The story of the Rover SD1 Convertible Prototype

29/03/2025

Wat er aan deze Rover SD1 V8 zo bijzonder is? Lees het zelf maar, vandaag op AMK. https://amklassiek.nl/rover-sd1-v8-convertible-doe-mij-er-maar-een-zon-open-sd1/2025/03/20/

01/01/2024

A happy, prosperous and above all healthy 2024 for all my visitors.

30/09/2023

Hans Plas had aan de verhalen rond deze Rover SD1 2300 en een polaroid-foto genoeg om razendsnel zijn besluit te maken: verkocht! Welkom op het YouTube-kanaa...

21/11/2021

Fantastisch toch. Wie kan dat zeggen een auto waarvan er maar één is in je bezit hebben en dan te horen krijgen dat er een model (ook maar 1) van gemaakt is.

Fantastic anyway. Who can say that own a car of which there is only one and then be told that there is a model (even only 1) made of it.

12/08/2021

Today, sunny warm weather, we took the Convertible and had lunch in Breukelerveen at the Loosdrechtse Plassen.

05/04/2021

ADAPTATION AND REINFORCEMENT OF THE ROOF.

As I said before, there is a wooden U in the metal part of the roof, on which 2 metal slots are attached, in which the roof supports slide.
When I was driving, I saw the C-pillars move side to side from side to side.
This resulted in cracks appearing in the front corners of the cut-out roof. These corners are cut at right angles, where round cut should have been done. Now the corners could tear very easily. Which then happened.

For a while I wondered what a solution would be for this and came to the conclusion that the wood should be replaced by metal.
For this purpose I went looking for a blacksmith who could make a metal U for me on the basis of the wooden example. This wasn't even that easy.
But through my son Martijn I came into contact with an old classmate of his. He is a metal worker and mainly works with steel and stainless steel.
I asked him if he was able to make the U. This didn't seem like a problem to him and so it happened.

The car was moved to a location next to his workshop and the wooden U was removed from the car and a steel U was made with this as an example. It really has become perfect. All curves in both length and width of the car are exact. The metal guides were reattached to this steel U and then the steel U was fixed in the car.

Finally, the metal part of the roof was taken care of by my son Martijn, who is a car painter. After this was done, at a later stage the metal part of the roof was covered with matt vinyl. And to remedy the last wringing of the rear of the car, I have fitted a tow bar.
And now this car drives like a regular raw SD1.

Foto’s see MAP.

Hans Plas

05/04/2021

01/03/2021

MAKING THE ROOF.
The Roof made by Webasto was so bad it was unusable, and a new one had to be made. This became one of the last projects.
The color of the roof was turn dark brown, we decided.
A new Roof was handmade by Rob Kool, a decorator in Ede. The car was transported to him on a ambulance.
He started to detach all parts of the roof.

There is a wooden U in the metal part of the roof. Two metal slots are attached to this wooden U. In these slots, the roof supports slide on plastic glides.
In the rear part of the hood, there was also a wooden frame.
With this frame, the roof is attached to the car with hinges, so that it can fold backwards.
There are also 2 hinges on this frame, on which there are frame parts that connect to the front wooden frame, along the long side of the roof.

When inspecting these wooden parts, it turned out that the wood of the hood was particularly bad. This frame had to be renewed.
Rob had a carpenter make a new one based on the original.
When this was done, Rob could start reconstructing the roof. He had no other example than the car and the frame. Everything had to be measured again. He started with the interior lining of the roof. This is attached to the frame.
Then it was the turn of the outer hood.
For the price of this handmade roof I was able to buy a small new car.

See the Album Making the Roof.

26/02/2021

The next story is the construction of a new roof.

26/02/2021

THE RESTORATION OF THE SMC SDI CONVERTIBLE – PROTOTYPE 1996 - 2002

First this, I think it is not a real Cabriolet, but a Landaulet. But Mr. Peter Jones from SMC called it Cabriolet.

After I bought the car, I visited with some friends and decided to restore it.
I decided to do a total restoration and to bring the car back to the original model as much as possible. This was a difficult decision, but the main reason was that I did not really like the car as it was and had the idea that it could be more beautiful. We did decide to keep everything from the KAT body kit. You never know.

To begin with, we went looking for good professionals in every field that we needed. For example, it could be happen that the car was transported throughout the country several times.

The dismantling took place in a shed in Zegge in the south-west of the country.
And so we ourselves started dismantling the car at the end of 1996. A lot of rusted appeared. In the end we were left with a bottom with engine and rear. The rest was so corroded it had been removed.
Now that we knew what we needed, we could start looking for all the necessary parts.

The Roof part had to be removed and renewed.
For this the car had to be brought to the other side of the country.
To welding specialist Kees Paardekooper in Doetinchem. He had already arranged another roof and would do the conversion.
After this, the sheet metal could be reinstalled.
Then it could go to the painter. It has been here for several months, sanding, filling, sanding, fine sanding, priming and finally spraying. No Rover color, but Maserati Light Yellow.
Then back to the shed for further finishing.
What still had to be done was to replace the interior and have a new roof made, as the old one made by Webasto had become completely unusable.
This became one of the last projects.
A new Roof was handmade by Rob Kool and cost the price of a small new car.
I got a beautiful brown leather interior from my friend Rob Hafkamp.

And other wheels. Of the wheels that were under it when I bought the car, 2 had disappeared so there had to be other wheels. For this we chose the original wheels from the first series SDI.

And so it became 2002 before we could drive for the first time in a completely restored car.