I buried a 2 wheel drive company pickup to it’s rear axle in sand a year ago (I was too used to my go anywhere 4x4). My first thought when I realize it wasn’t going to get out with the truck’s own power was power is not always the solution.
The man who gave mr. wilks the engine from America was a man named Richard Dickie Green. He put the first v8 in a Land Rover. It was painted golden rod yellow off of a peterbilt. That man Richard was my grandfather
Had a Buick with the 215 cu.in. (3.5 l.) almost 60 years ago. When the design was sold to rover we used to say "Anyone can make a success of a GM engine except General Motors."
The Rover V8 is such a fantastic engine. It's light, powerful, unbelievably tuneable and sounds great too. It was also so versatile, it suited every vehicle it was fitted in, from saloon and sports cars to 4x4's and not to mention the amount of custom cars and hot rods it found a home in over the years. My favorite was always the SD1, and when I was in my late teens to early 20's you could pick a decent one up for a few hundred quid, but the only problem was fuel consumption. Drive them enthusiastically and the mpg was down to single figures, but they were great fun. Unfortunately, although towards the end of production they were much better, the build quality was appalling. Because of this, they quickly got a bad reputation, lost many loyal customers, so didn't sell anywhere near as many as they could have, and you could never visit a scrap yard without finding them in there, so they've now become rare and gone up in value, the Vitesse especially.
i had 3 SD1's in the late 80's, 2 of them where 2.6, one of the 2.6 engines lost a timing belt and smashed up the valves, i bought a donor V8 for £40. to put in the 2.6, 1 wire had to be added to the loom for the electronic ignition and the back of the rev counter you could change it from 6 cylinder to V8 and the swap was complete, damn i miss that car, i sold it to a friend who smashed it up 0.0
@@chrishenniker5944 I do wonder about getting rid of the dual side draught carbs and dropping on the Buick 4bbl intake with a good, well tuned Quadrajet 4bbl American carburetor. Once figured out, the Rochester Quadrajet is a honey of a carburetor, being easy to tune and easy to set up.
@@leeward6762 Aluminum casting technology was still in its infancy and Buick was throwing away more than half of the castings. That's why they dropped it. Rover worked though those problems before introducing their version.
This video interested me since I learned that the rover V8 is a distant cousin to the Buick 3800 powering my own car. Both came from the original GM V8 but evolved into different beasts.
A couple of years ago, in the Netherlands, I saw a dark charcoal P6 3500, with this engine, parked next to the local Jumbo market. It was very clean, almost like a jewel of a classic car, and the V8 started up almost immediately when the owner got in to leave the parking lot and it sounded quite healthy too. For some reason I can't explain, I had some tears of joy at that moment! 😁 Dear owner of the car, wherever you are, I got to tell you that you have a gem of a car. Please don't scrap it, it deserves to be kept alive! 💗🤟
@@isaakwelch3451 I had a -65 Buick Special with 225 V6 once, it was a great engine. Never had any problems, enough power and surprisingly economic. And hats offt, the same basic engine construction was in production till -08!
Actually what is even more intriguing, GM once sold the rights of the V6 to AMC which produced them few years to Jeeps, but due to the oil crisis, GM bought the rights back and gave new life to their V6 in their own cars.
I came to LOVE that engine and can honestly say I can rebuild one with my eyes shut - SO HEARTBROKEN that it is now gone! I had not less than SEVEN Rover SD1's! I even drove a Bomb Squad Sherpa at one time with the V8! I LOVED THOSE ROVERS!
Leyland P76 4.4L block with the 3.5L heads, extractors, 3.5" inch exhaust with a dedicated LPG only Gas Research throttle body. Sounded glorious in my SD1 which was a bit of a rarity here in Australia. Surprised many a Commodore and Falcon driver!
