Rover Streetwise

Rover Streetwise
A recent aquisition, the Rover Streetwise has proven to be a pleasing car for me to drive.  I travel between Pretoria and Johannesburg on a daily basis and surprising as it may seem, the Streetwise takes some of the pain out of the trip.

• It is not a high performance car. 
• It has a very heavy clutch. 
• Its torque range is not at all impressive.
• Nobody wants to buy them.  Something to do with Rover not being around anymore?

BUT...

• It is solid
• It Feels safe
• When you are in its good torque range it feels good
• It cruises well
• It is very economical!

It seems like the longer I have it the more economical it becomes!  I start with just under 7 litres per 100 kilometers.  It has dropped consistently to where my last tank full of diesel was a mere 5.54 litres per 100 kilometers!  Itravel about 750 kilometers on a tank of diesel and that is on a mix of about 30% city driving.

I dont think my old BMW 325TDS had consumption as good as that.  It came close though.  The BMW had

Much better performance

fantastic torque range

easy to drive

solid

safe

reliable - excepting for the times it had a short circuit  that BMW could not find until I traded it in for a new 735i

cheap to run - because of the motorplan

The only car I have had that comes close to these two in economy (and I have had many cars) was another old BMW Cheetah 1800.  It was

• Basic
• easy to service
• easy to understand
• had a clutch that had seen better days
• paint was well oxidized

BUT...

• I travelled all the way from Johannesburg to Durban and travelled around in Durban for a week before filling up.  It was a consumption of between 4 and 4.5 litres per 100 km.
• I don't think I exceed 80km/hour though!  My father seemed to think it was a good speed and he was driving with me!
• It was my second car- my first had been totalled in a head-on collision after I had owned it for about 6 months.