Group A Rover 3500 SD1/Vitesse - History & Whereabouts

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by TWR ROVER

Feel we are getting very close now to being able to identify the build date and accurate TWR history of most SDI's as well as the post TWR history of many and indeed their present ownership and wereabouts....a valuable and important thing to be able to document.

Hmmm, that's certainly the big hope, but I fear we've still got a fair way to go!!


We seem to have very good ideas on the histories of 004, 005, then a few cars 'mid build' like 010, 013, 014, then the last 3 or 3 017 onwards?

I think we still need some concrete info on the earliest cars. 002/003, I.E. Were they Grp 1 or Grp A.

Also if 005 was built for 1983, does that mean 004 (latterly David Carvell's and definitely a Sanyo car) originally was also built for 1983?

Then we have a bot of a gap 006-010 I think, which would likely have been built 1984/85 time and are likely to include the ETC ARG/Fleet, ETC Gitanes, one of the Bathurst Mobil entries as well as perhaps one or two of the firSt Bastos cars?

Anyone fancy a sift back through the thread and post an update of the 'supposed chassis list with the most recent info?

[KA]

I'll give it a go- it will be worth adding in some of the information that has been added to the version of this thread that's in the ChassisArchive, plus some stuff that Ken and others posted on the 'Sanyo Rovers' thread from a couple of years ago

I've gone back through the thread and tried to pull individual histories together as far as possible from what's been posted, and I'll post them on here a few at a time.Feel free to add to/correct/tell me I've got it wrong as appropriate....

To kick off-

001- not sure about original history, but became the 1983 Rene Metge Marlboro car in France

004- TWR/Sanyo car
Bathurst 1984 as no 61 (Hahne/Allam)
Sold by TWR to Ian 'Del' Lines 1986/7 as part of a package deal including ex-Pond rallycar B565AOX and a Bastos shell (used to reshell Del Lines' crashed ex-works rallycar A379VUK). Still in Bathurst Mobil colours at the time according to photos on SD1 club website
Sold to R.A. Potter, driven in 1987 BTCC by Dave Carvell
Sold to Belgium- ran at Spa 24 hours 1988 in Eurodefi colours

[KA]

005- LHD car for Eddy Joosen- 'Barclay' car 1983
1984 Marlboro Marc Duez car
1985 Marlboro spare/test car J-L Schlesser
eventually sold to Arthur Carter collection (maybe via Brian Chatfield?)- restored in Bastos colours
Now with Allan Dippie in NZ- being restored to Marlboro colours

011- new car for Bathurst 1984 (No 60- Soper/Dickson)
mentioned earlier in the thread as listed for sale on racecarsdirect.com early last year- the link no longer works, so don't know what history was in the advert...

[KA]

013 1985 French Marlboro car- Jean-Louis Schlesser

014 1985 Bastos car
with Colin Pearcy by 1998, sold to Brian Kershaw around 2003

016 1985 Bastos car- scrapped at TWR 1985/6

017 1985 Bastos car (Walkinshaw/Percy 85 TT winner?) crashed at Zolder
subsequently reshelled by Dennis Leech
sold to Nick Humphrey- crashed at Mallory and reshelled
sold to John Quartermaine- raced in modsaloons & Thundersaloons, sold on around 1993/4
Owned by un-named Surrey owner- restored by Ken Clarke 2004/5
2006- Charles Williams- raced in Heritage GT series in Bastos colours

(hope I've got this one right, and not mixed up the various ex-Leech cars discussed at different points...)

[KA]

018 1986 Bastos car (Hahne/Allam/Schlesser/Brancatelli)
sold to Allan Scott- went to NZ around 1990
now owned by Allan Dippie in NZ- still in original Bastos colours

019- 1986 Bastos car
kept for TWR collection
sold to Jeff Allam when TWR collection auctioned 2004/5

020- last car built 1986 Bastos/South Pacific(?) car
later owned by Kevin Eaton, then Arthur Carter collection
Restored by Ken Clarke for unnamed Surrey owner (same one who owned 017 before Charles Williams?)

