The rarest Rover 800 left? 1988 TWR Rover Sterling 2.5 V6 - 24k miles - reviewed 

A lot of pretrol heads dont realise how influential rover was and how much tech they packed in to a old looking square match box

Fabulous car and a credit to its owner. Like I said previously I had a D reg 825 Sterling but mine was rare. It was a manual gearbox and I had it fitted with the TWR body kit. If I remember correctly it cost £1,200 to buy fit and colour match. Plus I fitted an Alpine headunit with Alpine speakers front and rear. The 8" tri axial speakers were outstanding, no need for a subwoofer. The colour of mine was a dark silver grey, forget the name of the paint. The car was awesome. My Dad described the ride as floating on air, that's how smooooooth the ride was. Oh how I miss the 80's lol.

I am a big Rover nut and I never herd of this before it really is very rare!

The sterling is something else ❤

Fantastic car so very rare now. The interior is stunning, and it really looks amazing with all the toys, beautiful wood, and leather.

My grandad use to be quite senior at the AA and he had an incredibly well spec’d 800 Vitesse, I think it was a P plate, the last ones before the 75. It was a company car but he kept it well into retirement. I forget how cool that car was.

I remember seeing my first in 1987 when I was 9. Blown away then and still love them now

I used to work at a Rover dealer in Hemel Hempstead back in the early 90s, I remember these well. My personal favorite was the slightly later 827 SLi saloon with a manual box, a sort of understated thinking mans Vitesse. Real trip down memory lane watching this. Many thanks for posting.

What's not to love about this video?! Thanks a lot for sharing. My Dad had one of these early Stirlings back in the day and this brought back a lot of memories. Especially the 'leccy seats

Grew up in Oxford where the large rovers were built and I've never seen a mk1 800 with that body kit. What a stunner!

This was built by Austin Rover at Cowley Oxford. The bodykit was a dealer fit option. The car takes me way back to when I worked there. Car is immaculate

Looks like the front bumper cover fit is not quite right ? 🤔

I stunningly well built car from a day gone by Beautiful condition a little bit like a jag like with the very high spec interior. This car would be a expensive luxury wow love it great video thank you

My father had one of these, dark grey colour without the bodysuit. It's was a bit of a wolf in sheeps clothing. It had been the personal car Rover dealer's director. Beautiful car to drive, it was an 88 F reg, it lasted till 2003, and it was still amazing to drive. Very fast, very stable, very comfortable 👍

I love it - i had a 2.5 diesel 'fastback' back in the early 2000's and loved it. Would love another one, but not sure there are many this nice left

Rovers just spell "Alan Partridge" to me. Always been a fan of rovers.

Proper old boy at the golf club motor that !! Loved the old 800 fastback adverts mocking the Germans! It was no BMW but it was interesting for the time.

Those seat switches & trip computer are epic! Buttons on the steering wheel...imagine that!

Superb car i always liked the rover 800 great cars.

I had a 1988 Sterling, 2.7 Honda engine. In gunmetal grey. Mine had the reclining seats in the back. It was a lovely car.

Had 825 sterling great car😊

I had the 2.5i V6 with the HONDA engine in it it was a fantastic car never had a bit of rust it was about 5 years old when I bought it never had and problems with it whatsoever it was a dark silver grey colour automatic with grey leather interior then I bought the rover 827 vitesse fastback absolutely fantastic car another rover I never had any problems with or rust

Lovely car. Super rare with that kit. Remember picking up a brochure with a silver sterling with that kit on the cover.

What a motor my dad had a F plate one back in the day however it was only the 820SI

I have a series 1 SD1 V8 manual with 38k on the clock old Rovers are a retro classic which are now coming in to there own!

I had one of those in silver, with a manual gearbox, it was a German car (I was in the British forces) it was a lovely car.

They were rapid back in the day . I sat my driving lessons in one . Ended up with the 220 GSI or GTI can't remember its a classic now . These were brilliantly simple to drive . dunno if they ever had issues but learning to drive in one was good . And the 220 had little issues like the drive shafts snapping lol The engines were better than the bodies .

Fantastic review!! There’s a gentleman here in the states in Kansas City that has an 825 as well!!

What a lovely Rover, amazing condition! Loved all the retro buttons like yourself! I remember my dads Granada Scorpio having electric rear seats!

Had 3 R800s 820 Vitess 820 4 Dr 820 Vitesss coupe and the mighty 827, beautiful cars to drive

WoW...thanks. My dream car back in the day. Ended up with a 820e instead

Rover game not over . They will return

I used to own the first gen Honda Legend which had the 2.7 V6 engine same as the one in the Rover 827 and it was a very responsive engine that would get the car which was no lightweight to 140 no problem at all. Having no nasty noises is a bonus usually the tappets need reshimmed.

