I've never seen this movie before and my son was watching it when I got home tonight. It was about 10 min in when I started watching it. I have cried uncontrollably almost all the way through. Especially, through the first half hour. Their dreams, their lost dreams, achieving the dream eventually even if it a different way than you pictured it. I don't even think I can write it all down. This is probably one of the best movies I've seen, but I will not be able to watch it again in front of anyone. I do not like crying at movies. And this one is especially good, but hard for me to watch. The boy talking about his dad coming to the scout ceremony to watch him get his assisting the elderly badge, the dog saying "I was hiding under your porch because I love you,can I come in?" The explorer that Carl and Ellie looked up to, turning out to not be the nice person they thought he was. The bird Kevin being hurt and Russell saying "can't we help her get back home?' and then Carl gets angry and yells at the dog, even though he doesn't mean to. He yells "bad dog, bad dog, bad dog" And then he's watching his house float away and it's like his dreams are crushed again. and he says "you know, it's just a house." Maybe that's how I need to feel about my dad's t-bird. I don't want it to be sold, but I can't afford to buy it. And then Carl gets the blimp which means even bigger dreams and adventures. And Carl shows up for the badge ceremony and they are all beat up, but Russell performs above and beyond the call of duty. He gets the Ellie Badge. And Russell hugs Carl. And I am crying so much. And he is eating ice cream in front of the ice cream place with the blimp above them.

day 85/365

-- since december or so i've been waking up every morning horribly congested/sneezing uncontrollably. i have been spending the first quarter to half of my days getting my allergy attacks under control, to be able to breathe for a few hours in the evenings, before going to sleep and having it start all over again. i've been drugged up to my ears on multiple allergy meds 24 hours a day, tried various decongestants/expectorants/nasal sprays, have cleaned my bedroom to spotlessness, only interacted with my pets with a practical gas mask on, and i still can't stop fucking sneezing. on a good day i go through a box and a half of tissues or a full roll of toilet paper, and on a bad day i go through 3-4 boxes of tissues or 2 & 1/2 rolls of toilet paper. i was going to go get a steroid nose spray but apparently there are cases of it causing blindness and i am very afraid of going blind, so. yeah. what the fucking fuck.

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Pataphysical Studios was bursting with art, poetry, music and dance on this first sunny day of the season. The good doctors spent an enchanted afternoon playing together, diving fearlessly into wondrous new dimensions.

This week, we had two new visitors: Dr. Rafe and his son Dr. Leo, who picked up the vibe right away and seemed to enjoy this next-to-last demo of the ‘Pataphysical Slot Machine, before its move to the Figurines Ranch. We also held an initiation ceremony for Dr. Jardin, who received her own purple lab coat from Dr. Rindbrain, to the ritual chant of ‘Gooble gobble, we accept her, one of us’.

We then discovered another important new ritual: dance breaks! As ‘Johnny Be Good’ started playing, we all started shaking our buns uncontrollably -- and kept on rockin’ through many more tracks from the past. … Judging from the grins on everyone’s faces, this is likely to become a mandatory ritual from now on (albeit a hard one to shoot in low-light, pardon the blurs).

In other news, Drs. Igor and Rindbrain taught calligraphy to Drs. Canard and Figurine, so they may make many more words beautiful. Dr. Skidz concocted mysterious plans to paint an art virus on canvas. Dr. Canard whistled to the Golden-Crowned Sparrow, who just flew back in our neck of the woods. Dr. Figurine added a new infinity snake symbol from Dr. Rindbrain to her coat. Dr. Fabio got the sounds working for the Bali Cuckoo Clock and Time Flies wonderboxes. Dr. Igor got all other boxes to play sounds, except one: Mother of Yes — which we will tame next week, just in time for our move. :)

Spring is back in the inspiration island. Time for all art makers to come out and play … Follow your bliss!

