Thread: SII come with V8

Think I might have asked this before....did they ever come standard with a V8??

If not when did V8 first appear in series??

Rover (actually Leyland) were not prepared to put the V8 onto the old Rover gearbox - some people have done it, and got away with it, but you need to treat the right foot carefully. This meant that it was not possible until a stronger box was available. This came with the LT95 in the Rangerover in 1970, but it was full time four wheel drive, so fitting it would mean that they needed to modify the front axle, fitting CV joints.

And this against a background of being unable to meet the demand for Rangerover, plus Landrover was about the only part of Leyland that was not losing money, so was needed to produce cash, not suck in more investment.

There was probably also the reality that demand for a V8 in four wheel drives at that time was quite small apart from Rangerover. Even when the V8 was offered with the Stage 1 S3 it represented only a tiny proportion of sales. The low proportion is indicated by the fact that when the V8 was available in the 110, sales were so low that only diesels were offered in the Defender.

Even in Australia, sales of the V8 Stage 1 were a small proportion of Series 3, and when the Isuzu became available as an alternative to the V8, it took most of the Stage 1 sales.