Go Back   The 75 and ZT Owners Club Forums > The 75 and ZT Owners Club Forums > S525 OVP The Club Car
Register FAQ Image Gallery Members List Calendar Mark Forums Read
Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 27th November 2018, 21:18   #21
Scaramanga
I really should get out more.......
 
Firefrost 75 CDTi Conn SE manual Tourer

Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Wales
Posts: 2,319
Thanks: 1,409
Thanked 695 Times in 500 Posts
Default

What magnificent hard work folks

Well done to you all

And a big thankyou to this man for designing our wonderful cars!

__________________
My current 75 is my 4th...
1. Starlight Silver 1.8 manual Saloon- RIP - HGF before I joined this forum
2. White Gold CDTi manual Saloon - RIP - Car accident
3. Midnight Blue 2.5 V6 auto Saloon- 'The 5th Gear Car' - Now owned by another forum member
4. Firefrost CDTi manual Tourer
Lee

[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Scaramanga is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27th November 2018, 21:50   #22
Teflon
This is my second home
 
Teflon's Avatar
 
Lagoon 2.0 V6 75 Conn SE Saloon

Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Chertsey
Posts: 5,196
Thanks: 2,825
Thanked 2,920 Times in 1,570 Posts
Default

Seconded!

Cliff
__________________


No. 4 of 6
Teflon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 17th December 2018, 11:46   #23
COLVERT
This is my second home
 
R75 Saloon.

Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: France/or Devon.
Posts: 14,003
Thanks: 3,851
Thanked 2,167 Times in 1,816 Posts
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scaramanga View Post
What magnificent hard work folks

Well done to you all

And a big thankyou to this man for designing our wonderful cars!

Could you tell us more about THIS MAN ??
COLVERT is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 17th December 2018, 12:13   #24
Teflon
This is my second home
 
Teflon's Avatar
 
Lagoon 2.0 V6 75 Conn SE Saloon

Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Chertsey
Posts: 5,196
Thanks: 2,825
Thanked 2,920 Times in 1,570 Posts
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by COLVERT View Post
Could you tell us more about THIS MAN ??
Richard Woolley, designer of the Rover 75

Cliff
__________________


No. 4 of 6
Teflon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 17th December 2018, 13:13   #25
Reebs
Owners Club Director
 
Reebs's Avatar
 
Rover 75 Conn SE V6 / MG ZT 260 SE V8 / MG ZT 180 SE V6

Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Southampton
Posts: 20,908
Thanks: 645
Thanked 6,851 Times in 2,537 Posts
Default Richard Woolley - Studio Director, Rover Design

Thanks Cliff, good link

We were able to interview him some years ago for the club website,

you can read that here Richard Woolley Answers A Few Questions

and I was lucky enough to have a chat with him at the show too, I asked him if he had many constraints placed upon him by BMW in terms of costs, or the type of platform or materials that should be used, he said no, they gave me a brief to design a quintessentially British car and left me alone to come up with whatever designs I wanted. To this day he is still immensely proud of what he achieved and is gratified that his design still gives enormous pleasure to us owners. He owned a 75 back in the day and was sorry to part with it, in fact now he is actively looking for a low mileage, cared for 2.5 litre V6 Cowley example.

This was his original concept design, and the only thing he wasn't so happy about once it went into production was that the rear 'sat up' a little too highly for his taste, he would have preferred the car to have a lower ride height as seen in his drawings, but the decision to raise it was made to increase ride comfort.




You can see him being interviewed by Top Gear at the car's launch in this YouTube clip (he's 3.13 in)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JYKBcoRAWk
Reebs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 17th December 2018, 15:55   #26
clf
This is my second home
 
clf's Avatar
 
MG ZT CDTi

Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: carrick
Posts: 7,859
Thanks: 3,494
Thanked 2,657 Times in 1,973 Posts
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Reebs View Post
Thanks Cliff, good link

We were able to interview him some years ago for the club website,

you can read that here Richard Woolley Answers A Few Questions

and I was lucky enough to have a chat with him at the show too, I asked him if he had many constraints placed upon him by BMW in terms of costs, or the type of platform or materials that should be used, he said no, they gave me a brief to design a quintessentially British car and left me alone to come up with whatever designs I wanted. To this day he is still immensely proud of what he achieved and is gratified that his design still gives enormous pleasure to us owners. He owned a 75 back in the day and was sorry to part with it, in fact now he is actively looking for a low mileage, cared for 2.5 litre V6 Cowley example.

This was his original concept design, and the only thing he wasn't so happy about once it went into production was that the rear 'sat up' a little too highly for his taste, he would have preferred the car to have a lower ride height as seen in his drawings, but the decision to raise it was made to increase ride comfort.




You can see him being interviewed by Top Gear at the car's launch in this YouTube clip (he's 3.13 in)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JYKBcoRAWk
From those sketches it looks like the car was designed to be a rear wheel drive (the proportions of the wing in front and behind the front wheel). I wonder was it expected to have bmw drive trains ?

