Typically English Rover carries stamp of quality

Press, 30 December 1988, Page 12

Typically English Rover carries stamp of quality

ROAD| TEST: Peter Greenslade drives a Rover Vitesse

GLANCE at almost any Motorcorp Rover advertisement for the 2.7litre Rover Vitesse and it is a pretty safe bet that you’ll get the message that it’s the fastest Rover yet, if you ignore the Rover BRM turbine-powered racer, with which the late Graham Hill burned up the Le Mans circuit quite a long time ago.

I’m sorry to say that such is not the case. The older VB- - SDI was slightly quicker, as a study of comparative road tests published in reputable European motoring journals clearly shows. Nevertheless it is a 221 km/h car and that is surely fast enough in any man’s language. I suppose one can excuse the advertising copy writer’s poetic licence, because the new Vitesse has a leaner and more rakish air about it than the older SDI, which is a victim of middle-aged spread. That was possibly the way Rover purists liked their cars to look and, frankly, I would not be so very surprised if some of them regarded the new Vitesse rather disdainfully. After all, even if the late Sir Alec Issigonis was the man who came up with the east-west engine concept almost 40 years ago in the Mini Minor, the Japanese have been flogging the idea to death for long enough. What is more, the new Vitesse is at least to some degree a Japanese-inspired car, as some of its mechanicals originated in the Honda Legend. So, strange to relate, this most English of quality cars, is powered by a 90 deg. V 6 aluminium alloy engine mounted transversely and driving through the front wheels via a super slick five-speed gearbox, or if you happen to be innately lazy and have an additional $2500 to spend to indulge the vice, there is an automatic gearbox variant to play its own tunes. For my part, I’d prefer the manual five-speed. It’s a really easy shifter and, I believe, more in keeping with the character of the car.

Incidentally, the basic manual transmission Vitesse runs out at $77,000 and I’d say it is pretty finely priced, for it comes with central locking, electrically operated windows, door mirrors, seats and sunroof, power-assisted steering, anti-lock brakes, a radio-cassette player and headlamp washers and wipers. There are not many European cars available off the showroom floor as comprehensively equipped and, in fact, anti-lock brakes and a sunroof are usually listed as options in the megabuck league.

I believe that the Vitesse is a quality car, the like of which most New Zealanders would be proud to own. There’s really nothing about it that gives cause for heartfelt niggles. However, its rather high waistline might give toddlers something to complain about. Unless they have cushions to sit upon, they are going to become pretty bored, if not car sick, on longer trips, and I dare say that by the end of the journey their parents will be rueing the day they bought a Vitesse. Children have as much right as anyone else to see where they are going and, for that matter, where they’ve been. Maybe they should complain to the Human Rights Commission about the Vitesse.

Even though a with-it young married didn’t give a fig for the burr walnut finish in this handsomely appointed arid furnished car, I must admit that the instrument panel and the door fillets rather appealed to me. After all, a bit of matched grain woodwork that is highly polished, and has obviously had a bit of craftsman’s loving care lavished on it, is a pointer to the appreciation of the finer things that only money, earned by sheer hard work, can buy.

And while we are on this contemporarily questionable subject of status, I admit as a London-born New Zealander that I derive supreme satisfaction from the realisation that the Brits can still build a typically English car. Jaguar, of course, has been building international-class cars for the better part of half a century, and competes on better than even terms with the likes of Mercedes Benz and BMW.

Rover has yet to achieve the status, but is certainly showing promise.

As a youth I was fortunate enough to have access, when I wasn’t beaten to it, to the Greenslade family’s pride and joy, a 2 >4-litre close-coupled, four-door coupe Daimler with Wilson preselector gearbox and fluid flywheel. By current standards, it was not a fast car, but it handled impeccably and was undemanding on the driver which, in retrospect, was just as well, because if it had been otherwise, given the gift of hindsight, I probably wouldn’t have been earning a living as I do now. That Daimler was, like many others, a true-blue English car. There aren’t too many of them in this neck of the woods today, but I believe I can honestly say that the Rover Vitesse qualifies. It’s not a cumbersome hunk of sheet metal in town, because a normally developed adult can see out of it and the power-

assisted steering is, like a good Scotch whisky, just the right blend of effort and effortlessness. The glazing, which is not deep, does at least provide an excellent field of all-round vision and the V 6 engine has sufficient torque to preclude constant juggling with the gear lever. However, it is out on the open highways that it really comes into its own. It is unwaveringly directionally stable. One just holds the wheel steady, disregarding road irregularities and the strength of cross-winds, and the Vitesse runs as well as a well-flighted arrow. In main road sweeping bends there is minimal body roll, so passengers are not discomforted and the Vitesse adheres to the chosen path, leaving the driver to feel the 205/55VR15 tyres on their alloy 6in rims bite reassuringly into the bitumen. It’s only in the really tight stuff that the Rover, when vigorously driven, shows it has an Achilles heel. In extremis, it does understeer, but I’d imagine a regular Rover owner in his right mind would count himself unfortunate to experience that failing. As its engine produces 130 kW at an untroubled 600 rev/min from its four-valves-per-cylinder V 6 engine and maximum torque of 228 Nm at 4500 rev/min, the Vitesse can be quite an exciting car to drive. Fortunately, its suspension is understanding enough to keep all the wheels securely on the road to do what the driver wills. Front suspension is by double wishbones, coil springs, telescopic dampers and an anti-roll bar, while independent struts, transverse and trailing links with telescopic dampers and an antiroll bar are employed at the rear.

This set-up might seem a little unyielding to some drivers and their passengers, particularly at lower speeds on city and suburban streets, but after living with it for a while I feel sure it will be highly regarded. This is not a flimsy motor-car. It weighs 1424 kg, but generally feels much lighter until one hears the doors clunk shut.

It has everything in it that matters, including a computer with read-out. There’s possibly not the finish or the panache of a Mercedes Benz, BMW or Jaguar, but probably only a car buff would really appreciate the differences. For the rest of us — and we are in the majority — the Vitesse is a good, well-rounded car. I must say that while I had it not a droplet of oil found its way into my car port or drive. That certainly says something for a British car and for the Japanese strain, for that matter.