Rover 75 gets a REAL wood dash! 

In an early £500 75 I once owned, under the right lighting the wood dash looked absolutely stunning and made traffic jams bearable + mesmerising! 😄

Earlier 75's must have been such a class act for that first 24 months before Project Drive started biting in, that real wood dash does look fractionally better than the plastic stuff - which is a great credit to the company that manufactured the plastic stuff because that is something not every Rover customer would have noticed, or at least not immediately! I've always said it must have been an issue for Rover circa 2003-2005 when customers of early 25/45/75's came back wanting the upgrade as the MK2 face-lifted versions were released... only to find they we're worse in spec and quality than their current car!! You can understand why the writing was on the wall for such a long time!

Absolutely loved watching this Matt! I adore wood in cars as you know with my interior in Bev! Sadly Volvo didn’t make genuine wood for the V70 dash but to get hold of all the panels and even the rare segregated centre console slider in wood too and replace all the original dull grey was a genuinely exciting thing for me. And the the wooden wheel which is genuine wood and like your Rover’s new wheel - I’m sure you’ll agree that wooden steering wheels really are one of the best things to use! And people are so busy removing and deleting wood trim - it makes me want it even more! Superb swap and I was exactly the same cleaning everything and getting it right first.

Very well done Matt. All of the decisions made perfect sense, use the best bits from the available bits to fit to the car. Yes it takes more time but for me anyway if it's all in bits it makes total sense to swap the not so good parts for the better ones. A job well done.

You clocked your car in front of us!! Sarah n tuned will be 'furious ' you didn't clean all of that before re assembly!! That's a nice car that. Nice job. Lovely to see something going to plan!

Nice little upgrade. I had a 2000 Cowley built 75 and the ashtray/cup holder/cigar lighter, gear surround and hazard switch trim was indeed plastic wood.

That’s a great upgrade Matt. The 75 is an old style retro classic and real wood suits it best. I have an early Longbridge car that is pre PD so already have the wooden dash but, like you, I am still trying to find the Sandstone/Burr Walnut wheel… although you do at least have a half wood wheel 😊 I understand YT channels need to refresh cars and content but I really do hope you keep the 75. Prices will go up… if only because they couldn’t go down much further. ATB.

I spent over two years getting an even rarer wood set, steering wheel, and gearknob for my R50 MINI. I ended up importing from Japan for some bits, so I understand the desire lol

My first 75 was a Cowley built pre-Project Drive car, and a friend liked it so much he bought a 2003 model. His was nice, but it didn't feel quite as special. Definitely would like another Cowley 75 at some point!

This car has made me fall back in love with my own 75

Perfectly lovely. Years back, I did a custom-built bubinga overlay for the instrument cluster in my US-spec MG Midget 1500. In my case I was covering black vinyl, so the difference was striking, and still looks very nice. Wood is such a classy touch.

Hi from Sydney , Australia. As a teen the TWO pre-production Jaguar series 1 coupes came to Australia for the Sydney Motor show, a Regency red 4.2 litre 6 cyl car and a Turquoise V12 version, they looked fabulous with the original tall grilll fronts, but better was the big, tall GENUINE wood dashboards. Simply Stunning in 1972 when they came here I was in my second last school year prior to Uni'. Having received a smallish inheritance from several deceased older relatives, I had hoarded the funds, not spending but carefully investing them. My dividends paid off and by early Uni' i had a decent nest-egg put aside. In mid 1975 2 senior Jaguar guys came to Australia to show the 2 new coupes the xjc' & xjs's. When i first saw the interior of the new series 2's in 1974, i was disgusted in the truly awful rendition of "real" wood fitted to them and the car I'd really wanted, an XJC had been massively buggered up with the dreadful short grill and a wood dash panel that looks to all intents like fake wood. Here in Australia a friend had bought a second hand early Rover 75 and with such thin veneer in the unrelenting heat of the Aussie sun the Rover 75's real wood had shriveled and distorted into some type or kind of punk abstract art. However, at a breakers yard, we found a late model version with the "plastique fantastic" dash and it was perfect. The car has needed to park in the heat in a hospital carpark each day, and now several years later, it looks fine. Go back in time, most series 2 & 3 XJ Jaguars here in Australia all have cooked up warped "real" wood in laminated veneer dashboards and let me say they look terrible. For 32 years I owned a rare series 1 long-wheelbase xj6 4.2 litre and its dash was THICK, sublime real wood. Sold to a friend and replaced by a 1967 MK10/420G its wood is even more elaborate, it looks like real wood . Quite frankly I thought that even the "real" wood in Rover 75's looks fake, just like most modern cars with about 1,000th inch thick laminated wood choose any Mercedes with a bit of wood and I almost feel like getting a scalpel to scrape it and see whether you will see as much as a splinter of real wood appear .