Your channel just popped up as a recommendation. Really enjoyed this Rover review. Subbed 😊❤

My Dad had an early D reg 825i with the same grey leather interior and toys, brings back memories! Later our neighbour was so impressed he bought one too and it was a TWR version. He loved it until the front bumper fell off when the mountings rusted :( Lovely car though. Great to see one still going and with such low miles.

I always loved what Tom Walkinshaw(TWR) did with the Jaguar XJC, and even the Rover SD1s that were raced. This bodykit just doesn't work at all well however. I owned and loved the 2.7 Rover fastback, but certainly here in Scotland, with salt on the roads for 6 months of the year, the poor cars rotted like buggery. They were almost entirely gone from Scots roads from about late nineties onwards if not before.

Looks stunning.

Beautiful. Thanks for showing us round it. So clean! I was at our local AR dealers for the 800 launch (as a geeky 13 yo!) I remember sitting in the Sterling. I think it was around £15k new. Ps. I served petrol there as a kid so got to see all the new AR cars between about 1986 and 1990. Great days!

Nice! Seen a couple down south over past 2-3 months. First I'd seen for a long long time.

Nice. I've had several of these 800s. I currently have a 1987 E-reg Sterling V6 with all of the early touches as this car has. My father had a shantung Gold over Gunmetal grey D-reg Rover Sterling in the early 90s where I got my love for them from. I also had an 827Si with a TWR bodykit, although my car was a fastback rather than a saloon. As a point; the Mk1 Rover Sterling never came with a full set of 4 deep pile floor mats, for some reason they only ever came with 3. This also carried onto the Mk2 Rover Sterling that came with deep pile mats (although of a different materials) were only ever a set of 3. Great video!

These are just really badged first generation Acura Legends, down to the platform and drive train, and that's what made. Made these truly fantastic was that they had amazing bones. The biggest issue is we're well known that Lucas did an awful job with the wiring and peripherals which was unique to Rover as opposed to reusing. What Honda had already designed for the legend, so school issues sent so many of these out to early graves. Some of these were sold in the US and in all my days of junkyarding I had seen a ton of these, but the last three that I have seen or a few years ago and each of them had under 60,000 miles on them. I can't imagine what went wrong, but that was such a shame to see something of this stature and rarity, especially in the US, ending up as junk.

I had m-reg 820sli, loved it. Also had g-reg 216se loved that too.

Love these Honda era Rovers, my Sister had an 827 Vitesse in the same colour and it was a wonderful thing, lacked the leather trim but with the fastback looked the absolute nuts

Just wow

I worked in the factory that made those sterling badges. It's nice to see a fine example like this car.

36 years is extremely old for a car, it might be the last of its type left in the UK....to see a Rover even the late 90s early 00s ones is unusual in 2024!

Beautiful example! Back in the 90's i worked at an Edinburgh Rover dealership.( Unfortunately no longer there)I was often sent to Appleyards to collect parts. Happy memories:)

Amazing condition for the years I bought a, 1986, 800 SLI in 1991 and it was nowhere near the condition of this its been really mothballed an the previous owner need commended this is a time warp car. I remember when I bought the Rover I felt really special it was regarded as a Luxury car then

River were pretty decent cars back in the day

The body kit reminds me of the Holden's that TWR campaigned in Australia at roughly the same time. If only the 800 could have had a true Motorsport career like the SD1 had.

Rover was class. From the front looks very SD1ish. The old Triumphs were special as well.

That's a beautiful car. Has it just changed ownership? Whoever owns it they are very lucky. The sterling was identified by the two tone paint but you could opt for single colour. They were very well spec'd cars then let alone now. Speed sensitive power steering with adjustable steering angle. Mine is the 1990 big bumper model and has the 2.7 engine. Its Azure blue with gunmetal and rare Prussian blue leather. The rear seats are electrically operated. They have some get up and go and the Honda engine is a great engine. Nice sound to it. The car you review here its amazing that there is no bleed on the lcd screen on the vehicle monitor. It also has an ice warning. The lambswool rugs you mentioned the drivers one is missing as i understand it and its hard to believe but they only came with 3 mats. The driver didn't get one why i dont know i'm told it was because they were concerned it may imped control of the car? This i find hard to understand because other manufacturer never had an issue. They also made them for the Montego 3only. Its Lovely car and i thoroughly enjoyed that thank you for bringing it to us.

