Happy birthday R8

2019 has been a good year for milestones in the British Leyland enthusiast community. Most famously of course the Mini is celebrating 60 years, I've already paid tribute to 50 years of the Maxi, and the Land Rover Discovery appeared 30 years ago. Also celebrating its 30th birthday is a lesser-appreciated but very significant car in the company's history, the R8 Rover 200-series, which made its debut on 11th October 1989. It became one of the UK's best-selling cars of the 1990s and even won a Car of the Year award, thus proving once and for all that the Rover Group was indeed capable of building good cars. For that, its coming of age as a classic is well-deserved.

30 years young, five of the oldest survivors gathered

Another product of Rover's fruitful collaboration with Honda, the R8 was the first new car launched after privatisation and sale to British Aerospace, and replaced the Ballade-based SD3 200-series that was made infamous by Richard Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. It started life as a five-door hatchback (the 200-series) with a four-door saloon (the 400-series) following in 1990, and was closely based on the Honda Concerto, but the range later expanded with a three-door hatchback, estate, coupé and convertible, all of which were Rover's own designs with no Honda involvement.

214 S was the base model and didn't even have any wood trim

At launch it came with two engine options: the 1.6 was a Honda unit but the 1.4 saw the first appearance of Rover's all-new K-series, which unfortunately developed a reputation for head gasket failure but was nonetheless a very advanced engine. These were joined by the 2-litre M and T-series, replaced in the later coupés by the 1.8 K-series with variable valve timing from the MGF. For diesels, Rover bought in the legendary XUD from PSA Peugeot-Citroen, and this led to an interesting badge-engineering scenario in mainland Europe. Honda didn't have a suitable diesel engine as they weren't popular in Japan, so the Longbridge-built Rover 218D was badged as a Honda Concerto TD but retained its Rover styling.

The 400 Tourer was a handsome car and Nightfire Red is a great colour

The 214 was voted Car of the Year by What Car? magazine in 1990, and the R8's launch was well-timed as its main rivals all dated back to the mid 1980s and were starting to show their age. Ford introduced an all-new Escort in 1991, but it was underwhelming and not much of an improvement over its predecessor, which no doubt helped the R8's cause as many a disappointed Ford customer turned to Rover and bought a 200 or 400 instead of an Escort or Orion. The handsome 'Tomcat' coupé injected some much-needed glamour into the range, especially in potent 220 Turbo form, the fastest Rover ever made, and the R8 really helped to shake off Rover's fusty 'old man' image and appeal to younger buyers.

The ultimate Rover. This one was built for export to Japan.

The R8 hatchback and saloon were replaced by the Civic-based HH-R Rover 400 in 1995, but the estate, coupé and convertible continued until 1998. Production figures averaged around 110,000 per year, about half of which were sold in the UK and kept it consistently in the best sellers chart, and over 950,000 were built in total so it was undoubtedly a great success. A surprisingly large number have survived, and having passed through the banger stage of their lifetime now have an enthusiastic following with a very active owners' club. Coupés in particular are sought-after and prices are on the rise, and on reaching 30 years old the R8 is gaining more and more acceptance as a classic British car.

An interesting survivor, new to the Master of the Household at Buckingham Palace

 

Where it all began...

Chassis number 200001, the very first of almost a million R8s, rolled off the Longbridge production line in the summer of 1989. A 214 GSi model with the highest trim level but the smaller engine, it was registered G79 XKV on 20th September, three weeks before the official launch, and delivered straight to the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust for posterity. After the Gaydon museum opened in 1993, it was displayed there for a while but later taken off public view and moved to one of the trust's private stores. It survived the infamous cull of "less significant" exhibits in 2003, but three years later was declared surplus to requirements and sold in a Bonhams auction at Gaydon on 28th May 2006 along with a few other cars from the collection.

Seems incredible that this first of the line car was almost lost to the scrapman

G79 XKV was bought for £900 by a BMIHT employee, but not for preservation. At that time it had less than 5000 miles on the clock, which soon started increasing as he used it as an everyday car. He then sold it to a colleague's daughter, who averaged a massive 15,000 miles a year on her commute for the next four years. It was laid up when she emigrated in 2012, by which time the odometer was reading almost 65,000, and then disposed of to a garage. Seemingly just an old unroadworthy banger, the garage were intending to scrap it but fortunately someone noticed the unusual chassis number, did some research and realised its historical significance.

It's seen a lot more use than most former museum exhibits

Having been recommissioned and advertised for sale, G79 XKV then sat unused for a further year until it was bought by a member of the Rover 200 and 400 Club in April 2016. Since then, he has carried out a gradual restoration to return it to as-new condition and remove the dents and scrapes it had suffered as a daily driver, and it now does a few thousand miles a year attending shows. For the past few years the club have had a stand at the BL Autumn Rally in Milton Keynes, and in its 30th year this pioneering car inevitably had to be there, taking pride of place alongside four other early G-registered examples.

The most important car on the club stand

Here's wishing a very happy 30th birthday to the R8, one of the best cars ever made by Rover. Long may the surviving examples continue...