A BRITISH CAR DISASTER!? ROVER'S AMERICAN HORROR STORY - The Sterling
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- Опубліковано 23 кві 2024
- In this video we explore one of Rover’s worst blunders abroad the Rover 800 for North America, the Sterling and how it failed through self sabotage, disastrous build quality and industry turmoil eventually leading to the collapse of Sterling in the USA, the third and final failure for Rover in the US.
From the Rover P6 and its NADA variant to the Rover SD1 Federalised, we also explore the world of the Rover in North America and how the Sterling almost got a Coupe but was sadly beaten by the Acura Legend.
A deal originally struck between British Leyland and Honda in 1981 would become the Rover for North America.
We explore how each of these incredible projects ended and what happened to these mysterious lost cars
Credits:
AROnline - Coupe Images - www.aronline.co.uk/cars/rover...
Follow me on Instagram for more cool stuff: / tomisdrivingcars - Авто та транспорт
I worked as a lead Sterling tech since the beginning here in the USA, 1987. I currently have 9 Sterlings and 1000s of Sterling parts and manuals! I am selling all but one Sterling.
My father bought a Sterling 825 SL. Beautiful machine, drove well and actually lasted over a decade in good condition. Pity it just wasn't accepted in the US.
I was a huge British car fan in America, my first car was a Mini but also had Marinas and two Rover P6s in high School, one a V8, later I would buy a white SD1 automatic used, what a horrendous pile of dog excrement That car was! It drove nice but at least than 10 years old it had windshield leaks and the electrics had a mind of their own. I was mildly excited but sceptical of the Honda based 800 Sterling and initially wanted nothing to do with it but eventually caved and bought one! It drove fantastic but again electrical issues to the point I was left stranded several times. You would think I'd had enough! Oh no! Later I imported not one but two Allegros, a wedge princess a MG Metro and Maestro Vanden Plas. After all that I gave up and went JDM And haven't looked back
Enjoyed your story! 🙏 I've had a bit better Brit luck ... own a 72 MGB GT hatch for 22 yrs now. been in family since new, left to me by orig owner my late uncle Josef RIP. I rebuilt engine to 140 HP and fitted A/C and electronic fuel pump and ign., fitted bigger brakes, has the factory 6 speed overdrive gearbox, 100% rust free, strongest most dependable car I've ever had ... it's my little highway flyer, I use it for long trips in USA no worries! 🇬🇧
Here in the UK I had a Rover 825i with the Hond 2.5 V6 engine, and mine had, wait for it, a VERY rare 5 speed box. It was fantastic if not a little thirsty
The Rover coupe really was a beautifully proportioned car. I'd have one of those today, without question...
Quick too in 2.7 form. Able to outsprint most of its contemporaries while staying comfortable and refined. Deserved better than it got 🙂
I was a 16 year old British car nut when this arrived in the US. I wanted them to succeed SO BADLY as I thought it would lead to the return of MG to America. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area there were several dealers and the Sterling sold relatively well at first. By the time the 827SLi came out sales had dropped precipitously. I thought the SLi hatch looked fanstastic, like a modern SD1, and it was my dream car for seveal years! Still disappointed the Sterling failed.
A neighbor of mine had a Sterling. I found it attractive and considered buying one until I mentioned it to that neighbor and he told me what his experience was with the car & servicing it.
I wish the Rover Sterling had 5 hub studs, unlike 4. Those early Sterling alloys trolled everyone. Rear wheel drive would have been fantastic with a V8.
As much as I love the Rover 800, something never ceases to amaze me. We have two cars - Legend and 800 - which are virtually identical. One is at the top of the reliability scale and customer satisfaction. The other one at the very bottom. How on earth is that even possible? How can the build quality be so different? BMC/BL/AR never got this part right.
Exactly. Many years ago I had a Rover 800. Everything broke. Gearbox failed, valves would continually stick, even the door handles fell off. I had to carry two pieces of wood. One was to prop up the boot after the gas struts failed and the other was to jam it into fifth gear.
Well back in the day I had a couple of 800’s and they performed absolutely perfectly, and I find it incredible that the Hondas built in the UK were proven to be more reliable than the ones built in Japan???
The 800 was identical to the Honda Legend so how did they work out so bad?
I don’t understand how or why they were apparently so bad? As I said I had a couple and they were totally reliable. I’m curious to know why??
