[ROVERNET - UK] Rover rear end and Brit car day

[Bill Robertson]

First off next Sunday, September 19 is British car day at Bronte 
Creek........Minutes east of Toronto......This is one of if not the largest 
gathering of strictly British cars in North America.....Last year over 1200 
cars ..........There is usually only about a half dozen or so Rover cars of 
any model....Of course there are  Land and Range Rovers but they have their 
own spot........If any of you are close and would like to come up i,d love 
to have a few more Rover nuts there........Email me for 
directions............It is a great day and some really nice cars .


Now for the racing V8 Rovers............They started out with the 3500 diff 
and De Dion rear end and at least 2 ran with a 3.5 litre Rover V8 in 
Britain...... The car which was built as the factory prototype for FIA group 
2 touring cars in 1970 featured a Traco modifed, quad weber, 4.3litre V8 
closely related to Rovers 3.5 version........They also used a Muncie 4 speed 
gearbox with the Rover differential and De Dion rear end.....( doesn,t 
mention if if was beefed up but i imagine it would have to be)............In 
its competition debut at the 84hour(yes 84) Marathon de la Route at the 
famous Nurburgring it was said to have reached 176mph and in 16 hours it had 
built up an easy 4 lap lead till retiring with an out of balance tail shaft 
breaking off the rear of the gearbox........as a note it ran with the Series 
1 aluminum 2000 grille and badge attached .....Just after it ran British 
Leyland decided to close its whole competition department which probably 
helped it ease towards extinction..........Another major corporate 
blunder..................

The factory car was sold and made its way to Australia where it had little 
to no success running against what amounted to full on race cars as the 
rules were very open to interpretation and they had definately decided to 
run in the wrong class.............it was in late 1971 that it was actually 
raped of almost all things Rover to try and be more competetiveand ran with 
a conventional twin wisbone front end and the Rover differential was 
replaced with a Jaguar diff with the inboard brakes, but was made fully 
independent using E-type rear uprights modified to carry sliding spline 
halfshafts and open wheeler style locating linkages.... That actual car ran 
up until Aug 1976 and does not appear to have raced afterward and was 
purchased by a Robert Harrison who still has the car but with all the mods 
made and escaping a garage fire he can,t even keep a windshield in it 
without it cracking as soon as the car moves............After installing his 
3rd windscreen he realized the whole car was flexing even just rolling it 
across the garage floor..........

Bill Robertson

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