Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

Hello Everyone,

I've joined because I've bought a rather lovely W Reg (2000) Rover 45 1.8 Club Saloon.

I had a number of Rovers years ago as company cars (1990 G Reg 214 Si Hatch, 1991 H Reg 214SLi Hatch and a 1996 P Reg 416i Saloon) and I've always had a soft spot for the brand.

I hadn't really got any intention of buying one but then sat in the queue for the Festival Of The Unexceptional in July my nephew challenged me and my two sons to each buy a car for next years festival for under £1000 each.....

Well there was only one car for me So recently I found the aforementioned 45 Club (slightly over budget). One owner from new, garaged all its life, 39000 miles and from what I can see so far remarkably rust free. There a few bumps and scrapes here and there (some of which will polish out) and the door cards - whilst looking fine at first glance have the issue where the fabric glue has given up.

On the whole though I'm super impressed with it and absolutely love it. It still smells like my Rovers from the 90's did.

Just compiling a list of things I'd like to do to improve it as I think it might be a keeper rather than just for the FOTU.....

Oh and it's Sienna Gold which might not be everyone's cup of tea but it's like a little ray of sunshine

Avery nice exaple indeed!

No probs with the door cards (actually, they are called escutcheon panels in my 1930 Daimler parts book -how posh!). The original material was foamed backed, but the foam oxodises over the years and turns into demerara sugar.

However, Woolies keep a range of expandable re-upolstery materials and you can recover them yourself, but do remember to use a high-temperature adhesive.

Regards to all,

Stan.

Thanks Stan.

I'll take a look at Woolies.

Regards,

Mike.

Hello Smithy!

Lovely car. Woollies is worth a try. I did some retrimming of the headlining many years ago with the foam backed material. The glue is key - it has to be the high temperature stuff. Some owners go down the flocking route too , but it wont have the same appearance as the original cloth . I think they go down the flocking route because they have issues with the material coming loose again because it has to stretch around the armrest. I am sure there is material available that is foamed backed with the additional stretch required. Let us know how you get on.

On the subject of headlining I found an excellent material from EUFabrics on eBay. The light grey is a only a touch off the original colour and it's perforated like the material used on the first handful of 45s (which I appreciate isn't correct for most peoples cars) it's the closest I've found to the original so far and I highly recommend it. It set me back about £40 plus a couple of cans of 250F/120c high temp adhesive which isn't bad at all!