I had 4 rover sd1s with the rover v8. My 1984 car rotted away but the engine was still good (I rebuilt the engine using parts from Reel Steel) . I subsequently put the engine in a Westfield Seight although later I upgraded to a Tvr Griffiths 500 engine, modified by v8 developments. Whilst the v8 is not modern or refined you can get cheap performance from it and provided you change the oil on a regular basis is should be good for more than 100000 miles. Great upload - thanks for sharing.
Had two. The second never really replaced the first which was a manual. Best when the back box rotted. Then I sounded like Tony Pond. And yes it munched 3Ltr Capris which shocked them as much as it did me at the time. Fond memories.
Santiago Rocha. You did not skip your meds. The SD1 was an exceptional car. I had a 3.5 V8 it had 90.000 when I bought it. I added another 200,000 to that score. It was served regularly and well maintained. That is the secret. I also had two Volvos a 740 and a 960. Both went over 700,000 miles. I parted with the 960 when the cost of petrol went through the roof.
I owned a 3.5 litre SD1. It was an amazing car, very reliable, I dod 200,00 in mine it never missed a beat. The SD1 was the last good car Rover made. Shame they did not use it in the Stag.
@@tony_5156 they made about 9k chimaeras and Griffiths and about 80% are still in existence. If need be, you can replace an entire chassis and running gear with new parts. There are companies who have the original jigs for making chassis etc. There are loads of parts still being made so not a problem at all to maintain and run
Personally always felt it was the P6 the v8 felt most at home in, considering it wasn't designed for the v8, they are fantastic to drive when pushed on.
A good video to watch featuring police SD1 cars is "The liver run", I like the comment from the rozzer in the passenger seat, "the brakes are stinking" but they did not ease up !
Yeah but a modern 1.0L turbo will last nowhere near as long being a highly strung engine as opposed to a natural aspirated 3.5 V8 which is anything but.
The best itineration of it was the TVR 4.3 Big-Valve - it used the crank from the buick 300 (same block as rover but in cast iron), chevy rods and ford 260 pistons It was fully balanced, no cats and revved reliably and quickly to 7000rpm The noise it made in a Griffith 430 at full chat is the closest I have ever heard to a nascar sound in a road car.....
After witnessing Steve Greens Mk1 Cortina at Santa pod a few yrs ago with an amazing tuned rover V8 i was in love with these engines. It screamed like a 2 stroke & went like the clappers.
the americans are the root of two of the best british engines: the rover V8 and the rolls/bentley V8. Both of which the americans hated and discarded, while the europeans loved em xD
Already have a Vitesse twin-plenum. Love it! Looking to get myself a Defender 90 V8 in the near future. Sounds the business no matter what it’s in. What’s not to love about the Rover V8? The perfect hot-rod block!
@@TheChill001 anything less thank 15 is likely to be a bit of a dog. But then that’s what they’re all about. Throw the dog in it, bikes in it, wife in it, and not worry too much about shitting it up!
I believe SD1 was the last competitive rally car with V8. And how competitive, being a big, heavy rear wheel drive A group, it could catch up with B group prototypes.
One of the most impressive things out of this whole episode was how they managed to get just 150bhp out of a 3.5L engine, what did it run on? Bacon grease ?
Being realistic, I'm somewhat glad they sold the design. It worked out great in Europe, but in the USA we would have killed that little engine with the miles and the way we treat our stuff. It would never come close to a small block chevrolet or ford for reliability. We expect 200k miles and Europe expects 80 to 100k.
Well, they built the originals in the US, in small number, couldn't make it reliable, something that Rover eventually did. Not my favourite engine, but good for the time and eminently tunable.
The story they told about "Americans not liking the aluminum block" is just trying to make Americans look like they have a lack of vision. They stopped using it because in 1963 there wasn't a grade of antifreeze/coolant that was compatible with aluminum blocks, and it was ruining radiators. When Rover took over the design, they encountered the same problems.