@@jeremyunderwood9524 Well mainly because it wasn't identical to the Legend. Chassis components were different, trim was different, electricals were different, maunal gearox was different and, crucially, the only Honda engines in the 800 were the V6s. And then they were not built well. When Rover did use a Honda platform and didn't bugger about with it too much, they managed to produce a relatively reliable car in the 600.
@@jeremyunderwood9524 I suspect a large part of the problem was incorrect servicing by poorly trained staff who didn't understand the complexities of the vehicle. Our family had multiple Rovers back in the day, all of which were reliable, and all of them covered high mileages without any real issues. The only problem I remember was a 1995 820Si that leaked oil from new. Went in twice under warranty, but the leak was never cured.
The problem occured because in order to up the British content of the car Austin Rover deleted many of the Japanese components replacing them with Lucas Prince of Darkness items. They destroyed the reliability and quality of the car.
That convertible is stunning 🤩
I bought a 800 years ago for peanuts i was weaned on p4s it was comfy warm and not bad on petrol highly underrated ⚓🛠️🤠 JB
As a Rover Cowley employee in the late eighties both series of the Rover 800 were great cars. The R17 especially so... R17 coupe was a phenomenal car. Unfortunately some awful quality issues marred its success.
The British public & media simply wanted this car to fail. I can distinctly remember the day after it's launch, Mike Smith on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show gleefully hosting an excited caller who claimed to have just seen a Rover 800 on fire on the hard shoulder of the motorway... Of course, it later transpired it wasn't a 1 day old Rover 800 at all, & Smith had to admit to this the next day.
But his whole show that day was ''Have you seen the new Rover yet...?'' & it was so disparaging, sarcastic, all the usual hackneyed Rover jokes, the complete opposite of a nation welcoming a new home-grown vehicle to the market....
As anation, we are very good at slagging ourselves off, unlike any other country really, & the criticism extended to our recovering motor industry also.
A couple of months ago, I had the luck of finding a Sterling parked up at someone’s home down in NY. It wasn’t in the best of condition as the paint were rotted by exposure but it sure was a rare find.
Speaking of rare, down in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, you can expect to find plenty of imports from the UK or Japan. Expect to find a lot of MG coupes or roadsters and especially Land Rover Defenders. There is even a whole lot of them! JDM kei vans are pretty popular down there. You may even find a Jensen Interceptor down there…
All I need to find are the US market or grey market imports of the Rover SD1, Austin Marina and NADA P6 3500 or whatever they tried to sell down here. Plus the French Renaults and Peugeot of the 80s and 90s. Hard task since they didn’t sell many or rot away.
I have some pics if you want.
Oh so you’re hunting them down? Rare stuff over there. Do you have an Instagram?
I don’t really use instagram. I mainly use email or discord to show off some of the cars I found.
If Rover management hadn’t been so inept the involvement with Honda would hopefully have lasted to today. They couldn’t manage their build quality and couldn’t market or run the company effectively (save for the 400/45 where Honda had moved so far forward that Rover didn’t have any input). When our 1982 Cavalier 1.3L hatch (owned from new) needed work, dad hired a beautiful Rover 213S (newish, 1987)in glorious Shantung Gold. She looked beautiful and was the first car dad drove with an (albeit manual) sunroof. We stupidly bought a new Citroen BX 16RS for August 1 1988 but it was a dog. That ‘magic carpet ride’ was obviously not right as the Blaupunkt stereo spat cassettes out going over cattle grids (no problem with our 1989 Fiat Uno 45S).
The 1987 213S didn’t just look good - we were amazed by the ride quality (compared to our Mk2 Cavalier) driving down a very bad country lane we used every Sunday. Plus, the engine was incredibly sweet and smooth.
One of my cars today is a 2013 Honda CRV 2.2 diesel. The smooth drivetrain really stand out and reminds me of that 213S. It’s superbly refined and wonderful to own.
All Rover had to do was sort out its build quality, marketing and management. I’m certain if the Sterling brand was better managed and with the right pricing to undercut Honda, they’d have been ok. But no. Typical incompetent management at a time when the likes of Ford had models that were badge engineered to be Lincolns etc. Such a terrible, terrible wasted opportunity.
I bought my wife a Rover Vitesse 827 it was ex company car (our sales managers) I knew the history of it as I'd done a few minor jobs on it. She was chuffed to little mint balls with it power seats and mirrors. She only had to press a button, and everything adjusted around her.
During our ownership, it never missed a beat. The cruise control was the best I've ever used it worked flawlessly.
Americans weren’t prepared to put up with Rover’s abysmal build quality. Very sad indeed.
