Rover?

[JHertzman@aol.com]

In AD6-006 Doug Sedon responded to a query from Brian about the Rover TC- I
had prematurely deleted the first, so can't respond off-digest. As Brian said,
"It's neat, in a goofy kind of way", and as Doug said "wery sturdy cars". The
company's products were upscale but unpretentious, in some ways parallel to
Lancia. The much earlier one I had was the most solidly built and carefully
thought-out car I have ever had, but no fireball. Rover was a much older
company than Alfa, and at times extremely innovative; they had produced the
world's first rear-wheel-drive bicycle, which attests to both company age and
innovation. The 2000 was a brilliant clean-sheet-of-paper attempt at what the
British considered a sport sedan with major emphasis on safety and
considerable emphasis on roadholding; it had inboard brakes with a deDion axle
*and* the fuel tank tucked in the protected zone between the rear wheels about
a decade before Alfa did the Alfetta. If my dates are right (haven't checked)
they ran a gas-turbine car before Fiat, and  a gas-turbine at Le Mans long
before Granatelli did it at the brickyard. An interesting car for a brave
individual, if in basically sound condition, but potentially a source of great
misery for the unprepared. 

John