Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

Haha! An excellent suggestion Steve. It seems there is no perfect solution for this. It my amended dash mat is a failure… as I’m expecting, I may have to revert to the arm rest. But I’ll look at the glovebox idea as well

Haha! Passenger idea is a good one! This is a dilemma as I love sitting in the car with its lovely interior and don’t want to be distracted by things that aren’t original so my modified dash mat fails that test. The glovebox idea is good for being hidden when not in use. Also I did see a cup holder that hangs from vents. Not sure if that’ll be a bit fragile though.

There's not a lot of space in there, and it is a nice interior.

I've never really looked at cup holders that fix onto vents. I would think one of the main issues could be that they'll be mounted quite high up - if you have any 'spillage' it could make a bit of a mess of your dashboard, heater controls, trouser leg etc. Personally, I'd prefer something nearer to the carpet!

Could anything be done around the coin tray?

Test drive the cup holder today - just for info, it’s riveted to the mat - the mat is not glued down. Side to side movement I was not concerned about, it was hard acceleration and and energy stops. My findings:

1) I’m tall so it’s doesn’t block my view with the little bottle in at all
2) It doesn’t budge at all round corners
3) Certainty no issue under hard acceleration - if you have a Turbo that might be a risk!
4) stayed totally still in an emergency stop

I’m going to stick with it for now. Ultimately if I’m in a crash in a car first made in the 1980s, warm tea on my clothes is the least of my worries!

We worked something out a while back. If your R8 has a rear armrest you can create a system where you create a strap which tightly surrounds the armrest and then either with a relatively thick block of wood or foam, carve the shape of a cup into it and attach it to the strap. The arm rest never moves and if the strap is tight enough neither will the makeshift cup holder regardless of how harsh the acceleration or decelleration. Wish I had pics of it but unfortunately the description will have to do. Sounds like your mat has worked rather well however

Another great idea there. I think there’s no perfect solution but anything which is usable and doesn’t damage the car is a win in my book. I did damage a dash mat but it was a spare that I had.