The Site Owner!!
I am 21 yrs old and have owned Rover 800's since I was 19. I have had four main cars, but have had a number of other ones pass through my hands whilst then found their way to friends, below is the list.
ROVER 820Si - My first foray into the world of the 800, bought when I was 19, after my first car, a Nissan Bluebird, decided to crack its cylinder head. I ran this car for nearly a year, unfortunately it was involved in an accident and was written off.
|
|
|
Well, here are some pictures of the 820Si, it had one of the most immaculate and sweet running 2.0's I have come across, a great loss, unfortunately it sorta detoriated bodywise, despite my looking after it, cosmetically she looked good, but the rot had grabbed hold underneath. |
ROVER 820e - Or Tiffany as she became known as. When I bought her she was cosmetically and mechanically a bit of a heap, however she had a sound basic structure so made a good area for my first restoration. Big jobs such as the engine transfer were left to the garage, but easy jobs such as fitting the doors, well I did those. I managed to rack up nearly 40,000 miles in one and a half years in the beast, she was moved on due to my ownership of the Tickford and the Vitesse
 |
 |
 |
The second car, taken in some idyllic locations on the Mendips and in Wells, they can all be found on my Photos page. |
ROVER Vitesse - The 2.7 V6 beastie, bought from Barrem Motors for a grand in September 2000, this car is my first 2.7. A few niggly faults that I am in the process of sorting out. The best 800 I've had so far, simply due to that glorious, under stressed and durable Honda engine.
 |
 |
 |
 |
An absolute brilliant motor, click for a larger image, the 2.7 is apparently designed to rev far higher than the 6500 red line, derived from an F1 car I reckon a safe limit of 9000 rpm and a blow up of around 10,000 or 11,000 rpm. That means 170Mph bouncing off 9500 in 5th!! |
ROVER 820 Turbo - A very rare motor car, only 500 of these beasts were built. Incredibly fast, but also a little fragile and complex at the same time, she has a certain charm.
 |
 |
 |
Some pictures of the loopy beast that wheel spins in 1st, 2nd, 3rd 4th and 5th, a serious amount of power is being delivered through the front wheels, all a little scrappily as well, but you hit that spot just right, and she'll fly, a great motor car. |
ROVER 820i - This beast was owned by me for a couple of weeks, and sold on behalf of James Hill. She is a very pleasant motor to drive and reminded me of the 820Si days, what with the severe poke and jump in speed around 4000 rpm, a nice car which is still maintained by myself and a mate of mine who owns it.
 |
Taken at Safeways, for the arty effect, didn't half get some weird looks of people, then again, do I care :-) |
ROVER 827Si - This car was owned by myself for 2 hours, I paid insurance on it to cover me for a couple of days, part ex'd for my mother Merc from Stewart Weller, the car found its new home with James Hill, who sold the above 820i to make room for it. A nice car now the niggles are sorted, she was a bitch to get up, after I nearly blew the engine due to running it with only 2 ltrs of coolant, the rest had kinda leaked out!!
 |
A good car now that the new owner has sorted the niggles and various problems. |
Well, that's the motors. Now some photos of the owner in his natural habitat!!
The above one shows John Willby picking up his second Rover Sterling, a lovely example that I drove for 110 miles from Newquay in Cornwall, John is in the middle, I am on the right, near the rear of the motor!! The second image is me in my natural habitat, under the bonnet of yet another 800 series, here I am having a bash at sorting the coolant leak on the 827Si, I managed to diagnose and find the leak, I tried to fix the leak but James Hill had to effect a more permanent repair a little later on, this solved the problem and now the car runs reliably once more.
John Willbys site - www.roversterling.co.uk
JRH's site rover800.vt9.co.uk