PERFECT COMBINATION
Clark’s perfect car
Had it not been for the American V8s, the giant-killing Ford Lotus Cortina might have ended Jag’s domination of touring car racing anyway. Lotus boss Colin Chapman mated the humble Cortina with the 1600cc twin-cam four-cylinder engine he got Harry Mundy and Cosworth’s Keith Duckworth to develop. Modification to the suspension and gearbox helped harness the extra power and the car dominated its class. Jim Clark won Class B in every 1964 round to take the BSCC crown and the car remained a standard-setter – in Mk2 form – until the arrival of the Escort in ’68.
The big Rover V8 crossed the Group 1 and Group A eras, winning in both. After overcoming the Ford Capri, the Rover remained a threat until Ford moved the game forward with turbocharging.
The Vitesse won every round in 1983 and rising star Steve Soper would have won the drivers’ crown had he not been disqualified for running adjustable rockers. Andy Rouse – who inherited that crown in his Class B Alfa Romeo GTV6 – made up for that the following year by using a Vitesse to take his third title, as Rovers won nine of the 11 rounds.
The Vitesse’s final victory – and class title, with BTCC rookie Tim Harvey – came in 1987. The car still rates as one of Harvey’s favourites. “I couldn’t have had a better first car in touring cars because it was a big, friendly lovely beast,” he recalls. “It was the perfect combination of grip, power and noise, and on-the-limit handling.”
We are fortunate to be driving the first Group A Rover built in our test – even though this is in fact chassis 02. It was Soper’s car throughout his ’83 BTCC campaign and it also competed in the Tourist Trophy at Silverstone, a round of the European Touring Car Championship. The result was victory for Soper and Rene Metge. Owner and Rover expert (and former TWR mechanic) Ken Clarke, who has nine Rovers on his books, runs the 3.5-litre machine in TT specification today.
At the end of 1983, chassis 02 was retired from competition and later became a Bastos show car. It was eventually found in a breakers yard and saved by Andre Aerts.
It had no engine or gearbox and lived in Aerts’s showroom for years before a business partner sold it to a dealer. Clarke eventually got his hands on it and restored it – one of his customers bought the sister chassis so Ken made all the parts required for both. The Rover finally returned to competition in 2017, with second in class (behind Soper and Chris Ward in another Rover) at Oulton Park a highlight.
The first thing you notice climbing into the SD1 is the basic plastic interior – all very 1980s. Only the rev counter has been updated. Clarke wanted to keep everything simple and to spec. It’s rough and ready on the inside, but gorgeous from the outside – easily the bestlooking Rover I’ve ever seen.
The V8 engine needs just a tickle of throttle to coax it into life at first, because it can easily flood with fuel when cold. It’s reluctant initially, but eventually roars into life and we are away. On a freezing cold, damp day at Brands this is an absolute beast of a car to drive. Harvey reckons they were good cars in the wet, but I felt like this one was trying to kill me at every turn! It was super-stiff and totally unforgiving.
“They only got stiffer,” is Clarke’s reply when I query this. He says there is no adjustable damping either, so there is very little to be done, only a rollbar to disconnect. The V8 engine has a wide power band between 4000 and 7000rpm but when you reach it the thing just wants to light up the rear tyres – even so much as a glance at the throttle and the car just snarls angrily.
I spend pretty much my entire run just clinging on for dear life, living on my wits, constantly correcting the steering and trying desperately not to throw the car at the scenery.
Clarke asks me at the end of my run to report temperature readings, but I am simply too busy trying to stay alive to provide any useful information. This is a high-speed, dry-weather car. On slicks at Silverstone in bone dry conditions I bet it’s absolutely mighty. But this is not such a day.
This car is the opposite of the Camaro – specced properly to race but just too stiff as a consequence. The Camaro is benign and thus perfect for the conditions, but would quickly get found out in a proper dry race against the Rover.