under-dashboard lockers, folding rear seats, a removable parcel shelf and internally adjustable door mirrors, to name but a few of these features. All taken for granted in this day and age, but back in 1976, a great leap forward in interior ergonomics. Bache reasoned that he could make a feature out of the fact that the instrument cluster was a unit incorporated as part of this symmetrical dashboard. It wasn't styled, as such, but was simply designed as a “box” with instruments in it, parked on top of the dashboard in front of the driver.

Design sketch for the interior shows to great effect how the symmetrical dash design works.

Lead chassis development engineer on the SD1, Spen King brought with him a new attitude to the production of the new car. He was an engineer that would shun high complexity for the sake of it, preferring a well-developed conventional solution, if one were available – and nowhere was this more evident than in the mechanical set-up of the SD1. King had risen through the ranks of Triumph in the 1960s, but immediately after the merger of Leyland and BMC in 1968, he was fast tracked by Stokes to become the head of Engineering for the entire organisation (after the departure of Harry Webster). In his new role, he oversaw all of the engineering for the SD1 and as we have seen, he cleverly made use of some surprisingly simple components in the design of the car.

The existing Rover V8 Buick engine was mildly warmed over, with its rev limit being upped, slightly giving a small, but useful rise in power (Up to 155bhp @ 5250rpm from 143bhp @ 5000rpm) and also an improvement in driveability through freer breathing and the change in the torque characteristics (maximum torque being delivered at 1950rpm, as opposed to 2700rpm). When Rover bought the rights to the V8 Buick engine in the mid-1960s, they can't have known just how far-sighted that decision was – this light and infinitely tuneable engine was used up to the end of the 1990s in Rover's products. Through careful development, this sound design was easily capable of keeping up with more modern power units, and it was still going strong into the twenty-first century.

A new Five-speed gearbox was also developed for the SD1 – which was proposed at the time to be first of a family of new gearboxes for use across the Leyland range. The SD1 version was called the 77mm gearbox in-house (because that was the shaft centre dimension) and was first shown in the TR7 V8 rally car, a few months before the launch of the SD1. The design of this ‘box was modular, in as much as different versions of this gearbox could be used for different applications.

As it happens, Jaguar was a recipient of this ‘box for the XJ6 in 1979, but the proposed 66mm version that was to appear in the Marina replacement and the SD-2 never materialised when it became clear that the money had run out to produce these cars.

In terms of suspension for the SD1, there was a departure in store: Whereas the P6 used DeDion independent rear suspension to great effect, this system was rejected for the SD1 on the grounds of cost and complexity. King maintained that a live rear axle would be able to do the job equally as well as any of the esoteric independent systems used in the SD1's rivals. Careful location and development, concentrated on the bushing for the rear axle were incorporated at the rear and at the front, industry-standard MacPherson struts were employed, as opposed to the horizontal coils used in its predecessor. This may have seen like a retrograde step in terms of technology, but Spen King considered the MacPherson strut arrangement to be far less liable to suffer from the effects of camber changes than the double wishbone arrangement in the P6 and, therefore, a more stable solution in emergency manoeuvres.

One major advance for Rover was the adoption of the Burmann Power assisted steering system for the SD1. This was a conventional PAS system, but unlike others, which traditionally retained standard gearing, the advantage of power assistance was put to great use. King decided that much higher gearing could be used than standard, so the SD1 ended-up with gearing equating to 2.7 turns of the wheel from lock to lock. At this point in time, only Citroen with their Diravi system had engineered Power steering to be so directly geared. Development engineers loved this system and it was noted that unlike the Citroen set-up, people new to the SD1 needed no acclimatisation period to drive the Rover. It was very conventional it its feel, even though its directness and, therefore, responsiveness were vastly better than its rivals could offer.

Such was the optimistic mood in the early Seventies, no doubt fuelled on by the promise of anticipated huge sales figures furnished by the sales networks, Rover managed to secure finance from British Leyland's management to build a new factory in Solihull, solely to build the new car. This £300million investment, although, endowed with good intention did prove to be a major problem for British Leyland, with a poor Labour relations record, resulting a huge amount of lost days due to industrial action. Lauded as a state of the art factory in 1976, it was sadly closed as a consequence of the great rationalisation of the Company in 1981.