Going by the wheelbase too, and position of rear wheels it would have had great comfort. Although being low down as that, I would reckon the expected customer base would have had issues getting in and out of the car.

Sent from my SM-A600FN using Tapatalk
__________________


It is not gloss primer .............. it is duct tape silver!
clf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24th December 2018, 20:05   #27
Roverguest
Avid contributor
 
Roverguest's Avatar
 
MG ZT

Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Bromley
Posts: 157
Thanks: 7
Thanked 5 Times in 5 Posts
Default

In terms of the engine, would it not of had a ROVER mems3 engine cover rather than an example with blank rectangle as well as a black coated cam cover rather than bare alloy?

Car looks superb, a real credit to all involved

Last edited by Roverguest; 24th December 2018 at 20:13..
Roverguest is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 2nd January 2019, 22:51   #28
Bolin
This is my second home
 
Bolin's Avatar
 
Rover 75 2.5 V6 Connoisseur SE 4dr manual Wedgewood Blue 2 04-05/06/2001

Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: N.E. Hampshire
Posts: 4,617
Thanks: 289
Thanked 308 Times in 243 Posts
Default

Good to see this project finished off, the end result looks great.

Orange wires in the interior lamp - Trikey is spot on about the phone, those wires and connector are for the microphone for the phone system, see the 'integrated telephone' in the earliest sales brochure and in the Technical Brochure, which almost made production but was pulled at the last moment. The connector actually has a receptacle in the lamp housing to 'park' when there is no microphone (as is the case with all these early cars), and the microphone was a standard BMW one, like that used later for the SmartNav, and clips in place to the back of the 'grills' in the lamp unit. The microphone wiring was fitted even up to mid-2001, and my car has it despite the cancellation of the telephone over 2 years earlier.

The white connector in the same area was for the front passenger occupancy sensor, which was scheduled for later in 1999 but was also cancelled at the last moment. I believe this would have automatically detected a passenger or child seat to turn the airbag on or off as appropriate. I think it would have 'seen' through the black part of the lamp unit lens, maybe using infra red? The connector is actually listed in the Electrical Library in 2003, although the wiring was only fitted to very early cars.

The roof joint trims - I think these should be completely plain without the bungs for the roof rack attachments, as fitted to other pre-production cars, but finding a plain set would be extremely difficult.

The driver's cupholder - originally this was to be standard on Connoisseur and Connoisseur SE models, and indeed the earliest sales brochures list it, but it was cancelled late on and no production cars had them as standard (they were available as an accessory). As this model is a Classic, I don't think it would have had a driver's cupholder, and that only Connoisseur's were to have it, so it probably never had one originally.

Front seats - these look to be speckle velour? Whereas a Classic should be plain, and the rear seat I think looks plain. Easy to correct if so.

And a good spot with the badge on the wheel trims, didn't know that!
__________________
"...the new Rover 75, which is a fabulous car......I think it looks fabulous....It's like sitting in a Rolls Royce......For me, this is the star of the show.....it looks so good" - J. Clarkson, motoring journalist on the launch of the Rover 75 in 1998.
Bolin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 2nd January 2019, 23:09   #29
Reebs
Owners Club Director
 
Reebs's Avatar
 
Rover 75 Conn SE V6 / MG ZT 260 SE V8 / MG ZT 180 SE V6

Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Southampton
Posts: 20,908
Thanks: 645
Thanked 6,851 Times in 2,537 Posts
Default

Excellent background knowledge about the telephone orange wires and the white connector too Bolin, the telephone wire connector plug was indeed sitting in the parked receptacle within the interior light housing.

The seats fitted to OVP are in fact Club seats with speckled velour both front and back. This was done by someone at Cowley or Longbridge, probably to enable the extra capability of folding rear seats which the original classic seats were not designed to do.
Reebs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27th January 2019, 22:24   #30
Mattyboy
Regular poster
 
Rover 75 saloon / Rover 75 Tourer / MG ZT-T+ (180)

Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: Lincoln
Posts: 76
Thanks: 16
Thanked 11 Times in 5 Posts
Default Birmingham NEC

I spent a great deal of time examining S392 DEH the Wedgewood Blue Connie at the NEC mainly because it had a Neptune Blue interior & briefly spoke to the owner.

I regret that I glanced only briefly at OVP & didn't appreciate it's full significance back in November, taking only two photos but now I've post humorously read this article I've found a new appreciation for her & I'm glad to say I've seen her in the steel.

The remarks about poverty spec cars rarely surviving as owners naturally tend to look after the top spec vechiles certainly rings true & will make her even more unique as the years pass by. She probably returns quite healthy mpg figures without gadgets ladening her down down.

https://ibb.co/VLgpGHM

Last edited by Mattyboy; 27th January 2019 at 22:25.. Reason: Addition of car image.
Mattyboy is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 11:05.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Copyright © 2006-2023, The Rover 75 & MG ZT Owners Club Ltd