There's a lot more history of individual cars in the various threads, but this is what I've been able to match to definite chassis numbers mentioned in the thread- Can anyone fill in the rest?

[Chris Griffin]

Unnamed Surrey owner was Tim Morley I believe. Ken may be able to confirm but could be sworn to some weird secrecy agreement! Well done on the summary KA.

[chunterer]

KA, your updates are marvellous and i've copied/edited a little over into the chassis archive.

Everyone please have a look and see what you think.

It is clear that we need to confirm when the 002/003 cars were built as judging by when 001 was built for competition, there's a chance they were Group 1 cars. This then will give us clearer indication of what happened after 004, if that makes sense. Although that car definitely ran in 1984 BTCC (the one Dave Carvell had in 87) i've got a suspicion it may have actually been built for the 1983 season?

We also have very little to go on for numbers 006/7/8/9/10 but a good guess would make 2 of them to be Fleet/ARG ETC cars from 1984 and at least one of them would be the Gitanes car and possibly one of the Sanyo cars?

We know that one of the Sanyo cars was badly pranged at the International Trophy startline shunt early in '84 and one of the Fleet cars was in all likelihood written off at the TT Woodcote 'dead car park' towards the end of the season. I wonder if these were repaired/re-shelled?

[GBRM]

I spoke to Vince about this and he says that when Colin Pearcy bought 005 it was known to be a Bastos car and had been driven by Denny Hulme, Armin Hane and Jeff Allam and was reputed to be the Walkinshaw "special" qualifying car.
The TWR car that Arthur Carter had at the time was a differant one but he could possibly have bought 005 as Vince wasn't sure who bought it from Colin.
When I next speak to Colin I'll pick his brains on it too.

[ken clarke]

Originally Posted by GBRM

I spoke to Vince about this and he says that when Colin Pearcy bought 005 it was known to be a Bastos car and had been driven by Denny Hulme, Armin Hane and Jeff Allam and was reputed to be the Walkinshaw "special" qualifying car.
The TWR car that Arthur Carter had at the time was a differant one but he could possibly have bought 005 as Vince wasn't sure who bought it from Colin.
When I next speak to Colin I'll pick his brains on it too.

Sorry but you are incorrect, Tom never had a 'qualifying'car. 005 was never a Bastos car.

Many stories have been invented over the years about these cars. Perhaps nobody could beleive that the Rover SD1 was & still is, such a good car both on road & track.

When I have the time I will write the history of all the cars, just need a couple of hours on my pc.

Ken.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by ken clarke

Many stories have been invented over the years about these cars. Perhaps nobody could beleive that the Rover SD1 was & still is, such a good car both on road & track.

When I have the time I will write the history of all the cars, just need a couple of hours on my pc.

Ken.

I Can believe it - and one of the all time classic exhaust notes surely??!!

Ken, if you can fill in, add, bolster, confirm etc the histories of the 20 chassis, several of us on here may well nominate you for honorary lifetime membership on 10-10th!!

Appreciate that listing all of it will be time consuming, will you be able to confirm that what we've got so far is right?

[d-b]

hi there

don't know if its any help,but i have an Autosport advert
for
ex Dennis Leech group A BTCC car with NCK 4.5 V8

car is number 2 black with diagonal red & white stripes from front wheel arch to rear spoiler
it was advertised by Richard Williamson

i also have photo's of this car as raced by Richard Williamson (and crashed) at Mallory Park (car 12) 26/9/1999

i think he sold it to Dennis Robinson as it appeared in a classic car magazine article as car 18(date unknown)

any help?

[GBRM]

Originally Posted by ken clarke

Sorry but you are incorrect, Tom never had a 'qualifying'car. 005 was never a Bastos car.

Many stories have been invented over the years about these cars. Perhaps nobody could beleive that the Rover SD1 was & still is, such a good car both on road & track.

When I have the time I will write the history of all the cars, just need a couple of hours on my pc.

Ken.

Ken

I don't mean to be pedantic or disprove that the SD1 was a good car or that it was common knowledge at the time that Tom had a "qualifying car". I would have loved to have seen Dad race one in the day and I think a lot of other people on here would agree. You obviously enjoyed your time working for TWR and that's great, I can imagine it was a fanatastic time.

