I have recently acquired this very well looked after Rover 214SEi.
The first owner bought the car new in January 1994, and owned the car until 2001. The second owner then kept the car until just last week, when I practically stole it for £350. It has the most comprehensive history file, and has rarely gone more than a couple of thousand miles between services. The longest gap is just 5,000 miles. Despite having only 69,000 miles on the clock, it is on its 3rd cambelt, and amazingly, its original headgasket.

As you can see, it's not really a project as such.
However, it does require a few small areas of rust to be treated, and so it will be off to the bodyshop tomorrow (30th August 2016)

Both rear arches have small, but not the worst you will have seen.
In addition to this, there's a few other bits of surface rust here and there.
Overall however, I'm very please with the car.

I'll update pics once bodywork is done, then it's just the clock to sort on the interior, and some glue on the dash where something has been stuck in the past.

These early SEi's are interesting as they don't seem as highly specced as the later ones, which had metallic paint, alloys, half leather interior, sometimes a sunroof (optional).

All my SEi's have had manual mirrors too.

Was there anything unusual about the early SEi's that made them worthy of the SEi badge?

Nice car by the way :-)

Thanks

Mine has a sunroof and central locking, but that's about it, so fairly basic.

I've ordered the original sales brochure, so that will hopefully shed some light on things.

My WIP is also one of these! Flame/Tempest first reg 25 March 1994. It's not as smart as yours though.

It hasn't any more comfort items than my poverty spec 214S, apart from central locking and the mixed blessing that is PAS.

crepello wrote:My WIP is also one of these! Flame/Tempest first reg 25 March 1994. It's not as smart as yours though.

It hasn't any more comfort items than my poverty spec 214S, apart from central locking and the mixed blessing that is PAS.

Ah yes, I forgot about PAS. I have that too. Doesn't yours have the sunroof? I have the original bill of sale, which details just the mudflaps as an option, so the sunroof must have been standard.

Sadly, I'm missing one mudflap, so that's another thing to add to the list!

philgdust wrote: Doesn't yours have the sunroof?

Nope! One of the attractions for me actually; I'm a tad too tall, so the lack gives me that extra clearance needed on bad hair days.

crepello wrote:

philgdust wrote: Doesn't yours have the sunroof?

Nope! One of the attractions for me actually; I'm a tad too tall, so the lack gives me that extra clearance needed on bad hair days.

Haha. I'm 5'10" and bald, so no problems there! Need to wear a hat when it's open mind, or I get a sore red patch!