1998 Rover 600 – The English Patient

Among carmakers, Rover was the perennial sick man of Europe, to borrow a phrase used to describe the perennially-decomposing Ottoman Empire. When I moved to London to attend university in the late ‘90s, the whole spiel was: “Buy British – the Germans did!” That was referencing BMW having bought out the Rover Group (Rover, Land Rover, Mini, MG and other legacy British Leyland designs) from British Aerospace and Honda in 1994. The Rover 600, launched a year earlier, was the last car to emerge from the pre-BMW era.

How would a Honda built by Austin and sold by BMW fare in the cutthroat 2-litre segment? Surprisingly well, at least in Europe, where the Rover marque still had plenty of cachet. But under the chrome grille, it’s just a 5^th generation Accord. Which was one of the best cars in its category, fortunately enough.

Honda came to be involved with Rover back in the late ‘70s, when HMS British Leyland was rapidly sinking. Bringing in a host of new technology and production methods to the bloated and dysfunctional State-owned entity, Honda was seen as both a saviour and a Trojan Horse. The Triumph Acclaim was blatantly the latter, but that was the inevitable consequence of calling the Japanese to the rescue. Austin-Rover, as it was now called, kept manufacturing legacy BL designs for a good while, but Honda’s influence became far more pervasive after 1985.

Austin-Rover’s new leadership decided to get rid of the Austin marque altogether and nix the planned Maestro/Montego replacement. All new models (save for MG and Range Rover) would be directly derived from Hondas and badged as Rovers, just like the new Legend-based Rover 800/Vitesse (1986-1999) above, soon to be followed by the Concerto-based Rover 200 and the Civic-based Rover 400. The Maestro/Montego carried on in parallel, but they were on borrowed time. The 600 was to be the final Honda-based model to enter the range, finally enabling the legacy BL saloons to be retired for good.

The 600 was to introduce a refreshed design language for Rover – which was direly needed, by the early ‘90s, and was the one aspect of the project that Honda delegated to the Brits. The body’s basics were all Accord – the doors, roof, windscreens and sills were in place – but Rover designer Richard Woolley was able to personalize the front, back and, to a more limited extent, the C-pillar and rear doors.

This is all eye-of-the-beholder territory of course, but if the goal of the Rover 600 was to look upmarket and somewhat more “European” or “British” than the Honda, I think that was achieved pretty well. Honda also gave Rover a running start by allowing them to launch the 600 in April 1993, five months prior to the new European Accord.

Aside from the body, though, the 600 was a pure Honda product. Few Rover engines (several of which still existed) were to be included in the roster, though all engines were at least produced in the UK. Base models initially got a Honda 2-litre (1997cc, 115 or 136hp, depending on spec/trim) and high-end cars got the 2.3 litre good for 158hp. In 1994, the “Rover T16” 2-litre (1994cc) DOHC 16-valve engine was added to the range as the 197hp sporty variant; the same block, albeit in 105hp Diesel form, was also available. Late in the 600’s run, the Honda 1.8 took over base model duties.

I have no idea what this particular car has under the bonnet. It’s safe to say it’s not the Diesel, which wasn’t offered in this market, and probably not the Rover T16. I’m banking on the 2.3 litre because this car sports the alloy wheels and the higher-spec Rover 600 was better value for money in Japan, given that the car was “oversized” in any case (it was just over the 170cm width limit). It’s a later model, as can be ascertained by the body-colour mirrors, door handles and side trim, which were added to the 600 from MY 1997 onward.

You would have thought that Honda might have left the cockpit to the Brits. Rover still had the remnants of VandenPlas and a long tradition of making fine interiors, but let’s not forget how the BL days had deteriorated things in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Honda preferred doing it themselves, making sure to add plenty of faux woodgrain but ensuring there would be a better finish than Rovers had until then.

I had quite a bit of (usually back)-seat time in a 600 as a teenager: a good schoolfriend’s dad had one, a Diesel. The passenger experience was quite different from the Alfa 75 that preceded it: the car felt a lot more solid, far better built and comfortable. It was also, apparently, dreadfully boring to drive by comparison to the RWD Alfa. You don’t say.

But then, excitement was not the brief and there was a market niche for a gussied-up Honda. These Rover 600s actually sold decently well, given how tarnished the brand was by that point in time, in export markets. Even Japan fell under the spell, to an extent – well, it was like a Honda-based Mitsuoka, after all. Not quite as tacky, but in the same British neo-retro ballpark. Let’s look at the lay of the land among the 2-plus-litre semi-luxurious saloons of 1998.

I deliberately didn’t add the Honda Accord (nor the Ascot, which was the more direct rival, but out of production by 1998), but if cold hard numbers were the only factor, the domestic-made version would always be the winner. But not by much, money-wise – the likes of Mercedes, Audi or BMW, the latter being too dear to make the cut, were substantially more expensive. But then, you didn’t have to justify your choice – people knew what those marques stood for. Unlike Rover, certainly by the late ‘90s.

For let’s recall what was said at the start of this post: BMW had taken over Rover in 1994, severing links with Honda just as the 600 was getting going. This kind of left the car in limbo: the planned PR campaigns and fancy brochures were cut back, as Honda received handsome royalties from BMW for every car sold. No coupé or wagon variants were in the offing, either; the 600 would remain a genetic dead-end, to be replaced, along with the 800, by the brand new 75 in 1999.

In January of that year, the last 600 was produced, joining over 270,000 of its ilk on the highways and byways of Europe. And, improbably, Japan. The sick man of European carmakers could still perform a miracle of two, nevertheless nearly everyone back in the ‘90s knew that the “English patient” was terminal. The relative success of the 600 gave some Rover supporters hope, as did the 75, but the rot was in too deep. In 2000, BMW salvaged Mini from the sinking longship and punted Land-Rover over to Ford, leaving MG-Rover to quietly collapse on its own by 2005. The agony of the remains of BL Empire took over 25 years. The Ottomans took longer, but not by all that much.

 

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Curbside Classic: 1993-99 Rover 600 – What Price Chrome and Wood?, by William Stopford