![]() The 216 Vitesse’s retail price was £7,898.58 which made it ninety one pence more expensive than the Vanden Plas EFi. Meanwhile, dynamic enhancements extended to ventilated front disc brakes, an uprated suspension and a rear anti-roll bar.Īt launch the choice of body colours for the Vitesse was restricted to five and comprised of Arum White, Black, Moonraker Blue metallic, Silverleaf metallic and Targa Red. Further accoutrements included burr walnut door inserts and an electronic tune three-band stereo radio/cassette player with four speakers. Inside, there were sports style front seats trimmed in Flint Grey-coloured sculptured velvet for the centre panels, with lighter Osprey plain velvet borders. The 216 Vitesse was quoted as having a 0-60mph dash of 9.2 seconds compared to 9.4 seconds for the Vanden Plas EFi and a higher top speed of 112mph. Of more significance were a polyurethane spoiler on the bootlid and a deep front air dam spoiler which helped improve the Vitesse’s performance over that of the 216 Vanden Plas EFi. Maintaining the family styleįor the 216 Vitesse the visual links with the SD1’s very high performance derivative were obvious and included a 14-inch version of the multi-spoke alloy wheel design and a ‘Vitesse’ decal on the lower section of the rear doors. In the 216 Vitesse EFi and luxury Vanden Plas EFi, the S-Series unit came with Lucas electronic fuel injection which increased the engine’s power from 85bhp to 103bhp. However, when ARG announced plans to introduce a bigger, more powerful engine option the following year, it came as no surprise to find a Vitesse variant featuring in the 200’s line-up.Īnnounced on 12 March 1985, the Rover 216 models would feature ARG’s home-grown 1598cc S-Series engine. ![]() At launch, it was initially powered by a 1.3-litre Honda engine. The Rover 200 Series (SD3) had arrived in June 1984 and saw the Rover family of cars extended to two ranges. ![]() There was surely no better role model to have when planning for the arrival of a new lower medium-sized Rover and its own performance-orientated variant. The Rover SD1 Vitesse had undoubtedly served as a very useful high performance variant to help raise the profile of Austin Rover Group and its models. Read on to find out how this Honda-based performance saloon did a great job of keeping up appearances. Following on from his excellent Rover SD1 development story, David Morgan tells the rarely-related story of how its little brother, the 216 Vitesse, made it into production. ![]()
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