The Rover SD1 is an executive car which was manufactured by British Leyland (BL) from 1976 until 1986 and marketed under the Rover marque. Sold with a variety of names, the code name "SD1" refers to the "Specialist Division" of BL (later known as the "Jaguar-Rover-Triumph" division), with the "1" denoting it as the first product of their in-house design team. A large five-door hatchback with fastback styling, the SD1 has a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout and was sold with various petrol engines, including the Rover V8, as well as a diesel engine.
The SD1 was introduced as a replacement for the Rover P6 and Triumph 2000 models, and in 1977 it won the European Car of the Year title. It continued to be produced by the Austin-Rover division after BL was reorganised in 1982, and eventually was replaced by the Rover 800 series in 1986. The SD1 was the final Rover-badged vehicle to be produced at Solihull. Future Rover models would be built at the former British Motor Corporation factories at Longbridge and Cowley. It was also produced under licence in Chennai, India as the Standard 2000 from 1985 to 1988.
History
Background In 1971, Rover, at that time a part of the British Leyland (BL) group, began developing a new car to replace both the Rover P6 and the Triumph 2000/2500. The designers of both Triumph and Rover submitted proposals for the new car known as the Triumph Puma and Rover P10 respectively, of which the latter was chosen. David Bache was to head the design team, inspired by exotic machinery such as the Ferrari Daytona and 365 GTC/4, and the late 1960s design study by Pininfarina for the BMC 1800, which also guided the design of the Citroën CX. Spen King was responsible for the engineering. The two had previously collaborated on the Range Rover. The project was first code-named RT1 (for Rover Triumph Number 1) but then soon changed to SD1 (for Specialist Division Number 1) as Rover and Triumph were put in the new "Specialist Division" of British Leyland.
Design The new car was designed with simplicity of manufacture in mind in contrast to the P6, the design of which was rather complicated in areas such as the De Dion suspension. The SD1 used a simple beam axle instead. Also, the other vehicle being replaced, the Triumph 2000, had fully independent rear suspension. This different approach was chosen because surveys showed that although the automotive press was impressed by sophisticated and revolutionary designs, the general buying public was not unless the results were good. However, with the live rear axle came another retrograde step – the car was fitted with drum brakes at the rear.
Rover's plans to use a new 2.2-litre DOHC 16-valve Slant-Four engine with Bosch L-Jetronic fuel injection were soon abandoned as BL management ruled that substantially redesigned versions of Triumph's six-cylinder engine were to power the car instead. The Rover V8 engine was fitted in the engine bay. The three-speed automatic gearbox was the BorgWarner 65 model.
The dashboard of the SD1 features an air vent, unusually, directly facing the passenger. The display binnacle sits on top of the dashboard in front of the driver to aid production in left-hand drive markets, since it avoided the expense of producing two different dashboard mouldings for LHD and RHD versions. The air vent doubles as a passage for the steering-wheel column, and the "podular" display binnacle can be easily fitted on top of the dashboard on either the left or right-hand side of the car.Top Gear, Series 4 Episode 8 18 July 2004 This concept was not entirely new; it had also been used on the Range Rover and was used again on the Mk.1 Austin Metro, both of which were also designed by David Bache. The interior of the Series 1 was notable for its lack of wood embellishment in comparison to previous Rover saloons, with an extensive use instead of modern soft-feel plastics, and a new "skeletal" version of the Rover badge would appear on the bonnet - Bache was keen that the SD1 should make use of the latest industrial design trends and be a clean break from the past.
An estate body had been envisaged, but it did not get beyond the prototype stage. Two similarly specified estates have survived, and are exhibited at the Heritage Motor Centre and the Haynes International Motor Museum respectively. One was used by BL chairman Sir Michael Edwardes as personal transport in the late 1970s. The two cars as befit prototypes differ in the detail of and around the tailgate. One car has a recessed tailgate, while the other has a clamshell arrangement, where the whole tailgate is visible when closed.
The SD1 was intended to be produced in a state-of-the-art extension to Rover's historic Solihull factory alongside the TR7. It was largely funded by the British government, who had bailed BL out from bankruptcy in 1975. Unfortunately, this did nothing to improve the patchy build quality that then plagued all of British Leyland. That, along with quick-wearing interior materials and poor detailing ensured that initial enthusiasm soon turned to disappointment.
Series 1 (1976–1982) This car was launched on its home market in June 1976Ambitious sales targets for new Rover car. The Times 30 June 1976; pg. 5; Issue 59743 in hatchback/fastback form only, as the V8-engined Rover 3500: SOHC 2.3 L and 2.6 L sixes followed in November 1977, when the Rover P6 and Triumph 2000 were finally discontinued. Although there was no four-cylinder version of the SD1 at this point, British Leyland produced 1.8, 2.0 and 2.2 versions of the smaller Princess in order to compete with the entry-level versions of the Ford Granada, as well as more expensive versions of the Ford Cortina.