View more 'Pataphysical photos: www.flickr.com/photos/fabola/albums/72157623637793277

Watch 'Pataphysical videos: vimeo.com/album/3051039

Learn more about Pataphysical Studios: pataphysics.us/

What's the VERY first thing that you do when you get a new gadget, toy, gizmo or doo-dad?

You take it apart of course, and then try and put it back together.

At least that's what I always do.

And I do the same with photographs.

I can take a perfectly good image, tweak it beyond comprehension and end up with a total 'botch' job.

And this was no exception, though I came oooohhh sooooo very close to just leaving it alone. I was intrigued by all the varying shades of light in its natural state and felt that it should be left "as-is".

I really, really wanted to say, "Believe it or not folks, this is SOOC."

But the burning temptation within me became just too overwhelming and though I did my very best to resist this uncontrollable urge to tweak, I simply surrendered and lost the battle.

So sad.

I felt it mildly important to point out, however, that this photo was taken in a Walmart parking lot as the sun slowly descended below the horizon. Who would ever guess that a Walmart parking lot could look so pretty?

Correction ---> NOT the parking lot itself, But the view FROM the parking lot.

There's also a face in there. Do you see it? NOT in Walmart, but IN the image. Located just to the right of the tree trunk.

The Uncontrollable Hungarian born Hollywood star Zsa Zsa Gabor was 80 on 6th February 1999.

Silly boy. He likes to attack random things and then it seems to scare him. LOL. ( oh i fig out why it is so rough. I had it on compact. Still you need Dramamine.. my shaking is simple uncontrollable. :P )

Scary thing needing attacking= clump of mowed grass. :P

The luxury end of Goldberg's wonderful sequence of curvaceous, petal-planned apartment blocks around Chicago, the best-known of which is Marina City.

Goldberg claimed that the exteriors were an uncontrollable consequence of the plans, but I suspect he may also have quite liked the way they looked... I certainly do.

Basanta Utsav literally means the 'celebration of spring'. ...

Annually celebrated in March, the festival is an occassion to invite the colourful spring season with utmost warmth. What is appreciated is the grace and diginified manner in which Vasant Utsav is celebrated in Bengal as compared to uncontrollable Holi witnessed in most parts of India. The beautiful tradition of celebrating spring festival in Bengal was first started by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan.

.

The inspiration for this Wasteland Scavenger came directly from the DC comics universe. The character "Bane", enemy of Batman, to be exact.

The tanks on his back are filled with a potent Mutagen that is pumped through hoses throughout his body. This Mutagen has increased the subjects strength, agility, and intelligence. Not to mention made him extremely ugly. The Mutagen also causes uncontrollable rage.

I've got an uncontrollable urge to wear these to the Devo/Blondie show at Stubbs in Austin this September...

Charlotte Russe trench

Vintage plaid shirt

Urban Outfitters shorts and flats

Vintage beret

Do you ever have an uncontrollable desire to “be more”? I do. And I know it’s something I’ve talked about before (ok, so I’ve killed this subject) but I obsess over improving myself... read more.

Cobra courier and chauffeur. Very dangerous both behind the wheel or on her own. Raised in the swamps of Louisiana into a mean and uncontrollable fighter. She could have joined the military but chose Cobra instead.

Always loved the concept of Vypra. It's been a pet peeve of mine when she's portrayed by some as a ninja just because her original figure was a jinx repaint and disregard her filecard that states otherwise.

Oooohh...... that's just unfortunate.

Um, I now have an uncontrollable desire to say "say hello to my little friend " over and over again here.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term: "Gotta shake hands with the man"

Hahaha I love totally unplanned ridiculous crap like this.

Yes, I am a complete child about such behaviour.

SOOC thanks to the sun's natural um, placement. ;)

P.S. I suck at shadow puppets.

