“Prestige. Power. Performance” - The Rover Sterling Mk. 1

The year is 1987, and an eight-year-old named Alex is mesmerised by his father’s latest car – an “Azure Blue” Rover Sterling. Little did he release that in 2016; he would be the proud owner of – apart from the 825i in the British Motor Museum - the earliest surviving production 800. In addition, his Rover is possibly the earliest production Sterling still on the road.

From a 2025 perspective, it is sometimes hard to appreciate the significance to the British motor industry of the Rover SD1’s replacement. Mike Lawrence wrote in Motor Sport of August 1986: “Of all the models launched during Austin Rover’s long and painful haul back from the brink of oblivion, none is more important than the new Rover 800”. Keith Adams points out in the indispensable www.aronline.co.uk that in 1985:

In an expanding market, BL achieved a miserable 17 per cent share, only narrowly ahead of Vauxhall and its impressive new range of front-wheel-drive cars. The Metro was starting to fade saleswise against the revised five-speed Ford Fiesta, and the Maestro and Montego were actually selling less than the cars they replaced at the start of their production lives.

In other words, the Rover 800 had to succeed. Harold Musgrove, the Chair of BL’s Austin Rover division, stated: “Where the Metro was the car for our survival, the Rover 800 is the car for our future prosperity”.

For the launch, the company flew 3500 journalists, dealers, fleet buyers and their partners for a weekend in the Swiss Alps to test the latest Rover. The preparations did not end there, as Austin Rover invited 30 police chiefs to Switzerland for test drives. Furthermore, A-R flew 60 MPs and a large number of overseas writers to Northumberland for further test drives.

Such elaborate preparations were deemed sensational for ‘Project XX’ (which does sound like the title of a very bad 1965 science fiction film). Plans for a Rover/Honda developed executive car dated from November 1981. By 1985, Musgrove told the press at the Frankfurt Motor Show: “This car will challenge the best Germany has to offer — clinic results in Europe and North America have been emphatic in that opinion”.

When the 800 made its bow on the 10th of July 1986, there was considerable interest in its relationship with the Honda Legend, which debuted at the 1985 Tokyo Motor Show. The 1984 Rover 200 had already caused a certain amount of consternation, but the 800 not only shared a floorpan with the Legend but was also front-wheel-drive with a transverse engine. The joint project did not always run smoothly; the Rover project director Derek Peek told Autocar, “We’d be misleading if we claimed it was all sweetness and light”.

Power was from either an in-house 2-litre engine or a Honda-designed 2,494cc V6 alloy SOHC unit. Prices commenced at £11,820.47 rising to £18,794.65 for the Sterling. At that time, a Mercedes-Benz 260E Automatic was £16.980, a BMW 525e Automatic was £13,350, and a Ford Granada Scorpio Automatic was £17,506.

The Sterling was aimed firmly at the sort of buyer who delighted in red braces and leather-bound Filofaxes. Such a buyer would naturally expect central locking, ABS, alloy wheels, air conditioning, pile carpeting, electrically powered windows, sliding roof, and seats (with a four-person memory) upholstered in Connolly hide.

Motor raved: “Dynamically this car ranks with the best” and “Put simply, the Sterling is a very good car indeed”. Car moaned, “The new 2.5-litre V6, despite technical novelties, is woefully short of mid-range torque, making it an ill-bred engine for executive car use’” Austin Rover introduced a 2.7-litre unit in 1988 to rectify this issue. Meanwhile, The Observer thought:

Austin Rover are bullish about the car, and in the main deservedly so. It is generally refined, competent and pleasing to drive. But there are still two urgent questions: whether they can deliver it quickly enough, and whether what you buy will be built to the same high standards of its rivals in the executive car market. Time will tell.

Alas, the first-generation 800 did suffer from early delivery issues and certain quality problems. Rover facelifted the range in 1991 and Alex remarks that the Mk.1:

Fell out of favour very quickly due to reliability issues and build quality. The facelifted Mk.2 also made the very boxy and rakish Mk.1 look very dated very quickly in the 90s. However, as irony now has it, I think age has been kinder to the Mk.1 than the Mk.2 as the cleaner lines actually look more modern than the rounded Mk.2, with its retro grille.

And the impact of Alex’s Sterling when it first took to the road in August 1986 cannot be overstated. It was a car that genuinely seemed to herald a new dawn for the Viking badge.

Besisdes, who could resist a car with an electrically powered rear seat - 

With thanks to Alex Sebbinger-Sparks for his time.

With thanks to Alex Sebbinger-Sparks for the permission to use the images in this blog.