rover 3500?

[dlb]

anyone ever heard of a rover 3500? tom, i have a feeling you're going to be all over this, and takza would be too if he dropped by. i saw one in town the other day and was really curious. i've never seen or even heard of one before. it looked pretty muscular and retro cool so i just looked them up.they sound like a car i would hate with some weird design stuff going on but nevertheless, it looked kind of neat.

i think the one i saw was one of the late models. it looked like these.

[Petros]

A friend of mines dad had one when I was in collage, it uses an all aluminum V8, leather seats, all aluminum body, 4 wheel disk brakes and a very interesting DeDion rear suspension. Fairly advanced design, but unfortuanly it was British and not very reliable (took a lot of tinkering to keep it running). I think they were competing with large performance sedans like the jaguar. They were not common in southern California when I was in high school and collage (1973--82) but you would see them regularly.

His looked like this one:

[ARCHINSTL]

Sexy, sexy cars! I'm surprised any have survived - although thou in the PacNWST don't encounter salt...
Unfortunately, their build quality was "kinda" haphazard... The later Sterling fit the same sexy bill, but had the same reputation (actually - WORSE!).
I always admired the looks and utility, which is one reason I got the '86 626 and modified it a bit - see: https://tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtopic.php? ... zda#p11543

Petros' pix is of the earlier 3500, also known as the P6.

The '50s Rover cars were of excellent quality, however, and quite British, like mini R-Rs in their interior. They used an F-head engine, as did the R-R cars (and our own Wllys!).
Tom M.

[Petros]

this models was also availabe with the 4 cylinder F-head engine, it actually handled better because of less weight, but the v-8 version (3500) was a real monster to drive, very light car with a big v-8 engine.

I actually had a 1949 Willys, one of my first cars (also a project car, in fact, the first 5 cars I ever owned I had to tow home and fix). That was before the F-head, which I always thought was an intersting configuration, however it did not really have much going for it other than it saving a few valve train parts.

for those that do not know, an "F-head" is a strange configuration with one valve (usually exhaust) in the block like the old flat head engine, and one in the head using a rocker and push rod like the conventional push rod engines with overhead valves. The cam was run in the block beside the crankshaft (the reason for the push rods being necessary). I guess the exhaust valve would run cooler being in the block, so it improved the exhaust valve life until metallurgy improved enough to make long lasting high temp alloys for overhead valves. More of an anomaly and interim step on the developmental path of first the over cam engine, and than duel over head cams with a flow through head. Pretty much the standard configuration today.

[keith]

Rover bought all the tooling and dies for the old Oldsmobile 215 cu in all aluminum V8 and turned it into the 3.5 engine. Supposedly they fixed the design with the main bearing web that had been an issue for GM, the top half of the main bearing web was aluminum, the bearing caps were cast iron I believe and that may have been the reason the mains went out in these engines so often. At GM, it competed against the Buick 225 V6 and the Pontiac slant 4. The Buick won out.

[ARCHINSTL]

That was the little engine that could; it was in production by GM from 1960 to 1963 and by Rover from 1965 until 2006 (!).
It was even enlarged to 5.0 liters!
Fascinating history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rover_V8_engine
Tom M.

[danzo]

I always loved the looks of the Rover 3500 - very euro-sleek for that period. It's too bad they weren't very reliable otherwise they would have done better in the States. That engine is commonly transplanted into TR7s to make essentially a TR8. Motor peeps have gotten 350hp + from them in naturally aspirated form, nice thrust in a ~2500lb car.