In the Months leading up to the launch, the SD1 was put through many customer clinics and the feedback was excellent. When lined up against such rivals as the Audi 100, Rover's own P6 and Volvo 164, people adjudged that the SD1 was a much more expensive car – comparing it favourably with the Jaguar XJ6. This should have spurred Rover on to price the 3500 at a higher level than these immediate rivals, but as we can see, this is not the case – Rover faced a political situation within the Specialist Division of British Leyland and it was decided to pitch the Rover at a price level comfortably below the “basic” XJ6, the 3.4 Series Two model in order to avoid internecine competition.

The existence of the upcoming SD1 was possibly the worst kept secret in the history of the British Motor industry up to that point and yet it still did not lessen the impact of the car's launch, when it finally came in July 1976. The press were ecstatic, raving about the car's styling, the way it performed and how quite simply the car felt so right. The press lauded the SD1 for many aspects but what they particularly liked was its strong, torquey performance which combined with its high gearing making it a very relaxed car to drive indeed. The charismatic V8 added charm to the package.

The V8 actually proved to be quite economical in this application because overdrive gear ratios meant that during motorway cruising, for example, the engine was only turning 2500rpm at 70mph and therefore, was never stressed. Of course, the V8 liked a drink when pressed, but to make very reasonable progress, one never really had to work it hard.

The 3500 was also praised for its good ride and handling and the quick steering made it feel smaller and more responsive than it actually was. What this all meant was that the 3500 appealed to the same pushy young execs that fell for the P6B's charms. This time though, the 3500 was also a commodious car, something the P6 never was, but not only for passengers, but for luggage too – the hatchback configuration afforded practicality that rivals such as the Ford Granada had no hope of matching. Because of this almost universal acclaim, bouquets being bestowed on the Rover in the UK and Europe, alike, the Rover became the recipient of some quite prestigious rewards.

All this praise culminated in the 3500 being awarded the Don Safety award and also the European car of the Year for 1977 – something that a British Leyland car had not achieved since the Rover P6 in 1963.

Customers agreed with the press and the 3500 was very soon so oversubscribed that people were queuing to buy the car – and worse, some dealers were actually selling delivery mileage examples at a premium over the list price – something that British Leyland had never experienced before. Rover had priced the 3500 at £4750, which at the time, brought it into direct competition with such cars as the Citroen CX, Volvo 144 and Audi 100, all cars with 4-cylinder engines and cars that could not hope to go as well as the V8 engined Rover. Only the V6 Ford Granada 3000 was in the same league at that price point, but that was a vastly more conventional looking car than the Rover and lacked its showroom appeal.

V8-S interior, showing just how modernistic this design was. Not a piece of wood veneer to be seen anywhere! This picture also demonstrates how the dashboard made it from design to production, relatively untouched. It's a shame that the steering wheel wasn't as small as the one depicted in the original design sketch (above).

After the kicking that the public and the media had given British Leyland over the Allegro, Princess and Marina, this was genuinely good news for the Company, but as usual, trouble lurked, not far away. Rover had committed the cardinal sin of not making enough examples to satisfy the demand for the new car. To be fair, no-one within British Leyland had expected the rush to buy the new car, but at the same time, the P6B was a very successful car and the SD1 was so “right” in design and execution that it shouldn't have come as a surprise that people were going to be clamouring for the new car.The sitution was also excerbated by the BL-wide tool-makers strike in the early months of 1977 - domestic supplies were drastically cut, but more disastrously when the SD1 was put on sale in the EEC in March 1977, riding high on the good publicity from the CotY award and generally excellent press reports, the dealers had no stock which to sell. Derek Whittaker appealed to the sensibilities of the rogue workers, who he said, were costing the company profits - big profits - by not allowing the company to build the car that people across Europe so patently wanted to buy. Again, the company had shot themselves in the foot - all the good pre-launch publicity in the EEC amounted to nothing as people soon associated BL with strikes and non-production.