Thanks for a very helpful video I have been hunting for earlier wood for the 75 and one luckily cam up for wrecking and the time of your video fell perfectly. I did the exact same removal as you only I found it was easier to start off with removing the passenger airbag cover then with the passenger vent being the most fiddly and amazed at how easy the longest part came away just prising around the drivers vent, successfully removing without breaking. The strangest thing is the longest part seems to fracture in the exact same places by the middle vent closet to the driver in the cars fitted with the faux wood but less so with the real wood veneer, despite traditionally faux wood standing up better to the elements than the veneer. Speaking of which for a car that wasn’t all that famous for build quality when they were new im really impressed by this he build quality and how well they have held up even shaming many bmws of their time, and the real wood has proven hard wearing with only a small craze crack in the lacquer on the passenger airbag piece.

How the wooden air bag cover is held from smacking your head is simple yet genius at the same time.

Superb job! Tell us you upgraded the horn as well! A horn upgrade is long overdue on my Auris; I rarely give marauding drivers the pleasure of laughing at my 'meep-meep' and long for a majestic Plaarp-Plaarp!

I’ve had 3 75s including a Cowley made one and you are correct - all other parts are ‘fake’ wood.

great video as ever. I changed my dash over in my tourer a few years ago and although the plastic version is nice, the real wood version just has a deeper shine to it that is very subtle but definately worth doing. Keep 'em coming :)

Looks great and proper wood does look a whole lot better than the fake wood look ,thanks also for the details of mds I have a can coming rust primer 👍looking forward to next time cheers 👍

Great work Matt. The 75 is a lovely car - guess we will never see the like again.

Great little Tinkering video Matt, makes me want another 75 now, real wood looks so much nicer than the plastic panels.

Another excellent video, a very enjoyable watch. I do hope you keep this car as it fits in with the other Rover cars in the family, I'm sure someone else could be sold😢.

Taking car interiors apart (modern ones with clips at least) makes me so nervous, such risk of snappage and cracking things. Well done Matt!

I love an “OEM Plus” project like this! Nice subtle upgrade 👍👍

thank you for sharing, I am a new "rover 75 owner and am about to remove the dash gauges etc, this will help me heaps, thanks

I always remember swapping the dash and doorcards from an early 2000 Rover 45 into a later 2003 45 because i wanted the Burr Walnut dash and Garnish rails on the doors.What a palaver that was! It was well worth it though as it improved the interior ten fold.

Nice work, looks lovely. The airbag cover sounded really sqeaky though - does that reflect in creaks as you drive along? Not sure if some silicone sprey where the clips sit would help?

Thanks for your help through guiding me how to go about MDS ...much appreciated and 💯👍thumbs up for your channel

Love it ! I did the same job on my mgzt v6 ,hated silver it's now dark wood😊😊

Well done Matt, that has to be worth treating yourself to a well earned pie and a pint for completing. Those screws in the airbag cover panel must be thread-locked so they don't ever vibrate loose and fall into the space behind. Not only would they rattle, the main reason is safety. The micro second explosion would launch the screws like firing a bullet at you if the air bag ever deployed. We used to get the manufacturer training on how to safely deactivate all the various ways SRS components trigger, and the consequences of wrong assembly, and accidental deployment.

