The Rover SD1

During the sixties, Rover had some succes with their P6 model. Rover worked on a super saloon the P8 project. It was a car with the size of a Jaguar with either an uprated V8 engine or a 4.4 litre long stroke engine. This was later used in the P76 for the Australian market. The P8 would be a very complicated car, with advanced suspension. It was fast, luxurious and intended to be a "mercedes eater". But the P8 was to much like a Jaguar. And because both companies, Jaguar and Rover became part of the Leyland empire the P8 project was cancelled.

While the Rover P4 and P5 had always been considered to be on a par with Jaguar. The new project Rover P10 (later SD1) would be market against Fords, Renaults, Volvos and similar cars. John Barber who joined the BL group from 1971 as Leylands financial manager. John came from the Ford Motorcompany and they used a costing department along the lines. He set up a department that controlled all the financial aspects of the costs, every nut and bolt was recalculating in order to reduce costs.

The new Rover project was called P10 in 1969, which was a Rover project to replace the P6. There was a competition between the Rover and Triumph engineers to produce ideas for the replacement of the large Triumph and Rover models. Triumph came up with the Puma project, and Rover with the P8. Rover won the competition, as the board of the company desided the P10 was the best. In 1971 the P10 project became a Rover-Triumph project to replace the P6 and Triump 2000/2500 models. By April of that year, the project was renamed Specialist Division Number One.

The enthusiasm to make a new car a five door hatchback design came from David Bache, backed up by Spen King. In that period there were no large hatchback,the largest was a Austin Maxi and Renault 16, both 1.5 liter cars. The large hatchback design with 3.5 liter engine was quite dramatical.

The style of the SD1 was pure David Blache, but the shape was no accident. The first attempts were angular and resembled the Chrysler-Simca Alpine. The Alpine lookalike was an interim prototype to experience on the body structure. Bache at this time even wanted to use gullwing doors on the new project. They became impractical and killed off. By July 1971 a first full size clay model was completed. But the board felt it was to angular, so he needed to rework his idea's. At this point he decided that the new Rover model would be deliberately copy of a supercar. The influence came from the Ferrari Daytona.

Ferrari Daytona

The front of the Rover with the headlights came straight from the Ferrari. But Blache also had influence from tehe Maserati Indy, a four seater super car. In December 1971 Bache produced a clay model of the model with a smoother shape "B" Style.

Its styling without the traditional radiator grille was dramatical different from any previous model. David Bache arranged a setup at the Solihull factory in 1972 with Maseratis, a Jensen Interceptor Coupe and a large Mercedes saloon as well as some other saloon cars, all placed along-side the new Rover.

And so the new Rover SD1 was born. Geoff Purkis was involved with the styling of the cars interior. His main influence came from the Ferrari Boxer, that includes the shape of the seats, door panels, arm rests etc. The glove box, the fascia and instrument panel and air vent in the middle of the dashboard were carried from the P6.

The car did not have a rear window wiper, Bache refused to have one, the car had enough aerodynamics that would make it unnecessary, he believed.

Throughout the interior, many features can be found. A 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. 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.

Other features, options and info can be found by clicking on the various models. Also have a closer look on the website of Keith Adams, click here...