Sadly not, for the best really
The US had its fair share of garbage domestic cars, too. The issue is that foreign brands can't play the patriotism card and lack dealerships/service centers.
@@goncalo33 that’s not really the case. The problems began with corporate BMC infighting in the 1950s. By the mid-70s when BL was nationalised, US warranty claims with cars like the Marina and Stag were humongous. The SD1 was horribly unreliable, as was the Sterling. It could have been very different, but it was nothing to do with patriotism.
Sure, cars like the Pinto were terrible, but the mechanicals were largely sound and the customer wasn’t paying a premium for unreliability, either.
@@tomdrives very much a wasted opportunity. BL management really made my blood boil.
@@tomdrives you might be interested in my coverage of Boffo Motors in Pennsylvania, a former BL dealership which still has its original signage in place. These days they service and restore old British and Italian cars.
Jim Boffo the owner was telling me some of the issues at dealer level with BL which was sad and frustrating to hear.
ua-cam.com/video/PUssjhep-sQ/v-deo.htmlsi=1BahLMaSlJeKUpl9
I looked at a Sterling for sale in the US about 12 years ago. It was on craigslist for $900 All the brakes were shagged out and there was no way to get the parts. So I reluctantly left it since I couldn't drive it home.
Brilliant, informative, factual, watchable vid..... thank you Tom
Here in the USA my real estate agent had one I rode in several times. She said it needed brakes every time she drove across country and the auto transmission failed.
I mentioned I sold these in the day, bizarrely we didn’t have problems with them or our customers. The cars were extremely well made and reliable. The fastback outsold the saloon once it arrived and amazingly the KV6 engine was superior to the Honda 2.5 and 2.7 units. The KV6 was not prone to HGF like the K series that was never fitted to the 800. Only version we/I never sold was the 825d. Even by then the VM diesel was outdated
Did you sell them on launch? Maybe it was a batch of the initial shipment that caused the issues?
@@tomdrives Dealership opened in ‘87, we missed initial launch 800s but we sold them well. They were flying out the door. We did have a brilliant workshop team who believed in product too. The 820 fastback was a bit of a pup but all injected cars were great. We picked up huge fleet orders from some BlueChip companies despite being in a rural North Yorkshire market town. Selling cars has always been about people.
I seem to recall here in the UK the P6 3500 was the BW35 auto offering and the 3500S was the 4 speed manual., but I suppose put an S on a car badge and it would be bragging rights for the Americans .Excellent content as always
The hatchback model is drop dead gorgeous
Interesting as always
Thanks :)
In 1992 in Spain my father buys a 827 Sterling, and as an offer the Rover Spain gave a Mini Cooper free of charge.. Imagine how desperate Rover was at this time at least in Spain.. was a great car.. the first 2 years... after that a nightmare with electronics..
Good video Tom, I've had many 800's, Mk1 Sterling 2.5 auto on a D plate, Mk1 Sterling 2.7 manual, Mk1 Vitesse fastback manual, Coupe 2.7 auto, and at least another 3.
Great car's notwithstanding their issues.
The American car buyer's simply place reliability first, if you can't offer it you're dumped!
It takes a special kind of engineering expertise to engineer the reliability out of a Honda!
No British vehicle has EVER been synonymous with quality in the United States.
Congratulations Rover!
That Rover rally car looks pretty good.
Hi Tom, Another great video and thanks for finding additional development car photos I have not seen before.
I find the sound stops at 10:48 to the end so maybe can be checked.
I saw that, I tried to make the recommended video mesh with it but it didn’t work sadly. Won’t be trying that again as it deleted the audio, nothing I can do now sadly stuck as it is :(
The Rover 800. Kiss my face as Alan Partridge would say
Very interesting story Tom. I had no idea it was such a terrible choice from Rover. The money wasted that could have helped here at home.
It was a good try but it’s build quality that got them in the end, a recipe for success that ended in disaster
Tom don't forget the one that was dragged out of the hedge still going strong.
Which one? Are you referring to the 827 SI that Car and Classic sorted?
Loved my 1991 ROVER 827si manual
Fast ,smooth and in my eyes good looking
Always loved the ROVER 800
would love one tom
I’ve had the 827 Vitesse and I loved it, sadly the catalyst got stolen.
G996 XHP was last known to be in France. It was at Gaydon until the infamous 2003 auction, then changed hands a couple more times over the following years before being exported in 2006. The other one G997 XHP is on SORN somewhere.
Thanks for the info, I’ll look into that more.
