Well today I went and stood at the top of the drive, waiting in anticipation for it to arrive. I have to say I hadn't really clocked the colour when I'd been looking at it previously, I thought it was a lot greyer but it certainly is admiralty blue in the harsh light of day!
We shunted it off the transporter and he left me to my own devices. Firstly, I just sat there, confused by the rather radically laid out controls. Knobs, buttons, sliders and dials everywhere. The handbrake's an umbrella under the steering wheel on the right hand side, there's no steering lock and the ignition key goes in a tiny little barrel to the right of the rev counter.
Remarkably, with a little choke (and after faffing around with the keys for a few minutes, the barrel's loose so it's a case of rotating it and then some) it fired right up and sat there whispering away. I had only a short drive to get to grips with it, just to our hardstanding - during which there were no odd groans, creaks or crashing but it does pull a little under braking, which is understandable really due to it's long time standing.
The power steering is almost fingerlight which is remarkable, you really do waft along and everyone remarked at how prestigous it looked cruising down the road. You wonder what happened to Rover, really, going from making cars like this to today. It really is quite something, the way it's put together, designed, built and detailed.
Unfortunately I didn't get any 'before' shots, I set straight about washing it as it arrived late today (5) and I just wanted to get the worst of the grime off it - so it's a bit streaky and blotchy as it was drying whilst photographed. The silver roof came up a treat, as did all the trim (which is stainless hence practically unmarked and very bright).
Tomorrow I will T-cut, wax and polish the paint in order to give it a little protection and life, as well as treating and priming any exposed rust spots on the surface in order to preserve the outer panels. I will also set about cleaning the interior (as it's scummy for the most part) and doing some minor fettling.
I did have an MOT booked in for tomorrow but as the car arrived so late I didn't get the chance to check the fluid levels, line conditions, lights and simple things so I cancelled it. I'll spend a few days instead going through it and then rebook, as it's fairly quiet down the garage anyway at the moment.
Anyway, voila - apologies for the random, relatively poor quality shots - it was getting dark and I've been charging about all day:
Some of the surface damage:
This stuff was ingrained all over the place on the silver roof:
Roof getting cleaned up a bit, I'll T-cut and polish tomorrow to get more dirt out:
Great profile:
Few poor shots of the interior - it is quite mucky but I reckon it'll clean up a treat and the seats are actually in really quite fine condition, they just need a real deep clean, some treatment and a little stitching here and there. The back is virtually unmarked:
Great detailing:
(Rear opening quarterlights? Yes SIR!)
Initial assessment? I think it's a go-er.....
More tomorrow
![[Robster]](/styles/overclockers/avatars/2.png){kind=avatar}
But that's only because it's top spec and uncommon compared to normal Rover's of that era. I also got it for beer money.