Remember the days when, like Jack Duckworth off of Coronation Street, we used to use sticking plaster to hold our specs together? Shed does. He's still doing it in fact. Every time the village optician sees Shed in the street he runs across the road to tell him that glasses are a lot cheaper these days and that his current beige-framed NHS specs are a health hazard, not just for his eyes but his entire face based on the probable germ culture in the nearside hinge's ancient Elastoplast.
Unfortunately, Shed's hearing aid is in an even worse condition than his specs so he never hears the optician's well-meant advice. For reasons to do with Mrs Shed and with disgruntled customers trying to get their cars back from long-term service Shed quite likes not being able to hear, but he does sometimes wish he had better vision. That way he'd be able to see disgruntled customers from further away, whilst also having a better chance of making out bodywork flaws on Shed of the Week candidates like today's Rover 75 Tourer.
Is there some light panel damage on the offside, the sort that a drunk might cause by leaning gently on it? You will have to be the judge there, but even if it is a bit dented Shed still likes this car. You can be sure that many won't. As sure as eggs is eggs the forum will be heaving with bleats about Brexit, gammon, cushions and chamois leather.
Underneath all that stuff though this Rover 75 will still be a Rover 75, a car you'll either love or hate depending on whether you've driven one or not. Those who have, like Shed, will tell the rest how well they ride, handle and indeed go if they've got one of the bigger engines in them, like our shed's 174hp 2.5 V6 which in auto form smoothly shoved the Tourer through the 0-60mph in 9.5 seconds. Those who haven't driven one will ignore everything and file it in the 'kill it with fire' category.
Shed thinks that's harsh. One of the most remarkable things about the 75 is the number of sound-looking specimens that keep coming up for sale twenty years or more since they were put together by a motley crew of Brummies at Longbridge. That says something about, well, something. This particular Club SE (air-con, electric rear windows, cloth seats, brakes, headlights) has had hardly any use in the last few years.
The most recent MOT in February was a clean pass, as were the two before that, hardly surprising really given that it only did 109 miles between February 2020 and February 2023. In the tests before that the tester was scratching around for things to say. The mileage at the last MOT visit in Feb was a paltry 79,930. According to the ad it's only been used in reverse since then because it has managed to get down to 78k, an impressive achievement by the presumably sore-necked last owner.
Most aficionados prefer the early 75s to the facelifted 2004-on cars because of the way they look and also because they reckon the engineering quality was squeezed out of the later ones by the money men. Talking of squeezing, the average fuel consumption you're likely to eke out of the 2.5 V6 will be in the mid-20s, a time of life that Shed really misses.
Nowadays he's at least as interested in practicality as in pursuing the lassies. He remembers his old Tourer being very good for both. It had four lashing hooks in the back, self-levelling rear suspension and an opening tailgate window, all features that he found useful at various points not just for transporting Mrs Shed but also for entertaining the village postmistress in the woods. He will admit that today's 75 is big money at £1,995, and he was worried about the road tax which he read as £895, but we think there's a bogey on his Amstrad's screen and it's actually £395.
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