1923 Rover 8hp Two Door Coupe & Dicky

Lot details
Registration No: DL 3233
Chassis No: LC91686
Mot Expiry: None

In 1920, Rover proprietors Harry Smith and Jack Starley, son of marque founder J K Starley, decided to go back into the small car market, which they did with the new Eight with Jack Sangster designed flat-twin cylinder 998cc engine, the air-cooled cylinder heads poking out each side of the bonnet.
The Eights, and they were real motor cars rather than the cycle car competitors, were built in rolling chassis form at a brand new factory in Birmingham and the bodies added at Rover's Meteor works in Coventry. The transmission was via propshaft and worm gear rrear axle, an electric starter becoming optional from 1923..Open 2 and 4-seaters Eights were offered as well as a closed 2-seater coupe - like the one being auctioned here today.
The vendor tells us that this 1923-manufactured Rover 8hp with coupe bodywork was going well when purchased from Clive Williams of Ashton in 1987, since when he tells us that it has been kept in an air-conditioned private collection of British motor cars. It has not been used on the public roads during his ownership. The 8hp coupe has become particularly rare, this example being only one of two coupes thought to have survived. The body is good and tidy, the paintwork in brown and black good, and the black interior is also in good condition, he says. Although the condition of the three- forward speed gearbox is unknown, the 2-cylinder 998cc engine was certainly running well when acquired.
Please note: We have recently received more information about this car. Approximately only 50 survive from 1920 to 1924/5 and only three are known to be coupes - one at the Heritage Museum at Gaydon and one in Scotland plus this one today. This car has the larger 1153cc engine and we believe that it was bodied by Archer Holmes of Cowes. It was Lot 22 at the World renowned Sword Collection sale and there is a letter in the file from a Rover Historian and details of how top contact him.
Please note: We have not had this vehicle running.