Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

HI

As some of you know I have a K reg GTI Turbo and an L reg GSi Turbo, neither of these have the original radio or radio /cassette fitted.

My question is what Radio or Radio cassette would have been fitted to these cars when they were new and what upgrades were available from the factory

Many thanks
Stephen

Maybe not the complete answer for your cars, but according to the 1991 200 series catalogue I've got, the 220GTi was fitted standard with a Philips R681 with the option of a R682 which added Radio Data System (RDS) whatever that was. Our car, a 214 GSi has the R670. Still works fine after 25 years, though the cassette player is a bit temperamental.

According to the 1992 price list, you could do a further upgrade to a Radio/CD player R984 which cost an additional £500.

Cheers,
Hugh

Hi Stephen,

Pretty certain both of your cars would have had either the Philips R652 or R750 cassette player fitted from the factory, or if the original owner was rich enough the R950 cassette player, which could also control the optional Rover/Phillips DC082 6 disc CD multichanger if desired.

My 216 GTi was built in June 1993 on a K Plate and that had a R652 cassette player fitted into it from new. The R652 seems to be the most common unit fitted to later 200's like yours as standard fitment.

It seems that around late 1992 the stereo range was also updated, and Philips started branding them with the word "Rover" on the front instead of "Philips", and im sure yours would have been fitted with one of these Rover branded units from new (R652,R750,R950)

Hope this helps a bit.

hi I see u had r652radio my wife's just bought rover 214 m reg how do u remove it yours Dave bridges

The higher spec. cars on a K plate or later would have had an R652 as the entry level player, with potential upgrades to an R750, R850 and R950. The R750 had RDS and was more powerful, the R850 had bass and treble controls and a better cassette deck pause mechanism, and the R950 added CD changer functionality. There was an R960 which was almost identical to the R950. It added direct access to CD changer discs 1-6 using the station keys.

R670, R681 and R682 were around when the models all launched. Not sure when they were phase out - the earliest I've seen an R652 from the newer radios on offer is on a 92K but they could have been brought in earlier.

You remove an R652 by removing the plastic end caps. You need to use something soft and plastic like a spatula, plastic knife, credit card, etc. and slide it in under the ears t each side. You should be able to gently twist whatever you slide under the ears and flick them off. Then you'll find two holes each side into which you insert the removal tools shown below (found on Ebay). Pull them gently outwards and then pull forwards and the set should come away.

The GSi Turbo would definitely have left the factory with an R652 unless the first owner paid for the upgrade (both my 420 and 220 GSi Ts just had the 652 until I did the R950 + CD changer upgrade)

The hardest bit to find nowadays will be the mounting kit for the CD changer (specially-shaped brackets to attach to the 'anti-submarine pan' of the front passenger's seat frame). The R950 head unit, CD changer and cable do turn up on eBay from time to time, as they were fitted to Rover 800s and, I believe, Land Rover Discoverys of the period.


EDIT: I have just noticed that the original post is over two years old but maybe my information will help somebody else now or in the future

Oh well, at least I answered the bit about removal...