Some edge of the seat stuff for Rover SD1 fans

[Ian]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTN5X4JZFjU

[mr rusty]

What's interesting about that film, apart fom the cars of course, is how light the traffic is and how little there is in the way of traffic management......the first 8 minutes is my commute to work, and there's no way even the fastest scooby interceptor could do it in that time now! Growth along the hopelessly inadequate M11 corridor has slowed virtually the whole route to a crawl at busy times.

Junction 7 where they pick the liver up is now traffic light controlled totally at the limit of its capacity, so much so that at rush hour the town is often gridlocked and traffic can back up for a couple of miles on the motorway just trying to get off, there's plans in the pipeline for 7a to take the A414 through traffic away....it's just gone back to the start of consultation as they've messed up the process... .......so, it can take anything up to 40 minutes to get round there at a bad time.

6 minutes in, Redbridge roundabout...also now traffic light controlled. The film was made as they were building the Ilford stretch of the Barking by pass/North circular extension, I remember the novelty of that opening, going down it in my mates company Astra.....Ilford to Barking in a couple of minutes when it used to take for ever.

7min25 seconds in, Green Man roundabout at Leytonstone...........yet another one that's now traffic light controlled. The tower block on the left as they exit and the pedestrian footbridge soon after is long gone-that's the junction of Gsainsborough road where I turn off the route in the film. This is now a comedy one way system which runs back to front-southbound traffic now goes right into Gainsborough road, cutting across Northbound traffic coming up the high road....more lights and often congested when there's the slightest mishap.

The strech between Redbridge r/b and the Green Man where they hit the first lot of traffic is now ironically probably the easiest bit as the A12 there is now dualled and runs in a tunnel under George Green and a series of cuttings past the olympic park all the way to Hackney. This should have taken the traffic away from Leeytonstone but the silly crossing over one-way system makes it worse than it was in the 80's......but that's 'progress' for you!

If someone were waiting for a liver now and there's no helicopter, they'd do better to ditch the SD1, and whip out the oyster card and get on the tube at Epping!

For entertainment value, 7min 25 sec in as it is nowadays...https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Leyton ... 53.86,,0,0

[TerryG]

Did you notice that the "someone blocking the entrance to the hospital" was a red mini moke

[rich.]

i remember when that first shown on tv, the night i just sold my first rusty sd1 vitesse...i watched it with the buyer....he wouldnt sell me back my car.

[TerryG]

my first rusty sd1 vitesse

That would imply you are a serial owner of SD1 Vitesses!