I am currently working on my 1985 Buick Riviera and the dashboard is a gigantic selection of fake burled elm. It is cleaned and looks ok but, nowhere near the look of genuine wood. The Riv, as you may or may not know was an early FWD American car with an inline V-8 and the FWD. The V-8 is really low in power but it does sound nice. I will forward you some photos

There is a man on the forums who makes walnut overlays for the a/c panel, radio and the four window controls. He apparently put a great deal of effort into getting a close match and it is good but inevitably it doesn't look exactly the same. Nevertheless, I have installed them and quite like them, though I really wasn't sure at first as I thought it may look tacky but I particularly like the window switches (without the optional chrome outline). The good thing about them is that they can always be removed but for the time being at least I will keep them.

"Sporting a woody!" (bet nobody else remembers Dangerous Toys from the early 90s...) 😁🤘

Fishers Garage in Horsham Surrey !…….Wow that’s a Blast from the past ,I used to work in Horsham while living in Crawley Sussex ……..Nice work Matt

The problem I see with most real wood trim prices in cars no matter what the price point is that it fades really badly on the parts that face direct sun and the lacquer usually cracks. Great video as always. Cheers Pat 🇦🇺

You are very versatile in your abilities to fix cars Matt 👍

The centre console wood parts are always fake plastic, the issue is you get a very different level of darkness in pre 2002 cars, there's regular distinctions between them, and the post 2002 seem to always be a lot lighter in walnut but I don't think it was a project drive issue. I often wondered is it a matched from factory to the walnut Eg darker lacquer on vehicles speced with oem real wood be interesting to try a paint depth meter on them at some stage. I've had dozens of sets in varying shades over the last 15 years now.

This will be very useful for me as I have the same job to do on my 75, thank you!

You are correct. The lower wood is plastic and the optional Rover wooden park brake handle is real wood and the optional wooden arm rest cover I am not sure. Excellent video's of your 75.

Cracking upgrade ,all ads to the ambiance. Nice to see you get a video with a happy ending.(good for the moral). Mind you makes it harder to sell from your point of view.. later 😂

I loved my 75 CDT CONNOISSEUR SE in racing green. had all the options fitted bar the satnav.

Nice upgrade Matt. Great job.

As always a very enjoyable watch! Love the tinkering

Well, that's me shown. I will now be replacing my wood dash. Thanks Matt 👍🏻

I remember doing this to my 2004 ZT. I also remember it was a bit of a ball ache. Well worth doing though.

This brought back memories of "correcting" the Project Drive cost-cutting on the MG ZT 260 I owned a few years back.

Just love the 75 Matt👍

Matt’s got wood. Oooh er Missus!

Well worth the effort Matt, a good job well done! Any news on P6B yet?

I love the obscure car videos about obscure cars. Also, are you doing any more Fiat content?

Did you mention that the aluminium backing is for crash safety, so that the wood doesn’t splinter and jab you in a nasty crash? I know someone who works in the wood shop at Bentley…..

In the earlier 600, it was real wood for the doors, gearstick surround and ashtray cover, but fake wood around the HVAC controls. Presumably because it was easier to do, rather than purely for cost. Was pretty easy to see the difference though. Perhaps this legacy continued to the 75?

Wow fantastic.Looks Beautiful!

Great video. Deeper shine

Completely underrated, really like these cars!

Would love to find a source for kits to R&R car foams - not just to prevent air leaks to but to stop squeaks and rattles too.

I assume the only reason for the locktite on the airbag panel is some extra safety, just in case vibration made the screws loose and one of them got flung into someone's eye in the event of a crash or something when the airbag deploys and violently flips the panel aside.

When refitting self tapping screws into plastic, ALWAYS turn them backwards until the screw drops into it's original thread. Failing to do this the the reason for so many stripped threads and broken pillars.

