Jordan Hope’s Rover 216 Vitesse – Celebrating 40 Years of The SD3

The 19th of June 1984 was a crucial date for British Leyland, with the launch of the SD3-series Rover 200:

1. The end of the Acclaim marked the demise of the Triumph badge on cars.
2. This would be the first compact Rover-badged car since the 10 ceased production in 1947. Post-war small Triumphs included the Mayflower, Herald, 1300 and Acclaim, but by the early 1980s, British motorists tended to associate the Rover name with six or eight cylinders.
3. There was an understandable concern that devotees of the Viking badge might not accept a car based on the Honda Ballade.

The 200’s origins date back to within weeks of the Acclaim’s launch in 1981. Harold Musgrove, the Chairman of the Austin Rover division, regarded the specialist BL marques as “a legacy of confusion,” and the SD3 was to be more luxurious and expensive than its predecessor. Management at Longbridge now saw the Triumph name as surplus to requirements.

The initial trim levels were S, SE and Vanden Plas, and Austin-Rover reassured potential buyers that the SD3 was “every inch a Rover’. By 1986, they even boasted, “You won’t need the Viking ship badge on the steering wheel to tell you this is every inch a Rover”. A-R also promised the 213 was “powered by relatively small and thrifty engine of advanced design, yet embodying all the high quality, refined luxury and sheer driving pleasure for which the marque is so justly renowned”.

The 213, powered by a Honda 1,342cc engine, debuted first. Car raved: “Inside, the British contribution to the 213 is obvious. The seats and upholstery are as English as after-work pints and roasts on Sunday”. Hyacinth Bouquet-type owners were far from unknown in the 1980s. Forty years ago, the 213 appealed to the sort of motorist who drove Wolseley 1500s in the 1960s and Triumph Toledos in the 1970s: consumers who appreciated the innate quality of seats with “Marle fabric facings”.

The 216, powered by the S-series engine, was launched on March 12, 1985. The result was an SD3 line-up of genuinely multi-faceted appeal. If the 213 was completely at home in the driveway of a bungalow in Penge, the 216 Vitesse was perfect for the Southampton estate agent who aspired to E30 series BMW 316i ownership but could not afford the necessary overdraft. AR’s slogan was “Goodbye Boy Racers” while “You’ll find no go-faster stripes” - a fairly unsubtle dig at the Escort XR3i and its ilk.

The Vitesse boasted Lucas fuel-injection, a 105bhp power output, a rear polyurethane spoiler, a front air dam, and 14-spoke alloy wheels. The owner gained a Rover with a top speed of 108 mph, with 0 to 60 mph in 9 ½ seconds, and a very well-appointed cabin for just £8,134.

What Car? thought “the Vitesse offered everything one could need for everyday driving” and Autocar believed “it is enjoyable to drive – and at least its British”. Motor evaluated the Vitesse opposite its nearest rival, the Orion 1.6i Ghia, it concluded: “As a car to live with, a car to covet and enjoy driving, the Rover’s the one to have. And yes, it does deserve the Viking crest”. Motor Sport’s praise was slightly more grudging: “Now that Nissan has been welcomed to this country as a car-producer, there is less reason to be snide about the smaller Rovers because they are largely Japanese-based”.

Such views illustrated the change in British attitudes to cars of overseas origins during the 1980s. The Acclaim did receive mutters about “badge-engineered Hondas” on its launch, but the SD3 was increasingly respected as a Rover in its own right. The historian Keith Adams wrote in www.aronline.co.uk: “The 200 ended up eclipsing the underachieving Montego in the sales charts and redefined ARG’s Rover-only future direction, sidelining the runt of the old Austin car park”.

The R8 replaced the SD3 in 1989 after 418,367 units, and Jordan Hope’s extremely handsome 216 Vitesse hails from Portugal. He explains:

I came across the car for sale in September 2022 on the Rover SD3 page on Facebook. The gentleman I bought it off had imported the 216 from Portugal in April and had never planned on selling it but was offered his old MG Montego back, which he’d regretted selling. My friend bought a 213SX in 2021, and I really liked it, but the only model I’d want would be a Vitesse. I thought there would never be a chance of getting one since they were pretty much extinct, but then this one appeared; the only issue is that it’s LHD being a Portuguese specification car, but a positive is it’s pretty much rust-free!

In terms of the Rover’s history, Jordan observes:

I didn’t have much paperwork with the car, but the odd invoice for some service items. After a quick search through Facebook, I found a previous owner in Portugal who was the second owner and had done a lot of work getting it roadworthy again after the first owner had parked it in a garage for many years.

As for the SD3’s image, Jordan contends:

They’ve been kept in the limelight by keeping up appearances - whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you to decide. What I have noticed is they are a car that have been owned by many and perhaps forgotten about, but when they see it, they beam from ear to ear and talk about how they used to own one and how much they loved them. Not many have a bad word to say about them other than the rust. When the Rover was at the NEC classic car show on the 200/400 owners club stand last year, a gentleman said he’d owned the identical car. I let him sit in the car, and he told me how the memories came flooding back, and even the smell of the interior took him back to the day he collected it from the Austin Rover dealer. Perhaps Rover has had a slight image problem over the years. Still, with the pricing of 80’s cars going up and the nostalgia aspect, I feel the SD3 will gain some recognition, and the Honda engine-equipped cars give you the confidence of being a reliable, usable classic.

Jordan’s 216 Vitesse is a reminder of the SD3’s importance – a compact upmarket saloon that set the template for the company’s future image. Plus, to quote once more that Motor article “it does deserve the Viking crest”.

Thanks To: John Corbett and Jordan Hope