The only thing that worries me is that not once have you agreed with anyone who has said that they had a TWR car that was, shall we say, slightly "bent" and I think a lot of people out there would like to know why TWR pulled out of certain championships at certain times when they were on to win and make a big point?

There is no malice intended, at the end of the day we're trying to track certain cars historys and if that means the taboo that surrounded the car then so be it.

As an aside, I'm slightly concerned that you're questioning certain people's word who were involved with these cars at the time and certain people who bought them straight from their TWR days integrity. Anyway........

What I would love to see is a completely original Bastos Rover and for someone to point out the inaccuricies/rumours that have occured over the last 20 years (whether it be NOS in the fire extinghuisers, cars being 7/8th size, certain cars having qualifying engines that were 110.7 litre or whatever) and proving the were impossible to happen. I think until there is an authentic race/road test of a car that a driver of the day (for example's sake Steve Soper or Jeff Allam) then everyone will beleive the urban myths about the cars.....

Until that time comes I think everyone within the motor-racing world who wasn't involved with TWR will have doubts and I have no problem in you proving me wrong, I would just like to see it in black and white from someone associated with TWR and not what I've seen with my own-eyes and heard from the drivers at the time, because they must be wrong from your accounts.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by d-b

hi there

don't know if its any help,but i have an Autosport advert
for
ex Dennis Leech group A BTCC car with NCK 4.5 V8

car is number 2 black with diagonal red & white stripes from front wheel arch to rear spoiler
it was advertised by Richard Williamson

i also have photo's of this car as raced by Richard Williamson (and crashed) at Mallory Park (car 12) 26/9/1999

i think he sold it to Dennis Robinson as it appeared in a classic car magazine article as car 18(date unknown)

any help?

I don't know if he still has it but Dennis Robinson was the owner at one time.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by GBRM

Ken

I don't mean to be pedantic or disprove that the SD1 was a good car or that it was common knowledge at the time that Tom had a "qualifying car". I would have loved to have seen Dad race one in the day and I think a lot of other people on here would agree. You obviously enjoyed your time working for TWR and that's great, I can imagine it was a fanatastic time.

The only thing that worries me is that not once have you agreed with anyone who has said that they had a TWR car that was, shall we say, slightly "bent" and I think a lot of people out there would like to know why TWR pulled out of certain championships at certain times when they were on to win and make a big point?

There is no malice intended, at the end of the day we're trying to track certain cars historys and if that means the taboo that surrounded the car then so be it.

As an aside, I'm slightly concerned that you're questioning certain people's word who were involved with these cars at the time and certain people who bought them straight from their TWR days integrity. Anyway........

What I would love to see is a completely original Bastos Rover and for someone to point out the inaccuricies/rumours that have occured over the last 20 years (whether it be NOS in the fire extinghuisers, cars being 7/8th size, certain cars having qualifying engines that were 110.7 litre or whatever) and proving the were impossible to happen. I think until there is an authentic race/road test of a car that a driver of the day (for example's sake Steve Soper or Jeff Allam) then everyone will beleive the urban myths about the cars.....

Until that time comes I think everyone within the motor-racing world who wasn't involved with TWR will have doubts and I have no problem in you proving me wrong, I would just like to see it in black and white from someone associated with TWR and not what I've seen with my own-eyes and heard from the drivers at the time, because they must be wrong from your accounts.

I strongly agree with Gregor here. It was made very clear to me some time ago by 'SOMEONE WHO WOULD CERTAINLY KNOW' that none of Toms own race cars were ever sold, they were always destroyed as they weren't 'quite as far within the regulations as they should be'. The inference being that Tom needed a bit of help to keep up with his drivers!
I'm also sure that theres a lot of Urban Myth involved with many of the stories regarding illegal TWR Rovers (and indeed anything else that TW has been involved with such is his reputation!)
I'm quite prepared to find out that not all of the stories are true, but I don't believe that none of them are!
(What's that saying about being able to fool some of the people all of the time etc?).