Nice little upgrade that seemed relatively easy. Does look better even on the video.

Another good video on the channel well done 👍👍

Very satisfying, that looks superb!

It wasn't pennies being saved but pounds as even when she was made genuine burr walnut laminate was expensive as the trees have to be constantly trimmed each year to produce and show the burrs on the wood when sliced. Walnut wood has been on the import ban list for years as is very slow growing, so all the wood on the market was felled and imported decades ago and has been almost impossible to source in bulk for years. We eat most of the seed they produce. I like them pickled. The burrs are the growths that form when a branch is cut off from the trunk and over years end up deep in the trunk as it grows.

all looks splendid now

And when you come to sell in the flip series how much extra will you get based on this expense. When will there be more on the Merc. I would love to see that on the road

Those rovers must be manufactured differently or from another factory than the ones we had sold in Portugal. There is none left, they all broke down.

Wooden you know it could look so good!

Lovely job Matt 🚗🚙🚘👍👍👍⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️👏👏👏👏

Great job, stunning result. This will sell like hot cakes 😂

Great work. Creaking like the day it left the factory!

Matt, shouldn't you be welding? Just looking forward to the metal fabrication on the Crown VIC... Still, nice job on the Rover! 👍

Nice to see that you had an easy job on a car for once!

Nice work 👍

The word you were looking for when describing the pictures Venice is Marquetry. Parquetry is the same skill set but of geometric figures rather than recognizable pictures. Those big pliers are called slip joint for obvious reasons. Invented to aid plumbers running the old galvanized steel pipes, they do come in handy. The reason for the thread lock on the airbag cover is simple. Vibration could loosen the screws, which could be dangerous or deadly in a collision. Thread lock is a redundant safety measure.

My E39 5 series had terrible wood. Mismatched and cracking, i was completely unimpressed with it. They all fade badly too. So much for the German quality. Absolutely loved that car, but it did have some rubbish parts here and there that used to just fall off.

Would be fair to point out that the Project Drive cost-cutting was down to the owners at the time Phoenix Consortium. It's easy to blame everything about MG Rover's demise on BMW but actually it was 4 British people who nailed the coffin lid firmly shut. Normally when you want to upgrade a car with nicer bits, you salvage parts off newer models , but not with MG Rover , you go backwards to older models. I'm doing the same at the moment with my MG TF, taking bits off an older MGF that a friend is breaking for spares.

I take it your keeping the 75 you should

Will the wood not be mismatched when you mix and match from different cars? Maybe rover didnt have that amount of attention to detail anyway.

Looks very nice.

I was just thinkimg how useful the Volvo boot was when you mentioned it!

Absolutely lovely car😍

Really fab that mate

Well done!

Well done,wooded up nicely

Ooohh! Shiny. Can't beat a proper bit of tree on ye dash. Nice

Another top job !

Every time It baffles my mind the superb condition of this car, which is being superb-er every with every passing video. Really stunning.

Nice job.

looks good. needs some leather seats from the connosier rather than the club spec seats.

When is the turbo going on the tomcat?

2:09 “this whole area below the *eight-track* and radio”?!

The P6's deserved a wooden dash

How is the P6 V8 coming along?

I don't quite get it tho Matt...wouldn't single pieces of wood laminate from other cars look miss matched?

Rover 75 owners they've always got wood😁

Rumour has it that "project drive" was so severe they stopped making gas turbines.

Huh, looks like a Cadillac Catera! We don't have Rover in Canada But we Have all the Land Rover Series

I'd recommend getting a Bluetooth cassette instead of the fm transmitter they normally last longer

*Rover 75 gets wood* lol

This is a reasonably easy added value to your Rover 75 with real wood dash board l prefer real wood to wood from plastic trees

A nice bit of wood Sir.

This car has always had a nice interior, but i didn't know the fact that there're two types of "wood"...Much nicer now, the last thing would be to find a dark grey leather interior