Rover 3500 - American style

Jaguar Rover Triumph are currently working on the 50,000-mile durability and emissions runs that are necessary before the multiple award-winning Rover 3500 can be sold in America.

It is good news that Leyland are taking the Rover name back to the USA, for the old model received a fine reception in its early days.

If all goes well the Rover will go on sale in America in 1980. To get to the market at all a fleet or Federal US specification Rovers will have covered two million miles of testing in Britain with the American EPA carrying out its own 50,000-mile emission tests.

Midland readers may care to know that the Rovers stick to a predetermined 84-mile route in which drivers must make over 100 stops with the engine idling or switched off. The whole procedure is recorded via the type of tachograph that lorry drivers are presently resisting in Britain, but that is favoured in Europe to monitor times, speeds and distances.

Externally the Rovers carry door-mounted placards proclaiming their role. More fundamentally they can be identified by twin front headlamps in place of normal fared-in units, and the larger USA bumpers.