I was just getting out of my coupe this afternoon when a near'ish neighbour who was passing said "Oh, that's a blast from the past!"

I knew she used to work at Land Rover but we got chatting and it turns out she was at Rover Group before that, all the way through the Nineties in fact.

Summary of the conversation:-

• She's got a large collection of Rover Group brochures and videos in her garage
  She 'named' Tahti blue
  RG were paying £1100 a car royalties to Honda on every R8 sold

She's going to get a selection of vids out for me to look at, so know what I'll be doing over the holidays

This one will run and run

never know who's around the corner


she's gone home and said to hubby, did you know GTIJohn is next door

I have 2 rover r8 launch videos from when I worked at a rover branch back in 1989.

gbs100 wrote:I have 2 rover r8 launch videos from when I worked at a rover branch back in 1989.

We'll have to do a roll call of what we've all got

These will all get digitised somehow

1234dist wrote:she's gone home and said to hubby, did you know GTIJohn is next door

When I showed her the cut-away car she said " oh, you have got it bad...."

I know how to treat a girl right

*laughing my fat rear end off*.

A good find. I can probably get stuff digitised if needed.

GTiJohn wrote:RG were paying £1100 a car royalties to Honda on every R8 sold

Incredible!

Was that during or after the Honda alliance?

pete2783 wrote:

GTiJohn wrote:RG were paying £1100 a car royalties to Honda on every R8 sold

Incredible!

Was that during or after the Honda alliance?

And that presumably took into account Rover's contribution to the design. So did the pure Honda 400 Bubble have come with an even larger royalty tag? (Unless they negotiated a discount for the dreadful pedal positions!)

pete2783 wrote:

GTiJohn wrote:RG were paying £1100 a car royalties to Honda on every R8 sold

Incredible!

Was that during or after the Honda alliance?

I aim to find out

I would guess there is a similar deal on every Honda built by rover at the time too but the other way around.