1994 Rover - Austin 200 220 GTi Turbo Coupe review from Australia and New Zealand

The rear arm bushes had to be replaced with third party urethane bushes as they had completely ripped apart.

The alternator gave up and the lack of battery charge caused the computer to over-boost and blow the throttle body hose off.

The turbo coolant hose kept leaking, although that may have been an earlier repair issue.

The idler gear bearing in gearbox is noisy and needs overhauling. I'll probably fix it with a new Integra box. The Tomcat box takes very little more than the standard 200BHP and will die with any performance modifactions.

The interior trim - as an ex-Asia import to NZ - had received little attention by its first NZ owner and the leather is suffering.

The clutch cable needed lubrication, as it was real stiff. Some HHS2000 fixed this, though a hydraulic conversion would be a better idea.

The gear change was real sloppy, so a Honda Civic short shift assembled with old Prelude parts fixed this really nicely.

I bought the car at pretty high mileage, and it has taken a fair amount of work to get it going nice. The suspension and differential work really nicely, but only when inherent faults have been addressed.

The stereo was pretty shocking, and throwing some Sony 6x9s in the back and some 6"s with a good headunit has made it heaps better. The Japanese market version, which is all you can get in New Zealand, is pretty nice with leather interior and air-conditioning, although the key attractors are the performance and handling.

This car is a modders dream, becuase most Honda parts will bolt on if you try, and once the gearbox is made stronger by some modification, the W/T25 Garrett, 2.5" exhaust and other parts make squeezing another 50BHP out of the car really easy.

It does around 400ks to the tank if you drive normally, and if you are careful, you could probably do around 500. Thrashing the car will only result in low economy and a broken diff.