This was meant to take on the world this was, but sadly it didn’t get very far! The Rover 800 had so many possibilities, so many variants could have been derived from it, but unfortunately the management was once again very quick to nip this beautiful car in the bud, and the Rover 800 would join that long line of ‘what-could-have-been’ motors that seem to pave British motoring history.

The origin of the Rover 800 goes back to the late 1970’s, when nationalised British car manufacturer and all around general failure British Leyland was absolutely desperate to fix its seemingly endless list of problems. The company had now garnered a reputation for creating some of the worst, most outdated cars of all time, the likes of the Morris Marina, the Austin Allegro and the Triumph TR7 being derided in both critical and customer reviews. A mixture of strike action by uncontrollable Trade Unions led by the infamous Red Robbo had meant that cars were only put together for a few hours per day on a three day week. As such, reliability was atrocious on a biblical scale, be it mechanical, cosmetic or electrical.

As such, in 1979, British Leyland began talks with Japanese car manufacturer Honda to try and help improve the reliability of their machines. The pioneer of this brave new deal was the Triumph Acclaim of 1980, BL’s first reliable car and not a bad little runabout. Basically a rebadged Honda Ballade, the Acclaim wasn’t meant to set the world ablaze, but it certainly helped get the company back onto people’s driveways, selling reasonably well thanks to its reliable mechanics (even if rust was something of an issue). As such, BL decided that from now on it would give its fleet a complete overhaul, basing their new models on Japanese equivalents. From 1984, the Rover 200 arrived on the scene, again, a rebadged Honda Ballade, while the Maestro and the Montego ranges also took on several tips from their Japanese counterparts, though they were primarily based on British underpinnings.

The Rover 800 however spawned quite early on, in 1981 to be exact. Following the catastrophic failure of the Rover SD1 in the American market, which only sold 774 cars before Rover removed itself from the USA altogether, the company was desperate to get another foothold across the pond. As such, the new project, dubbed project XX, would be the icing on the cake in terms of British Leyland’s fleet overhaul, a smooth and sophisticated executive saloon to conquer the world. However, plans were pushed back after the launch of the Montego and the Maestro, and thus project XX wouldn’t see the light of day again until about 1984.

Still in production and suffering from being long-in-the-tooth, the Rover SD1 was now coming up on 10 years old, and though a sublime car in terms of style and performance, it was now struggling in sales. Rover really needed to replace this golden oldie, and thus project XX was back on. In the usual fashion, Honda was consulted, and it was decided that the car would be based on that company’s own executive saloon, the Honda Legend. Jointly developed at Rover’s Cowley plant and Honda’s Tochigi development centre, both cars shared the same core structure and floorplan, but they each had their own unique exterior bodywork and interior. Under the agreement, Honda would supply the V6 petrol engine, both automatic and manual transmissions and the chassis design, whilst BL would provide the 4-cylinder petrol engine and much of the electrical systems. The agreement also included that UK-market Honda Legends would be built at the Cowley Plant, and the presence of the Legend in the UK would be smaller than that of the Rover 800, with profits from the 800 shared between the two companies.

Launched on July 10th, 1986, the Rover 800 was welcomed with warm reviews regarding its style, its performance and its reliability. Though driving performance was pretty much the same as the Honda Legend, what put the Rover above its Japanese counterpart was its sheer internal elegance and beauty, combined with a differing external design that borrowed cues from the outgoing SD1. The 800 also provided the company with some much-needed optimism, especially following the gradual breakup of British Leyland by the Thatcher Government between 1980 and 1986.

Following her election in 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took a no nonsense attitude to the striking unions, and the best form of defence was attack. To shave millions from the deficit, she reduced government spending on nationalised companies such as British Airways, British Coal Board, British Steel and British Leyland by selling them to private ownership. For British Leyland, the slow breakup of the company started with the sale of Leyland Trucks and Buses to DAF of Holland and Volvo, respectively. 1984 saw Jaguar made independent and later bought by Ford, but when rumours circulated that the remains of British Leyland would be sold to foreign ownership, share prices crashed, and the company was privatised and put into the hands of British Aerospace on the strict understanding that the company could not be sold again for four years. With this move, British Leyland was renamed Rover Group, the Austin badge being dropped, and the only remaining brands left being the eponymous Rover and sporty MG.

