I've only left the brand to buy myself vans for work. Sadly the 25/ZR based van isn't quite big enough for my needs so I had to buy Ford/Vauxhall. Currently running a 2008 Astravan 1.9CDTi Sportive.
Gots me to thinking about a 25/ZR estate car - I know the 25 is the smallest in it's range with the 45 and 75 and the 75 has an estate version, but you get the likes of the focus being made into an estate and it isn't THAT much bigger than a 25, just a little thought popped into my head, would it be possible to make a 25/ZR estate. I know it would mean a complete new wheel base etc etc and would probably cost a fortune but there are some mad members on here who like a challenge... :lol:
Perhaps a Photoshop whizz could drum up an 'artist's impression' of how it might look. Would probably look awful but still... curious and all that.
I would class the 75 as a different model all together, a bity like comparing a focus to a mondeo but both have estate versions. Well the older focus did anyway, not sure if still do.
and the ZT is just the MG equivilent of a 75 i.e. sportier etc.. like the ZR is of the 25 and ZS is of the 45...
Not exactly. I am not expert on Rover design history I am learning on the way (someone could say on the fly), but 200/400 where very similar and on the route you are saying. But after that R200 mk3 and R400 gone separate design ways. R75 is something completley difernet and extremly good in years of origin.
The development cost of making a Rover 25 estate would have been far too high for MG-Rover and not only that, MG-Rover needed the money to develop a new car/chassis as the Rover 25 is past its retirement age.
To make a Rover 25 into an estate would take a huge amount of work. Perhaps a coach builder could make such a car though, it's amazing what some companies can build.
The only way it would be possible as a DIY job would be to get an old Rover Tourer and retrofit the front end from a 25/ZR onto it. As the 25/ZR shares its bulkhead with the earlier R8 cars it should be feasible, I believe it has been done already although I have never seen one.
45 estates have been created by Roverising Honda Civic estates.
i've seen pics of a 400 estate with a ZR front end graphted on, looked quite good.
not sure the work required would be worth the extra 1-2 feet of space though.
They never made a 200 estate, all the R8 estates were badged as 400 Tourers initially and then after the R3 Bubble replaced the R8 200 it became known as simply the Rover Tourer.
I think what the conversion does show is that with a bit of effort Rover could have updated the Tourer, Cabriolet and Coupe with the front end from the R3. If they had modernized the rear a little as well with new lights and bumpers they would have had a genuine family of 200 series models rather than the slightly disjointed range of old and new that they ended up with.
Really? Blimey, I need my eyes testing, I think the blue one looks really smart, would be nice if the roof line dipped a little towards the rear, just slightly, instead of following straight line along, I quite like the mk2 boot though, clean and simples
This brilliant photoshop just goes to prove that Rover were daft not to develop an estate variant of the 45. Could have helped them shift a lot more of them.
i guarentee thats a honda aerodeck with rover front end and badges. it still has the aerodeck rear lamps on it, id imagine rover being rover like they did with the hatch would have changed the rear lamps style a bit
MGR apparently approached Honda back in the day with a view to buying the Aerodeck rights and production tooling but Honda were less than forthcoming so it never happened. Shame really, as they would had a few 1000 sales out of it.
Primarily because when HHR was being developed Honda werent interested in producing an estate and Rovers development budget had been eaten up by producing their bespoke saloon version. Had the car sold in its expected numbers Rover probably would have developed an estate based on the saloon car floorpan but it didnt and consequently the estate never happened. By the time Honda added the Civic estate Rover was in BMW's hands and later when it became MGR Honda refused to sell them the tooling for the estate car even though they had stopped building it themselves.
Inspired by this quote over on longest MG Rover oweners:
Gots me to thinking about a 25/ZR estate car - I know the 25 is the smallest in it's range with the 45 and 75 and the 75 has an estate version, but you get the likes of the focus being made into an estate and it isn't THAT much bigger than a 25, just a little thought popped into my head, would it be possible to make a 25/ZR estate. I know it would mean a complete new wheel base etc etc and would probably cost a fortune but there are some mad members on here who like a challenge... :lol:
I'd say the 45 was more a comparison in size to the Focus. 25 is more Fiesta sized, New Fiesta anyway.
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