Had x2 Rover 620s (Honda accord) had first 3 years and second one 14 years my late dad had Rovers and a R8 (218) all fantastic cars never missed a beat, the 800 I found very attractive but I remember hearing the horror stories. Rover such a shame they vanished in to the history books.
I was at launch of the Rover 800 as i worked at a Rover dealer, we pushed the boat out for this car an we were very proud of it . We had the Sterling at launch and it was beautiful ,but expensive at £21,000 .We only ever sold one Sterling but many other models(:
The 800 is a great car, I’ve owned one myself
In your video you show a clip of the 800 advert where one of the headlights is out. There's another video on youtube of this same advert with the headlight working. Makes me wonder if they remade the advert because someone spotted it.
Weird isn’t it, I noticed that as well
Where I loved Fayetteville NC home of fort bragg, we had a Sterling dealer it was on Yadkin road very close to the gate for fort bragg I remember seeing the cars and was like I want one the lift backk was my favorite but as I was getting my lincence they were leaving the states I was mad and had to settle for a Honda crx as my car.
I had a 827 Vitesse over here, it was a good car.
I had a 620 sli, it was a good car but the auto box wasn't great and it was thirsty
I had 820 e & also 825 sterling thought they were great 😊
Rumour has it rapper Jay-Z has a Sterling in his car collection.
My dad had a Rover 800 as a company car lovely motor might be because he did a lot of miles and had it serviced regular he only keeped cars two years though after that he had Vauxhalls for the rest of his working life.
Had 2 820 fastbacks in red and green. The green one had a bodykit and leather interior. I found out I don't like leather.
The only honda engine rover was a 216 I used to have and iabuse that engine but odd haveing the gearbox on the drives side and never let me down but the next was a zr k-series engine and was junk the old rover in the 70s and the 80s was the best the V8 engine went in alot of different vehicles but after the 2000s was terrible with that k-series engines but the other ones with different brands of engines was ok another good one to watch 👍
Rover 800, I worked on one that was a half inch longer on the drivers side....😂
triumph should have gone with honda out right
My family had at least 5 of these. The mk1, mk2 and the Legend. Mk2 ones are a lot better made. The Legend we had also had a vin plate with 'Austin Rover Group' on it, so im guessing Rover built some of the Hondas. We had the Legend first, then switched to Rover as they were cheaper 2nd hand and seemed to be better finished inside, the Honda was cheap & plasticity by comparison.
I had a 800 it was like driving your living room around. Super comfortable and spacious. The only problem was the K series engine. Head gasket problems water pump cost a fortune to replace. But lovely car
Mine was good but nowhere near the 75 I have now
I bought a Rover 600 back in '96, but I specifically chose the 623GSi Model to have a Honda Engine instead of the Rover one :)
Didn't Alan Partridge drive a Rover 800 Ah Haaah 🤣
Yes he did, famously 😂
'It's Cook Pass Babtridge!'
"Apart from the walnut and leather interior, which really does give it luxury car status, what impressed me most was the overall economy. I mean, 38.4 miles to the gallon at a constant 56 miles per hour, I think makes it a class leader".
Repeat after me: I’m not driving a Mini Metro. 🤣
@@chrisblay oooo kiss my face!
The P6 was the last proper Rover.
They even tried to sell Marina in the USA. 😂
Yes! Badged as an Austin Marina! I saw a few around growing up in Pennsylvania in the 70s & 80s. They were only sold for a few years in North America in the early 70s,as well as Hillman Avengers,badged as Plymouth Crickets...which,were noticeably more popular than Marinas.
Not about the content, but where in the UK are you from? I have never heard a British accent where "o"'s are pronounced as "a"'s? Nothing wrong with that, but I am curious.
Que the fake stories.
Had a mk2 820 si, it was a good car, probably the most comfortable car I've had and thats coming from a hydraulic Citroën owner!
I wished Matchbox and Corgi had done a fastback model.
Fake stories?
@@tomdrives Fake stories from Dave down pub who hasn't owned one but is a massive expert.
The usual BL/AR bashers.
@@TheSimonhammond there could be in the comments but what I’ve said in the video has sources. Weren’t all bad, I had an 827 Vitesse myself one of the last, it had its problems yes but no less or more then any other car of that era.
@@tomdrivesYes I was referring to the usual comments.
I wasn't knocking your video.
Your channel and @Twincams channel is quite refreshing in the respect of our British car brands.
If rover had made it not honda it might of been ok
It should have been V8 and rear wheel drive
Front wheel drive rover isn't a rover is it
3rd
Such a crying shame
😂
bloody unions