In the light of this tumultuous period, many of Rover and MG’s projects had to be scrapped in light of turbulent share prices and income, these projects including the Austin AR16 family car range (based largely off the Rover 800) and the MG EX-E supercar. The Rover 800 however was the first model to be released by the company following privatisation, and doing well initially in terms of sales, hopes were high that the Rover 800 would herald the end of the company’s troubled spell under British Leyland. The Rover 800 was planned to spearhead multiple Rover ventures, including a return to the US-market in the form of the Sterling, and a coupe concept to beat the world, the sublime Rover CCV.

However, British Leyland may have been gone, but their management and its incompetence remained. Rather than taking the formation of Rover Group as a golden opportunity to clean up the company’s act, to the management it was business as usual, and the Rover 800 began to suffer as a consequence. A lack of proper quality control and a cost-cutting attitude meant that despite all the Japanese reliability that had been layered on these machines in the design stage, the cars were still highly unreliable when they left the factory.

Perhaps the biggest sentiment to the 800’s failure was the Sterling in America. The Sterling had been named as such due to Rover’s reputation being tarnished by the failure of the unreliable SD1. Initial sales were very promising with the Sterling, a simple design with oodles of luxury that was price competitive with family sedan’s such as the Ford LTD and the Chevy Caprice. However, once the problems with reliability and quality began to rear their heads, sales plummeted and the Sterling very quickly fell short of its sales quota, only selling 14,000 of the forecast 30,000 cars per annum. Sales dropped year by year until eventually the Sterling brand was axed in 1991.

With the death of the Sterling came the death of the CCV, a luxury motor that had already won over investors in both Europe and the USA. The fantastic design that had wooed the American market and was ready to go on sale across the States was axed unceremoniously in 1987, and with it any attempt to try and capture the American market ever again.

In 1991, Rover Group, seeing their sales were still tumbling, and with unreliable callbacks to British Leyland like the Maestro and Montego still on sale, the company decided to have yet another shakeup to try and refresh its image. The project, dubbed R17, went back to the company’s roots of grand old England, and the Rover 800 was the first to feel its touch. The R17 facelift saw the 800’s angular lines smoothed with revised light-clusters, a low-smooth body, and the addition of a grille, attempting to harp back to the likes of the luxurious Rover P5 of the 1960’s. Engines were also updated, with the previous M16 Honda engine being replaced by a crisp 2.0L T16, which gave the car some good performance. The car was also made available in a set of additional ranges, including a coupe and the sport Vitesse, complete with a higher performance engine.

Early reviews of the R17 800 were favourable, many critics lauding its design changes and luxurious interior, especially given its price competitiveness against comparable machines such as the Vauxhall Omega and the Ford Mondeo. Even Jeremy Clarkson, a man who fervently hated Rover and everything it stood for, couldn’t help but give it a good review on Top Gear. However, motoring critics were quick to point out the fact that by this time Honda was really starting to sell heavily in the UK and Europe, and people now asked themselves why they’d want to buy the Rover 800, a near carbon-copy of the Honda Legend, for twice the price but equal performance. Wood and leather furnishings are very nice, but not all motorists are interested in that, some are just interested in a reliable and practical machine to run around in.

As such, the Rover 800’s sales domestically were very good, it becoming the best-selling car in the UK for 1992, but in Europe not so much. Though Rover 800’s did make it across the Channel, the BMW 5-Series and other contemporary European models had the market sown up clean, and the Rover 800 never truly made an impact internationally. On average, the car sold well in the early 1990’s, but as time went on the car’s place in the market fell to just over 10,000 per year by 1995. Rover needed another shake-up, and the Rover 75 did just that.