[terence]

If they were not "bent",how come the undersides were totaly different to a road car? All very nicely done,but nicely "smoothed" out.

[davyboy]

Sorry guys, pardon my ignorance on this matter, but surely if these Vitesses were as bent as people are intimating how did they manage to get through post race scrutineering ? Flat bottomed undersides, 7/8 size cars ? Were the FIA carrying white sticks back in the 1980s ?

[KA]

Originally Posted by davyboy

Sorry guys, pardon my ignorance on this matter, but surely if these Vitesses were as bent as people are intimating how did they manage to get through post race scrutineering ? Flat bottomed undersides, 7/8 size cars ? Were the FIA carrying white sticks back in the 1980s ?

I'm not claiming to speak from any position of authority- I was just an average teenage fan at the time- but the impression I've got is that a lot of urban myth has built up around this issue and I'd tend to doubt some of the wilder stories like 7/8 scale Rovers, unless anyone's put a tape measure over one and can prove it...

On the other hand, from what I've read over the years, I do get the impression that scrutineering was pretty lax, and that a heck of a lot of Group A cars were 'bent' to varying degrees, and that if TWR were up to anything dodgy, then so was everyone else, and the scrutineers only kicked off if someone was really taking the pee...

You've only got to think back to some of the better-known disputes and rows like the 1984 BTCC Rover affair, and the Eggenberger RS500s at Bathurst in 87, and there were a lot more. AMG took a pair of Merc 190s to Bathurst in 86 that the Aussie scrutineers had a field-day with- apparently there was carbonfibre and fibreglass in all sorts of places it shouldn't have been...

Equally Volvo were alleged to be up to all sorts of stuff in 85/6- isnt there a story about the whole homologation process for an evolution of the 240 Turbo being fairly dodgy? Something about the required batch of production cars with all the 'evo' kit disappearing after they'd been inspected by the FIA? allegedly they'd been re-converted to the more saleable 'basic' version...

[terence]

I remember Walkinshaw having a very tough time with scrutineers,not sure of the date but the problem was with the underside/wheel arches,which were seriously modified.Anyone else remember this,?I am sure this happened at a eropean circuit ,quite early in the SD1,s competion life.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by terence bower

I remember Walkinshaw having a very tough time with scrutineers,not sure of the date but the problem was with the underside/wheel arches,which were seriously modified.Anyone else remember this,?I am sure this happened at a eropean circuit ,quite early in the SD1,s competion life.

This is the problem Terence, nobody has a really clear memory of those events although I do recall looking at Chassis 005 when Colin owned it and he showed me the way the wheel arches had been manipulated.

Off topic comment alert I have to type this or my brain will explode! BTW. I also recall someone who worked for RML telling me how they moved the front suspension mounting points on the early Cavaliers (they were Group A at the time IIRC). Thanks for reading, you've been a wonderful audience. Don't forget to try the veal and tip your waitress. We now return you to the topic

[davyboy]

I've got to admit I'm astonished at this... more so the fact that Group A evolved into such a prestigeous category, ostensibly underwritten by manufacturers. BMW and Ford took it seriously enough to design pure-bread homologation specials and build 5,000 examples. While I can appreciate that minor tricks would be exploited by teams, the kinds of things being discussed here are so blatent even a lay person would pick them up. You would imagine that with so much at stake from a manufacturer perspective everybody would be super-careful about eligibility. Looks like not.

They disguised all of this well. My encounters with Group A were Autosport throughout the entire 1980s and ScreenSport towards the end of the decade, never for a moment did I imagine something like this was going on.

Was Group C clean ? Was the same thing happening there too ?

[Peter Mallett]

Hmm,

Before we go too far, my comment was not intended to suggest wrongdoing but there were things allowed that were perhaps not in the spirit of the regs but nonetheless legal. The wheelarches were a case in point.

But you do raise a concern. Unless we can prove categorically that something was amiss it remains rumour and unfounded scuttlebutt. But good fun from a story teller's viewpoint.

Ken needs to get to his pc pretty quickly methinks. (But not until he's finished my car please).

