Rover 2300 SD1 | I sold the car through a local auction house and then subsequently watched it sell again on ebay a few weeks later. I understand this Rover later finished up in Ireland. | Quite an interesting story with this one...
The first recorded keeper of this 2300 was Rovers Factory Special Projects Group and for some reason the car was badged as a 2600 seemingly from new. The car was certainly badged 2600 twelve months later when it was sold to an unsuspecting second owner through a Rover dealership in the midlands the dealership subsequently having to make a cash adjustment to the owner when this discrepancy came to light. That owner was to keep the Rover for the next 28 years, but actually used it very little his family only disposing of the car after he had deceased.
I purchased the Rover from a dealer in Bristol in June 2008. The only 4 speed manual SD1 that I have ever seen However my problems began a few weeks later when I tried to tax it: for some reason, according to DVLA, the car did not exist
Further investigation revealed that the Rover had allegedly been scrapped earlier that year... I contacted the family of the previous longterm owner and his son confirmed that he had indeed sent the Rover for scrap, not realizing that anyone might want to preserve it Moreover the son was intrigued to learn that his Dads old car was still on road
The car subsequently became something of an ongoing feature in Classic Car Weekly as I wrestled with DVLA for months to get the cars existence recognized. The problem was that the Certificate of Destruction, confirming that the car had physically been destroyed, had been issued by one of DVLAs official Authorized Treatment Facilities auto recyclers and DVLA simply refused to accept that one of their own agents could be wrong...
Eventually DVLA relented and sent an inspector to verify the Rover was indeed alive and well and parked in my garage. A new V5C logbook followed a few weeks later.
![]()
![]()
