Lovely interior with grey-piped heated black leather
THE APPEAL
It's somewhat ironic that the best car ever produced by Rover was also its final ground-up design.
That car was the 75 and it was designed to replace both the 600 and the 800. It was also the first Rover to be designed, developed and built under BMW and was created with a much greater budget than the brand's previous models thanks to an injection of cash from the German firm.
It was beautifully made, brilliantly styled and terrific to drive, without a doubt the company's finest achievement in modern times.
The car was introduced at the 1998 British Motor Show at the NEC in Birmingham and was a real gem, powered by a choice of 2.0-litre or 2.5-litre Rover KV6 engines, a 1.8 litre K-Series four-cylinder or a BMW-derived diesel. All were terrific to drive, though it was the flagship 2.5 V6 in tandem with an automatic gearbox that was the true star of the range.
And that’s what we have here – a 2.5 V6 auto in plush Connoisseur specification. It was first registered in March 2000 to Rover Group Company Vehicle Operations in Birmingham and is an early Cowley-built car with all of the launch specification features that were deleted from later cars due to cost-cutting, such as Rover-monogrammed head restraints, a rear longship badge, chrome Rover badging on the tailgate plinth, genuine wood veneers, metal door handle surrounds and ‘torpedo’ badges on the lower front wings.
It's a lovely low ownership example that was bought from Rover Group by its previous owner when it was a year old and was kept by him until the vendor purchased the car last summer. 1209c326-6851-4f90-91d0-99f6b53fff0d.jpeg922.77 KB
THE HISTORY AND PAPERWORK
First registered in March 2000 as a Rover Group company vehicle
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