But things went downhill rapidly for Rover with build problems rearing their ugly head again and reports filtering back rapidly from unhappy customers of tales of woe concerning their cars reliability. These centred mainly on the electrical system, but beyond that, there were innumerable paintwork and fit/finish problems reported too - it seemed that the products of new assembly lines at Solihull were not subject to any meaningful quality control methods. The sheen of a successful launch was so tarnished by these problems – and being a British Leyland product, these problems were highly newsworthy, so public perception of just how fine a car the 3500 was, were soon changed from admiration of an excellent car to disdain for an unreliable one.

Soon the dealers were marking down the trade-in values of the 3500 and the unreliable reputation that the car quickly gained had stuck. As Lancia in the UK will tell you, once you get a bad reputation in the UK, it stays with you for years.

Rover launched the 2300 and 2600 models in late 1977, finally laying to rest the P6 and Triumph 2500 models after their long and distinguished service. As explained before, these inline six cylinder engines were loosely based on the old Triumph straight Six, but with changes to the cylinder heads and carburetion bringing them up to date. The new models were warmly received by the press, especially the 2600 model, being viewed as a car that could do 95 percent of what the V8 engined model could do, but at a lower cost. Production of the new engines was slow to build up and again BL were left with the situation of not being able to supply the cars that customers wanted. It wasn't until the spring of 1978 that one could obtain a 2300 without wait, but none of this mattered too much as the SD1 had by now earned an unenvible reputation for unreliability that was putting off buyers in droves - and straight into the arms of Ford, who hd their smart new Mark II Granada to sell.

Buyers remained faithful to the 3500 and the range of 2300/2600 started to sell reasonably well, with the 2600 especially doing well on the continent. The second oil crisis of 1979 affected the Rover range along with all other large cars, but sales held-up relatively well and the arrival of the smaller engined cars meant that Rover could change the marketing emphasis of the SD1, pushing the 2300 and 2600 models, making sure that customers were well aware that there was a path for former 3500 buyers to downgrade to.

1979 also brought the first changes to the SD1 range, with the addition of the V8-S model. This was the first attempt by Rover to move the model further upmarket in an attempt to expand the range's sales (and profit) potential. The V8-S basically included all options available to the 3500 model as standard, with the addition of such toys as air conditioning and electric sunroof. Despite this, sales continued to fall in line with all other large cars due to the recession that was now biting very hard. The expansion of the range continued into 1980 with the release of the even more lavish Vanden Plas model, to replace the V8-S, offering even more interior opulence. Further running improvements were made across the range, the array of models was expanded and build quality was allegedly tightened-up.

As the company's car sales continued to their downturn (1979 marked the first time that their share of the market dropped below 20%) British Leyland were in serious cash crises. The strike riddled Solihull factory was closed at great expense and SD1 production was transferred to Cowley for the 1982 model year, as the firm regrouped.

When production started at the new plant, it was as a facelifted model. In 1981, with Metro successfully launched and the LM10 (Maestro) nearing production, modified versions of existing cars across the range started to appear – first was the Ital, then the Acclaim (built under licence) and then this revised Rover. The styling of the SD1 was tidied-up - and along with further widespread revisions, came the rebirth of an evocative name from the past: The Rover 2000.

Rover SD1 estate was developed by Solihull but never reached production, due to British Leyland's financial woes following the Ryder Report. Sir Michael Edwardes, however, liked the car so much that he used it as his personal runabout. During 1978 and 1979, it was seen frequently in the City of London.

What British Leyland created with this clever piece of “parts bin” engineering was a moderately successful attempt at an entry-level model. Under the bonnet, where previously large, multi-cylinder engines resided, a dainty 1994cc O-Series engine sat, almost lost in the engine bay. The 2000 was a better performer than its 104bhp and large body would have lead one to expect: Topping 105mph and doing the 0-60 dash in about 13 seconds. It was, however, a culture shock to drive one though, if you'd previously driven the effortless 3500 or 2600 models. To get the best out of one, being in the right gear ratio at the right time was an absolute must. Changes range-wide included cosmetic improvements, the rear window was enlarged to improve visibility when reversing, a new instrument panel was incorporated and a slightly tidied-up front-end styling treatment.