They're wrong about the Triumph TR-8. The TR-8 (at least the American version) had an all alluminum Buick 215ci V-8 originally developed for the 1963 Buick Special. Buick gave up on the 215 as they couldn't figure out how to keep it cool. Hence, the engine would overheat and seize. The funny thing is that the engine would contract when it cooled off, the engine would start and the owner could drive it home. Buick gave up on the 215 sometime later. Then in the 80's, Triumph made a deal with GM to redesign the 215 with a larger radiator and oil coolers to keep it cool then proceeded to stuff it in the TR-7 with an unknown manual transmission. The car was scary fast and a lot of fun to drive but for whatever reason, it didn't really catch on. Definitely a car ahead of it's time.
I have a Land Rover 110 V8 , ex RAF soft top. Enjoyed it for 16 years. The only improvement I made was swapping the twin SUs for an Edelbrock 500---Pure magic.
Great Vid Van, Thanks for passing the old TG along! i had a 3.5 coupe Wify and I loved her so much we brought her out to Oz with us emigrated 81! Fam and work eventually took over of course But she does live on with a proud owner somewhere in Kiwi! BTW Van i love the name you use, "Van Inhalin"! 😂😂 Classic Man!😅👍👍👍
I had 6 SD1.... Including a Vitesse which was awesome.. I had a white one, and on the motorway people moved out of my way because they thought I was a Police car...... Cheap luxury motoring. :-))
in my V8 (P6 Monza red with the black leather seats from my written-off 2200TC), nobody ever beat me from the lights, except once when I was hung over . . .
I saw the Rover P6 V8 in front of both of them.... that was the car it was made for. Mainly because it has a superior suspension set up to the SD1. I have a '69 Rover P6 Series 1 V8. It's a great, great engine. One thing worth mentioning... GM could not get the engine to be reliable. Rover used their expertise in making Britain's first jet engines and solved the issues with the wet liners and also the casting. The Rover V8 was much improved... all alloy, all hydraulic and very, very tunable.
DRUM ROLL... Actually folks the GM/Rover V8 wasn't designed by the Americans! It was originally a 3.2 Litre, all-alloy, wet liner V8, developing 150bhp at 5,000 rpm DESIGNED by BMW which went into their 1950s V8 sports car the 507. They sold this engine to Buick in the 50s and they developed it from there... and the rest is history.
I have to say, I own a large number of vehicles powered by the rover V8, in Australia of all places and have never had any overheating issues. Mine are all rover products mind you, perhaps they are better sorted in the cooling systems then some.
Some additional GM history. The Buick 3.8 V6 did not originate in that form. It was introduced for the new compact Buick Special/Skylark as a 3.2 liter (196 CID, 115 HP if I remember correctly) for 1962, the 3.5 V8 came in 1961. It was basically a cast iron version of the 3.5 V8, minus two cylinders. As such I believe it still weighed in at somewhat more than the V8, but not unduly heavy for an economy compact. (By early '60s majority of buyers were opting for automatic tranny & the Buick guys saved weight there with a rather ingenious trans that actually was 35 lb. lighter than the regular 3 spd manual. Though only a 2 Spd road testers of the day preferred it to the attempted re-design of Hydramatic to reduce size, weight & cost for the Oldsmobile compacts.) When the "upscale" GM compacts were killed off & replaced by new mid-size lines for 1964 each division had its own new larger V8. The V6 survived, was enlarged to 3.7 liters (225 CID) & was then shared with Olds in F-85/Cutlass. HOWEVER, by the later '60s Jeep (Kaiser Jeep Corp) was looking for a better performing engine that would still readily fit under their hood & GM sold the V6 off to them! Then comes the 1970s. AMC buys Jeep. Does a redesign that allows for their in-line 6 to now fit under the hood of the Jeep and abandons the V6. About the same time & America is having it's 1st "fuel crisis". GM is looking for a more "modern" economy engine for expanded use in a whole range of cars and, can you guess? They buy back their own V6 from AMC! Proved to be a smart move. Probably one of the best GM engines ever and probably went into more cars than any other engine they ever made! Maybe they should have bought the V8 back too... The little engine that could!