The car was warmly received by the press and even received the European Car of the Year award for 1977. Its launch on the European mainland coincided with its appearance at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1977, some three months after the Car of the Year announcement. Dealers had no left-hand drive cars for sale, however, since production had been blocked by a tool makers' strike affecting several British Leyland plants and a "bodyshell dispute" at the company's Castle Bromwich plant. Closer to home, the car and its design team received The Midlander of the Year Award for 1976, because they had between them done most in the year to increase the prestige of the (English) Midlands region.
Poor construction quality was apparent even in the company's press department fleet. The British magazine Motor published a road test of an automatic 3500 in January 1977, and while keen to highlight the Rover's general excellence, they also reported that the test car suffered from poor door seals, with daylight visible from inside past the rear door window frame's edge on the left side of the car, and a curious steering vibration at speed which might have resulted from the car's front wheels not having been correctly balanced. Disappointment was recorded that the ventilation outlet directly in front of the driver appeared to be blocked, delivering barely a breeze even when fully open; the writer had encountered this problem on one other Rover 3500, although he had also driven other cars of the same type with an abundant output of fresh air through the vent in question. Nevertheless, in March 1977, Britain's Autocar was able to publish an article by Raymond Mays – a famous racing driver and team manager during (in particular) the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s – in which Mays explained why, after driving it for 12,000 miles, he considered his Rover 3500 was "the best car he [had] ever had", both for its many qualities as a driver's car and for its excellent fuel economy even when driven hard. Similar ventilation problems persisted until 1980.
Another area of concern was flaking paint on early models, forcing British Leyland to spend a lot of money on repainting cars.
In television shows John Steed in The New Avengers and George Cowley in The Professionals both used yellow Rover 3500 models.
Cosmetic tweaks and range expansion Between 1976 and 1981 there were some very minor updates to the car including new badging (front and rear) and chrome backed door mirrors - the traditional-style Rover Longship emblem returned for the 1981 model year, thus replacing the 'skeletal' version, although the latter continued to be used on the hubcaps, and indeed a variant of this Rover logo was later used as a hubcap emblem on both the later SD3 Rover 200 and Rover 800 models as late as 1989. 1979 also saw the introduction of the then range-topping V8-S model with no mechanical alterations, available in a rather bright metallic "Triton" green amongst others with either gold or silver-painted alloy wheels depending on the body color. Interior specification included air-conditioning, thick luxurious carpets, velour seats and a headlamp wash/wipe system. This now very rare model was replaced in late 1980 with the Vanden Plas (VP) model, which came with a leather interior as standard.
North American market models
In 1980 Rover obtained US type approval for the SD1 and re-entered the American market after a ten-year absence. The car was only made available as a single variant, built at the Solihull plant and using a modified version of the V8 engine and badged simply as "Rover 3500". The equipment and trim levels were similar to that of the UK market's then top-of-the-range V8-S model. The main differences were a smaller steering wheel, the manually operated sunroof being a cost option and rear passenger head restraints were not available at all. Small Union Jack badges were fixed to the lower section of each front wing, just ahead of the doors, to promote the car's British origins. Canadian market cars had V8 badges instead of the Union Jack.
The five-speed manual gearbox was supplied as standard, with the three-speed automatic version being a cost option.
US safety legislation (that first applied to the Citroën DS) demanded that the headlamp arrangement exclude the front glass panels. Also larger, heavier bumpers were required, increasing the overall length to .
American emissions regulations necessitated replacing the carburetors with Lucas' L-Jetronic fuel injection system, using dual catalytic converters together with a modified exhaust manifold and adding antismog equipment. The engine's compression ratio was modified to 8.13:1.
Beginning in the 1980 model year, the American version of the 3532 cc V8 used in the Triumph TR8 produced with carburetors, except in California where it produced thanks to fuel injection.
Beginning in June 1980 and through the final, 1981 model year, the American version of the Rover 3500 produced at 5100 rpm with fuel injection. This engine variant was also used in the 1981 Triumph TR8. Meanwhile, the carburetted European version of the Rover SD1 produced . While publicity material claimed it was capable of reaching 148 hp, the car as sold actually peaked at 133 hp (at 5000 rpm).
Fuel injection for the Rover V8, first seen on the California emissions model in late 1979, was introduced later in Europe. The 1982 Rover SD1 Vitesse was launched with , thanks to additional modifications such as having a hotter camshaft.
Since August 1978, a carbureted engine, with antismog equipment, had already been on sale in Australia with . Beginning in the 1981 model year, Australia received a version of the fuel injected federalized engine with .
The SD1 gained positive reviews in the American press and was competitively priced against rivals such as the BMW 5 Series and corresponding Mercedes-Benzes.Rover, Rover, now you can come over, p. 159 Despite this, the car still sold poorly, having achieved just 480 sales between its launch in June 1980 and the end of that year. The whole of 1981 attracted 774 sales, although most of these cars had actually been built and stockpiled the previous year.