Iconic engine
The Rover V8 isn’ t simply an engine anymore. It has powered such a wide variety of cars that you can consider it a British institution
So far, we’ ve proudly given a comprehensive history of whatever engine we’ ve featured on the cover of the Engine Rebuilder, diligently charting each variation and update. But that’ s about to change. It’ s clear, when getting to grips with the Rover V8 – how it came to be a Rover engine to the sheer amount of cars it ended up in – that a magazine feature, even one as big as we dedicate to an engine, simply isn’ t enough space to commit to the sort of detail we’ re used to. A book, maybe even a series of books, would be needed to document the Rover V8. One volume could be filled simply by describing each possible inlet that the engine came with.
Let’ s not waste space with excuses anymore, and let’ s start at the beginning in Flint, Michigan. Yes, America, the spiritual home to all V8s is the birthplace of this British institution. Like many of England’ s trademark traditions – tea, fish and chips, chicken tikka masala – the Rover V8 was an import. It was engineered by GM in the Fifties who wanted to create a smaller, lighter and more sophisticated engine – still a V8 – to power a range of smaller, more economical Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs. The result was a 215 cubic inch( 3.5-litre) single-cam V8 with an 88.9mm bore and 71.12mm stroke. Push rods operated 16 overhead valves, two per cylinder. It almost fit the template of a traditional American V8, only it was smaller and this one had a block and heads made from aluminium. That made it light; at the time, it was the lightest production V8 in the world.
It was known as the Buick Fireball V8 and was first used in the 1961 Buick Special and Skylark. Oldsmobile made a slightly different version, called the Rockette, for its F85. It didn’ t last long and GM dropped the engine option in its 1964 model year line-up. A relatively small all-aluminium V8 simply wasn’ t needed in the US. Fuel remained cheap, the cars big, and the much less expensive to produce, but less economical, heavier iron block V8s prevailed.
18 The Engine Rebuilder Issue 04