[KA]

Originally Posted by davyboy

I've got to admit I'm astonished at this... more so the fact that Group A evolved into such a prestigeous category, ostensibly underwritten by manufacturers. BMW and Ford took it seriously enough to design pure-bread homologation specials and build 5,000 examples. While I can appreciate that minor tricks would be exploited by teams, the kinds of things being discussed here are so blatent even a lay person would pick them up. You would imagine that with so much at stake from a manufacturer perspective everybody would be super-careful about eligibility. Looks like not.

They disguised all of this well. My encounters with Group A were Autosport throughout the entire 1980s and ScreenSport towards the end of the decade, never for a moment did I imagine something like this was going on.

Was Group C clean ? Was the same thing happening there too ?

Don't forget Group C was a different situation being a pure prototype category, with no relationship to production cars required, but I suspect in any high-profile category, the rules will be pushed to the limit, and occasionally beyond

I wish I could remember where I read this but I do have a memory of seeing this discussed somewhere at the time- probably when the idea of a WTCC was first raised around 86, and the implication made was that a certain amount of rule-bending (to put it mildly) was tolerated, but the scrutineers would jump on anything that went much beyond that limit. The important point isthat if TWR and Rover were at it, then so was everyone else if some of what I've read is to be believed

I think all of the incidents I mentioned were pretty widely reported at the time- for example the AMG Merc stuff came straight from that year's Bathurst annual, and the Volvo stuff was mentioned in several Autosport race reports during the 85/6 seasons.

You mentioned Ford and BMW taking Group A seriously enough to build 5000 homologation specials- don't forget those same homologation specials ran into trouble right at the start of their careers- all of the factory-supported M3s were thrown out of the first WTCC race at Monza in post-race scrutineering because their lightweight body panels weren't as homologated, and the Eggenberger Sierras didn't even start that race becuase of homologation issues (fuel injection-related from memory?)

It wouldn't take too much time spent going back through old Autosports to come up with a pretty big list of homologation disputes and post-race protests right through the Group A period- there'd probably be scope for a whole new thread on this....

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by KA

It wouldn't take too much time spent going back through old Autosports to come up with a pretty big list of homologation disputes and post-race protests right through the Group A period- there'd probably be scope for a whole new thread on this....

I think that's a very funny and very good idea!

In fact we could probably start a thread on the huge amounts of disputes, protests and counter protests of cars/outfits that ran in the BTCC during the Group A period let alone the European or Australian series!!!

But back on topic, some of the issues raised about legality of the TWR cars isn't really the point of this thread, interesting to mull over as it is! I think that the problem may end up being that if Mr Clarke gives his knowledge on all of the chassis, some people might be a bit peeved at what they learn to be the histories of certain cars, that they once owned believing them to be a different beasts altogether!

What has become clear is that is must have become trendy to paint up almost any Vitesse in Bastos colours later in its life, possibly because those were the most 'famous' ones?

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by chunterer

that if Mr Clarke gives his knowledge on all of the chassis, some people might be a bit peeved at what they learn to be the histories of certain cars, that they once owned believing them to be a different beasts altogether!

I just called him about something unrelated and he makes that point too. In fact he told me that another chassis has possibly been found in Europe.

Originally Posted by chunterer

What has become clear is that is must have become trendy to paint up almost any Vitesse in Bastos colours later in it's life, possibly because those were the most 'famous' ones?

True. When I saw it 005 was in Bastos colours. However a couple of years ago I checked the TT programme and it was a Texaco car the Allam and Hulme drove to victory.

[davyboy]

Well the if the category was as corrupt as people are intimating, I guess that the authenticity of the cars that ran in it has to be drawn into question as well. Trying to get provenance over historic racing cars is notoriously difficult. Just look at Allen Brown's oldracingcars.com to see how many different versions of F5000 machines with the same chassis numbers he's identified. In terms of the TWR machines, it will probably need an affidavit of some sort from somebody previously with the organization to determine what happened each of the cars raced in period - i.e. whether they were destroyed, sold to whom and when etc... It would seem that it can only be tracked forward from there and not backward from today.

Sorry Chunt... looks like your hunt's not as straightforward as it may seem.