Great set of gadgets for the time, my car now doesn't have seat memory! This is basically an S class merc!

Lovely car, had one identical, same body colour but with a light tan interior, it was on a D plate!

Cool car!

Nice. Subscribed!

I had a Sterling 825. I found it funny that the 5 lug center caps were actually covering 4 lug wheels. I guess they were going for a more premium look with that.

I had 3 a early 820se fastback then a mk 2 820i then the best a late 97, 800 vitesse fastback with the 200bhp engine. (Was 2 years old when I brought it)Used to blow away the old 3500sd1 on acceleration and topped at 150mph. Did that a couple of times

I have a 1992 Rover 820 turbo, one of low 500 ish built.

I had one of these, but mine was an 827

To me these rovers are the best looking with the jdm shape

I hope whoever buys this brings this to FOTU!

TWR built the SD1 Vitesses for the BTCC in the early 80s. They won the championship, but then got disqualified for having dodgy tappets on the engine.

My uncle had the vitesse version of that car in black… he wouldn’t bring it out of the garage in the rain 😂 it was a lovely car though.

Nice early dash with battery meter I actually prefer that too the later one

Nice example.

Was a competitor to the the 5 series and 124 Mercedes.Did not have the depth of quality to compete with those vehicles.

Fabulous Rover in as new condition, a credit to it's previous owner, but please remove those plastic door guards they hold water underneath and ruin the paint

I haven't seen a rover from early ninties and back for a long time now. There's not many about thats for sure.

I used to have one of these - I had the registration GOE5 24V on it. DVLA tell me it's impossible to get that registration back again :-( It was quite a fast car but I got burnt off by both an Audi RS2, and a Lotus Carlton !

yes impressive car i have a MK1turbo saloon it had lived for over 8 years in a front garden when i got hold of it put a battery on it and it all worked all of it, put some petrol in it and it started 30 odd years old and it all still worked so much bull shit about QUALITY and it is still all there nothing has fell off and a lack of rattles with 167k on it yes i am impressed and seeing that my company car in the 90's was a ford scorpio 24v , i would much rather have had the 820 turbo, it took some time but i have one now

Cook Pass Babtridge

Wow - how similar does that look on the outside to the Alfa 164 (which I owned)? Same era, different designers.

Did it share components with Honda Legend? Engine, etc?

Was the 827 engine Honda or Rover made ?

Front bumper miles out !

I loved getting my hands on these in the late 80's to service at Rover, i ragged them rotten as an 18yr old, even better once the 827 came out, took one home & took my brother out - 90mph in a 30 & not my car, superb days, superb cars with the Honda engine. 820's with British engine - garbage. Maybe i even ragged this one once 😂

Auto with that millage probably owner by a older guy probably garaged too.

Hasn’t it got the Honda 2.7 engine ?

i would swap my 1998 cl600 for that

1998 is not 36 years ago you meant 1988 check you video !

British Honda

Another that that Clarkson geezer ran down = he ran most BMC LEYLAND motors down it’s because of him that millions listened to him running down the cars that people stopped buying them = they were all good motors and people now are realizing how nice and stylish they really were = I had lots of BMC CARS but the PRINCESS which clarkson slaughtered was a super motor I really miss it .

3500 twin phlenum sdi my choice

It's very straight? The front bumper's hanging a bit sqeuwiff.. nice car though😊 oh, duct tape on a seat belt latch??? There's plenty of decent adhesives available😇😉

Not a Rover. A Ronda.

The ONLY reason that thing is called a Rover is because it bears a 'Rover' badge, and before any idiot starts making foolish remarks, READ CAREFULLY the development of this vehicle by Honda and the paltry input from Rover's so-called engineers.

Yet again another one slagging off Rover , "Rust is always a major concern with any old Rover " from that era onward rust was never a problem, far less than any other car, having worked as an MOT tester`s assistant in a garage for 17 year and also having a 827 company car and my own two 825 Sterlings they never had any rust at all , they were all parked outside and I had them for 10 years . Show me any other car of similar age and price as a Rover 25/200, 45/400 , 600, 800 or 75 that has less rust than the Rover . I dont think Ive ever seen a 75 with rust on it unlike the Jaguar S-type of the same age where we needed to sills need welding every year . you should have said ," Rust is always a major concern with any old car"

Mate thats mint...i love it...rare as hens teeth

A rare pile of golden shite😂

I do like old cars but this one is a bit ugly sorry

Not a rear wheels drive, ugly clocks, lazy AF gearbox

Great engine,awful car!🤮

The problem is that it looks cheap!

Ah it’s a farkin Honda we had them in Australia and were re badged as rovers.