Future Classic: 1998–2005 Rover 75

“Sorry Rover: Your new 75 just isn’t up to scratch”

So went the headline on the front of Top Gear magazine’s March 1999 issue, where the magazine put the new car – on whose shoulders the company’s future, in retrospect optimistically, rested – against models it considered rivals.

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If you were a TG mag reader at the time, you might remember a few readers writing in the following month to cry foul, since the Saab 9-5, Volvo S70, BMW 5 Series, and Alfa Romeo 166 pictured in the background were all arguably a class-size larger than the 9-3, S40, 3 Series, and 156 you might have expected.

We don’t have a copy to hand but recall the mag’s rationale being something along the lines of the 75’s size and pricing actually putting it in the same ballpark as those nominally larger models, though with a cold-hearted rationality you wonder whether the 75 would’ve realistically fared better against the smaller cars anyway, or even less prestigious alternatives like the Ford Mondeo – which, let’s not forget, was a very talented car itself in those days.

Autocar gave us a hint, its first group test against the E46-generation 3 Series and an Alfa Romeo 156 landing the Rover third out of three, albeit with a nod toward enthusiast drivers that the magazine acknowledged may not be the car’s natural audience. They also wondered aloud whether ye olde-worlde slant of the 75 would tempt buyers out of their Mondeos, Vectras, and other more conventional repmobiles of the era.

With the benefit of a quarter century of hindsight, we now know the answer to that, and it was “sort of”. The 75 sold respectably well, at just over 200,000 units in seven years of production, though this is also small beans next to the nearly 700,000 156s that Alfa shifted in that car’s 10 years, and might as well have been branded hats to contemporary owners BMW, who built more 3 Series cabriolets than Rover built 75s of all kinds during the same period.

Very little of that matters here, though, where we’re making the case for the 75 as a future classic. And in many respects, it’s already there, with an enthusiastic following that its contemporary rivals would no doubt envy today.

In this respect, doing something different has belatedly paid off for the 75. It was a resolutely non-sporty car competing at a time when sporty was really beginning to sell, and MG Rover itself presumably realised this at some point and crafted the MG ZT to meet this demand.

The thing is, sporty only lasts until something even more dynamic comes along to replace it, and fine-driving though an E46 3 Series or an Alfa 156 still is today, modern saloon cars offer far greater performance, body control, steering response, and other sport-adjacent facets than those cars, so they shine less brightly as a result.

But you’ll struggle to find a modern equivalent with the charm or comfort of a 75, which gives it a real unique selling proposition as a modern classic. The wooden dashboard and cod-Bentley vibes might have seemed twee in 1999, but they’ve arguably aged better than the severe black plastic and fake carbon and aluminium that were all the rage in other models at the time, while Rover’s focus on ride quality over handling precision almost feels like the work of a time-traveller (from the future, not the past) given the state of today’s roads.

Your author owned a 75 many years back, albeit for just two months. It was what you might call a bad example of a good car, and its short time with me was entirely my own fault, for believing I couldn’t test-drive the car myself and therefore missing out on a few important cues of impending bills, like sticking brakes and a clutch that needed to be down in the carpet pile to swap gears without a crunch. I had to sort the brakes, but sold it in a panic, and for a loss, to avoid any more bills.

It still handled neatly and rode wonderfully though, was relaxed on a cruise, and the diesel engine in mine faded into the background quite nicely on the motorway. A previous owner had managed to break the seat height adjustment in its uppermost position so I never got the driving position quite how I wanted it, but despite that, it felt like a notably solid car – no creaks or rattles, with a robust feel to the exterior and interior fixings (that seat adjuster aside).

The one I wanted, and still do today, was the V8 introduced shortly before the car’s death, in 2004. With a 4.6-litre modular V8 from a Mustang, it was the relaxed, auto-only cousin to the MG ZT 260. It had a frightening thirst (Autocar recorded a “touring” consumption figure of under 20mpg in its 2004 road test) and its annual VED is currently a painful £735 thanks to a 319g/km CO2 figure, but it’s remarkable for the re-engineering required to make a rear-drive V8 saloon from a front-drive platform, and rarity (fewer than 200 made) makes it the nailed-on classic of the pack.

Any looked-after Rover 75 should fit the future-classic bill, though. One of the petrol V6s in a classy colour (make ours metallic British Racing Green, thanks) with a big stack of paperwork showing a coddled history would be our choice. It might not have been up to scratch when brand new, but fewer of those 1990s rivals have aged quite as well.