What car can rev to 50,000 rpm? A Rover of course!

[D3Jon]

Good old Rover, an article on BBC News web site:

Click Here... (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/8/newsid_2516000/2516271.stm)

Jon

[langy]

And, to add to the list of trivia: We can thank that particular Rover for the disc brakes on Rangies and later vehicles. I read in another article on the jet car, that the boffins thought drum brakes were not up to the job of stopping said jet car since it was being designed to operate at high (for the 50's) speeds. So they designed a disc brake for the rover axle, which, in true LR tradition, was laying around unused some 15 years later when somebody thought it might be a good idea to put it on the Rangie.

[JDNSW]

Rover had been heavily involved in jet engine production during the war, hence their interest. Mind you, the money spent on the turbine engined car would perhaps have been better spent on the Landrover, but at the time that was not regarded as the company's main business, despite the fact that it was already selling far better than their cars.

Although the experience with discs for the turbine car may have influenced the decision to go to them for the Rangerover, it should be remembered that by the time that the Rangerover appeared, there had been at least one family car with front discs in production for fifteen years (Citroen) and even longer for sports cars (Jaguar). To have had drums on the Rangerover would have been backward for a new vehicle design.

John