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Rover EFi vanden Plas

A new car, a new search…

It was back in 1998 that I bought my first Rover SD1. I searched for a good car for almost a year, before I ran into a good one. The car, a 1983 2600S was a non-runner and it took me two years working the weekends to get the car back on the road. The body was in a reasonable good condition and everything that needed to be done was pure technical, from the engine to the brakes, and from the suspension to re-fitting a new headlining. Rust was something to tackle later, and not necessary in the first place.

From 2000 when the car was able to drive the Dutch roads, I used it as a daily driver. With the overhauled engine the car drove 40.000 km, never gave up during that period.

It is now early 2006, the 2600S is still running, but I had some problems over the last period of time, not with the engine as you would expect but with the gearbox and the rear suspension. The gearbox broke done twice, within 20.000 km. The LT77 might be not as reliable as everyone tells.

It made that I had some sort of “love-hate-relationship” with the Rover. There were times I thought to stop the hobby, sell everything and buy VW Golf or something like that. Something that is serviceable, reparable, and drivable as a daily car. It was just a thought, the looks of the SD1, and all the effort I put in made me decide to have a look for another one. Driven other peoples cars and visiting the UK SD1 club meetings made me decide that there must be a good one out there for me as well.

But which series this time, another 2600, its smaller brother perhaps, the diesel, or the choice everyone wants, the Rover V8? I could not decide, a 2600 is not bad, but all cars I knew for sale were none-runners. And one thing not on my preferences list was a non-runner this time. The overall condition must be worthwhile saving, better than mine, and it must be an automatic, that was for sure. Body shell must be in a reasonable good nick and car must certainly be able to drive. The budget was also a bit larger as back in 1998, so that is why my “wishing list”.

The Dutch Rover SD1 market is not very large, if you find 10 cars for sale in the UK, you will find only one in Holland. Some of them appeared on the "car for sale" web sites, all priced very high and not all with all the things I ‘required’.
So I expand my search beside Holland like Belgium, Germany and France. Thanks to the internet you can widen your search now more easily as years ago. But if you don't know where to look, one of the things is simply use the search machine and simply type: “Rover SD1 zu Verkaufe” or “Rover SD1 en Vendre”.

One of the most used search machines, Google returned with small ads on local for sale web sites. It was during one of these that I spotted a small advertisement in French, saying there was a MK1 series 3500, black color for sale in Swiss, and in the same ad a Moonraker Vitesse 3.5 manual from 1985. Car was parked in Swiss and in good condition and prices were good. (oh by the way, I don't speak French but an other translation program helped me out here.)

I got in contact with the seller, Alric Choulat. From the email correspondence that followed Alric explained me about his situation, and his cars. Basically the series 1 needed some work before if was able to drive again, and the Vitesse although a very nice car to see had driven 300.000 km, which is a lot for a car. But one of the problems with these cars was they needed to be export from Swiss. Swiss is not a EU country, meaning you need to export a car bought in Swiss, and with that pay money to the Swiss government. If you don’t worry about that, and you have enough money it is worth the try, but I want to invest in a car, not in politics and rules!

One other thing, if I gone for the Vitesse I still had a manual gearbox, and not the required automatic. And than Alric returned with an e-mail in which he told me he new a Rover vanden Plas Efi for sale in Geneva. The owner, a German living in Geneva and the car were still registered in Germany he told me. After we searched for his contact address, Joachim Grimsmann (seller) replied positive.

From his first e-mail he told me that he knew me! Very strange to hear, but it was because of my web site (this one) and being a member of one of the Yahoo groups that he knew my name better than I could recall his.

We got in contact and Joachim told me about the car. Although the engine was not running at the time, the car was in a good condition for its age, with no rust, only a bit tired. He sent me some photo’s, which immediately made it clear, this was a car that was looked after over the 20 years. Now, many of you would say, a picture can fool you! Yes, it can, you need to have a good feeling about it, together with the conversation I had with Joachim made me decide very quickly that this was the car to go for, although the thoughts about this were still somewhere in my mind.

Bringing the car to Holland was another issue. If it was not possible to drive it, the only other option was to pick it up. Rent a trailer and drive up to Swiss, would be nice, but my driving license and towing car won’t allow me. In the end I decided to have a classic car transport to pick up the car during one of the trips to and from Swiss/Italy. And so the car arrived half April, on the back of a trailer, this was the first time I seen my new ‘project’ in real!

It was a surprise package, but a nice one, the car was exactly how Joachim described it. Inside some extra 'goodies' and so we got if from the trailer to see how it preformed... But unfortunately the engine was not running, so first things first. See what was needed to get the EFI back on the road...

The fuel pump was nr. 1 to be fixed. click here...