It's the Rover V8, so effectively a Buick 215. The rest-of-the-world SD1s got about 150hp out of them as standard with twin SU carbs, but the Vitesse models (their sports line) produced around 190 with Lucas/Bosch fuel injection.

I'm pretty sure manual V8 SD1s are pretty rare anywhere. The only manual ones that I've seen have been the relatively rare Vitesse model, fitted with an uprated engine and sport suspension.

The P6 and SD1 were entirely Rover offerings - it was only after the SD1's demise that they started working with Honda. The SD1 is a great car – the engine is fantastic, and the unsophisticated suspension and RWD make it a real grin-inducing drive. Plus, it'll fit five adults and luggage with ease.

I loved that about my old Citroën Xantia. The instrument panel was exactly the right shape that I could wedge my smartphone in front of the tach and oil temp gauges, and have a navigation screen right in my line of sight. Worked far better than any aftermarket holder, and if I wanted to drive it hard, I could just…

Ye gods. No such drama for me, but I'd say that a story like that was worth losing a game over! We did have a rather exciting incident where we lost all drive going up a steep hill, and rolled backwards for a fair way before the driver managed to wrestle the preselector gearbox back into shape.

Ha, sounds similar to our school bus operators in New Zealand, except (in the '90s, at least) they were doing that with very tired AEC Routemasters and Leyland Fleetlines. Good times.

All bar one of the cars that I've owned have been a project of some sort (and the one that wasn't a project was a Citroën!). My father, a highly experienced car guy with a Jaguar XK150 restoration under his belt, served as a moderating influence, keeping me sensible, and stopping me from biting off more than I could…

Aha. British Leyland parts-bin raiding, I'm sure.

You can actually remap the modifier keys in the Keyboard preference pane - I swap the alt/option and Windows/Command keys so that the order is the same as on the Apple keyboards.

The British (and Volvo, for some reason), were big on this. Later Triumphs, and Volvos, did it one better, and put the switch on the top of the gear knob itself, making it perfect for split-shifting.

New Zealand does this for Diesel and alt-fuel vehicles (Diesel prices do not include road tax in NZ). It works pretty well – you pre-pay for a certain number of kilometers, and are charged on a sliding scale that takes into account vehicle weight, number of axles, commercial or personal use etc.

Add non-synchro first gear and a 'fly off'-type handbrake that works backwards (lift and press button to lock, lift again to release), and my MGA should be theft-proof!

Yeah, the throttle spindles are the Achilles' heel of the real SU, as well, although I suspect that it must be the case for all carbs using materials technology of that era.

Later carbs often had anti-tamper plugs over the adjustment points - usually some kind of plastic that served to both hold the adjustment in place and give evidence of deviation from factory settings, since you'd have to drill/gouge the plastic out to get to the adjustment.

It's kind of like a secret handshake – it won't start up unless you follow the right steps.

Interesting. Just as many seem to regard the workings of the SU and its ilk as black magic, I'll admit to being entirely unfamiliar with the multi-jet, multi-barrel carbs here on the other side of the pond. Just a different mindset, I guess.

I think those are the km/h markings. If it is anything like the others that I have seen, the MPH markings went on a (now-absent) ring that sat in front of the dial face, like on the temperature/fuel gauge.

I always liked how my Rover SD1 sounded as it wound up - its little 3.5l V8 revved up to 5500, and its twin sidedraft Zenith-Strombergs (one for each bank) meant that you got the effect in stereo!

Yes! One of my first tasks that my Dad set me after I started learning to drive was to rebuild our Triumph 2500's twin SU HS4s. Gave me a real appreciation for how beautifully-engineered they are, as well as how easy it is to bend a metering needle and ruin it...

I've never had much experience with the carburettors on American cars, but I've messed about with SU-equipped British cars for quite some time, and I'm curious - how would you flood it while driving? Is this an accelerator pump thing? SUs and their like don't have them, and as far as I know, unless you're WAY off…