A Rare Gem: The Rover Saloon

Only one Rover Saloon is available to rent in Italy—a car whose history is as unique as it is fascinating. To appreciate its story, we must go back to 1861, in Coventry, then England’s ninth-largest city. There, James Starley and Josiah Turner opened the Coventry Sewing Machine Company, mainly repairing sewing machines. Starley, however, had a lifelong gift for mechanics—he built mousetraps, fixed watches, and even devised “duck-saving” contraptions as a boy. He was, in many ways, a modern-day Leonardo.

Talent ran in the family. In 1868 Starley’s fifteen-year-old nephew, John Kemp Starley, arrived at the workshop with a velocipede. He quickly proved himself a master bicycle and tricycle builder, turning Coventry into the epicenter of the two-wheeled industry. By 1878, he and his friend William Sutton opened a new shop solely dedicated to bicycles. In 1884 they launched the Safety Bicycle—the first modern bike with a chain drive and equally sized wheels. Four years later came a prototype electric tricycle, though it never reached production. In 1896 they rechristened their firm the Rover Cycle Company Ltd., borrowing the name from Starley’s intricate “Rover” tricycle design. By 1899, Starley Jr. was even importing Peugeot motorcycles to experiment with.

After Starley’s death in 1901, Harry Smith steered the company toward automobiles. The first two-seater, the Rover Eight, was designed by Edmund Lewis. When Lewis left in 1905, automotive expert Owen Clegg reworked the Rover Twelve—Coventry’s third car—equipped with a water-cooled four-cylinder engine displacing 2,297 cc, side valves, an in-house SU carburetor, and a three-speed gearbox.

Both World Wars shifted Rover’s focus to aviation, leaving only early cars and motorcycles in production. Recovery began in 1949 with the P4 sedan—a model destined to make history. Its numerous versions and awards attest to its success. For example, the Rover 2000, launched in 1964, was named European Car of the Year.

In 1967 British Leyland acquired Rover—factories, employees, and brand rights included—though the original plant would thereafter build only the Land Rover. The Rover name endured through various restructurings: under the Austin Rover Group in 1981, in partnership with Honda until privatization led by British Aerospace, and finally as the Rover Group under BMW in 1994, before being broken up again. In 2000 Ford—after a bid from China’s SAIC—secured the Land Rover brand rights.

The final chapter in this tale came when Tata Motors purchased Rover for $2.3 billion. Headquartered in Mumbai, Tata already owned storied marques such as Jaguar, Daimler, and Lanchester, cementing its place in the annals of automotive history.