Why would anyone want a Classic car?

Exactly! When all is said and done, that's why Jags with small block Chevy motor conversions fetch what they do. Sensible people just

*love* them to bits. All you have to do is keep it full of oil and it will do 200K miles easily. I donated a 302-engined Caprice with at least 250K miles on it to the Salvation Army a few years ago. The odometer read 60-something thousand (I assume *at least* one extra trip around the speedo...) when I paid $2.5K for it, and it had done another 100K pretty much trouble-free miles when I donated it and deducted $800 off my taxable income for it. Excellent!

Dean Dark ( snipped-for-privacy@comcast.notthis.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

About £2.50?

quick fix

engines to go

Not to mention Triumph and Rover being separate companies and competitors !

Sort of.

All under what became British Leyland, so the only reason the Rover V8 didn't go in there was politics. Same as the reason why we never got a Rover V8 engined Jag XJ.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "R.N. Robinson" saying something like:

Argh. I knew it was one or t'other and plumped for that.

Yep. Saw a prog on them a while back - 'Design Classics' or somesuch.

I knew that if I phrased it just right, then *somebody* would bite.

Thank you.

It was true about my small block Caprice though.

"SteveH" wrote

Market value would indicate otherwise.

"SteveH" wrote

And practicality. They had a production tooled up to make V8s and derivatives thereof, and a shortage of Rover engines.

My dad's Triumph 2000 snapped it's crank while running in back in the mid/late 60's.

Market value doesn't reflect the true qualities of the car. A messed with classic although practical is devalued in the eyes of the collector and those are the people that pay twice what a car is worth to restore one to better than car showroom condition. The price of such restorations reflects the rarity and "investment" more than the usability.

Go on Pete, tell us the rest of the story. How much did he flog the "nasty diesel lump" for?

My father had a 'slight fault' with a brand-new Austin back in the '50's, driving back home from picking up his new company car from the dealer (in London) to Hertfordshire he became aware that the steering was not as responsive as it should have been - the steering column had sheared...

No it's not. The crankcase is a one piece casting. That the head etc design is based on the 4 cylinders, so what?

Ah, but when did development of the Stag engine start? The version I read was that they were all tooled up to make it before BL was created. And that Rover V-8s were in short supply anyway at that time.

I think it's sitting in the back of his shed.

In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Dean Dark decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

*bite*

No, no no no no no.

Jag engines are beautiful, smooth and reasonably reliable. Stag engines are bloody awful unreliable heaps of $hit. Replacing a Stag engine with a Rover V8 is a wise move - mainly because Stags are nothing special and an engine swap isn't a crime. Things like E-type Jags with small block Chevys in are just criminally bad.

I'd offer to take it away for a tenner if his shed was anywhere near mine. Seriously, if it works I can see it going for a fair bit more than the

150 paid for the V8.

Rover V8

AIUI the Sprint engine was a Stag engine cut in half and was developed by Ricardo (funded by both Triumph and SAAB), this would almost certainly place the Stag engine's development before the formation of BL.

Ah - the Sprint was a different matter. 16 valve heads from one camshaft.

ISTR reading of someone who had fitted those heads to a Stag. Should have answered the lack of power some complain about.

My theory was that the basics of the Triumph/SAAB unit was initially designed to be made in a variety of configurations. Maybe even straight 5 and 6. Possibly even a V6.

The Stag unit is a very sweet engine when in good nick. It has a 'better' top end performance than a carb Rover unit and loves to be revved. Bit like a similar age BMW.