Importantly, the SD1's build quality and rust resistance improved markedly at this point in time – no longer would you see new Rovers sat on the hard shoulder of the Motorway, bonnet up and the driver looking in, a mixture of rage and exasperation on their face. These new models came at a time, when the SD1's image was at a low and sales did pick up slightly as a result of the bargain priced (£5-7million) facelift. The group as a whole also posted increased sales in 1981 and 1982, as the new cars, which offered far more buyer appeal started to appear.

Further models came thick and fast as British Leyland continued to develop the car. Late in 1982 came the SD Turbo model, a 2393cc Turbo Diesel engine as donated by VM of Italy slotted under the bonnet, which gave a handy 90bhp. Hardly a rocket ship, but as diesels circa 1982 went, it was not a bad piece of kit. Top speed was over 100mph, which made it one of Europe's fastest oil burners. Unfortunately, like the similarly powered turbo diesel Range Rovers, it did suffer from voracious Turbo lag and didn't go on to sell in particularly large numbers in the UK, but it did do well, particularly in France and Italy.

What Rover watchers had been waiting for though, appeared in December 1982; a higher powered development of the V8 version: The Vitesse.

For a long time, Rover had watched the rise and rise of BMW in Europe with some envy. They had built a solid reputation for building cars with sporting appeal – something that the 3500 also had, but as market researchers attested, customers were becoming increasingly unaware of. Rover wanted a piece of this action, reasoning correctly that if they could create a “High Image” flagship, this “halo effect” would trickle its way down the range and give sales a useful fillip. So, in the lead-up to the launch of the revised range, Rover started work on a higher-powered version of the SD1, which would be unashamedly marketed at as a sports model. Development was centred on incorporating Lucas fuel injection, freer breathing and most importantly, a handy hike in power (up to 190bhp from 155bhp). Of course this increase in power was easily achieved, due to the almost infinitely tuneable nature of the ex-Buick V8 engine. In December 1982 the car was launched in a blaze of sporting fervour (along with the MG Metro Turbo) using the former Triumph go faster moniker, “Vitesse”, signifying BL's renewed interest in fast cars.

It was, indeed, pitched as an overtly sporting 3500, with body stripes, lowered suspension, bigger wheels and extra aerodynamic spoilers creating a very favourable impression. The advent of the Vitesse signalled a new confidence at Rover and in a short period of time, it was developed to run in the British and European Touring Car cups, with a certain amount of success. As a road car, it also proved popular, being favourably compared with rivals such as the BMW 528i and Saab 900 Turbo, being described by Motor Magazine in April 1983 as a, “Poor man's Aston Martin”.

The image of the SD1 staged a mild recovery, but age slowly took its toll as new and increasingly sophisticated rivals such as the Audi 100, Ford Scorpio and Renault 25 started to appear. Sales did hold up well all the way through to the car's demise, however, and in June 1986, it was replaced by the (Rover-Honda collaborative effort) Rover 800 Series.

One interesting anecdote is that the Metropolitan Police force loved the SD1 so much (fast, simple and a boot roomy enough to hold lots of traffic cones) it actually stockpiled a number of them for patrol car use and continued to bringing them into commission up until 1989!

In retrospect the SD1 showed that there was still real strength in depth in terms of design and Engineering within British Leyland, but unfortunately the car was dogged with poor build quality, which gave it a reputation that lived with it until the end. Had BL built the car to a higher standard, not hamstrung it with self-destructing Sixes, launched it as a full range of cars and made enough of them at the start, it is not inconceivable to think that the Specialist Division of British Leyland could have been a success in its own right.

The sad fact is that both Jaguar and Rover's cars were built so poorly only served to tarnish the image of these great marques, especially overseas: John Egan, then Ford saved Jaguar in the 1980s and 90s, Rover's future remains in the balance. Throughout the late 1970s and into the 80s, calls were constantly made by the speculative media for British Leyland to drop the Austin Morris part of the Company and concentrate solely on Rover, Jaguar and the sports cars. As unsavoury as this notion appeared at the time, history has born these pundits correct as MG-Rover moves into the 21st Century with plans to build solely sports and luxury cars.

Copyright © 2002 Keith Adams.