In 1994, Rover Group was sold to BMW, and their brave new star to get the company back in the good books of the motoring public was the Rover 75, an executive saloon to beat the world. With this new face in the company’s showrooms, the Rover 800 and its 10 year old design was put out to grass following its launch in 1998. Selling only around 6,500 cars in its final full year of production, the Rover 800 finished sales in 1999 and disappeared, the last relic of the British Leyland/Honda tie up from the 1980’s.

Today the Rover 800 finds itself under a mixed reception. While some argue that it was the last true Rover before the BMW buyout, others will fervently deride it as a Honda with a Rover badge, a humiliation of a Rover, and truly the point where the company lost its identity. I personally believe it to be a magnificent car, a car with purpose, a car with promise, but none of those promises fulfilled. It could have truly been the face of a new Rover in the late 1980’s, and could have returned the company to the front line of the motoring world, at least in Britain. But sadly, management incompetence won again for the British motor industry, and the Rover 800 ended its days a lukewarm reminder that we really didn’t know a good thing until it was gone.

This was meant to take on the world this was, but sadly it didn’t get very far! The Rover 800 had so many possibilities, so many variants could have been derived from it, but unfortunately the management was once again very quick to nip this beautiful car in the bud, and the Rover 800 would join that long line of ‘what-could-have-been’ motors that seem to pave British motoring history.

The origin of the Rover 800 goes back to the late 1970’s, when nationalised British car manufacturer and all around general failure British Leyland was absolutely desperate to fix its seemingly endless list of problems. The company had now garnered a reputation for creating some of the worst, most outdated cars of all time, the likes of the Morris Marina, the Austin Allegro and the Triumph TR7 being derided in both critical and customer reviews. A mixture of strike action by uncontrollable Trade Unions led by the infamous Red Robbo had meant that cars were only put together for a few hours per day on a three day week. As such, reliability was atrocious on a biblical scale, be it mechanical, cosmetic or electrical.

As such, in 1979, British Leyland began talks with Japanese car manufacturer Honda to try and help improve the reliability of their machines. The pioneer of this brave new deal was the Triumph Acclaim of 1980, BL’s first reliable car and not a bad little runabout. Basically a rebadged Honda Ballade, the Acclaim wasn’t meant to set the world ablaze, but it certainly helped get the company back onto people’s driveways, selling reasonably well thanks to its reliable mechanics (even if rust was something of an issue). As such, BL decided that from now on it would give its fleet a complete overhaul, basing their new models on Japanese equivalents. From 1984, the Rover 200 arrived on the scene, again, a rebadged Honda Ballade, while the Maestro and the Montego ranges also took on several tips from their Japanese counterparts, though they were primarily based on British underpinnings.

The Rover 800 however spawned quite early on, in 1981 to be exact. Following the catastrophic failure of the Rover SD1 in the American market, which only sold 774 cars before Rover removed itself from the USA altogether, the company was desperate to get another foothold across the pond. As such, the new project, dubbed project XX, would be the icing on the cake in terms of British Leyland’s fleet overhaul, a smooth and sophisticated executive saloon to conquer the world. However, plans were pushed back after the launch of the Montego and the Maestro, and thus project XX wouldn’t see the light of day again until about 1984.

Still in production and suffering from being long-in-the-tooth, the Rover SD1 was now coming up on 10 years old, and though a sublime car in terms of style and performance, it was now struggling in sales. Rover really needed to replace this golden oldie, and thus project XX was back on. In the usual fashion, Honda was consulted, and it was decided that the car would be based on that company’s own executive saloon, the Honda Legend. Jointly developed at Rover’s Cowley plant and Honda’s Tochigi development centre, both cars shared the same core structure and floorplan, but they each had their own unique exterior bodywork and interior. Under the agreement, Honda would supply the V6 petrol engine, both automatic and manual transmissions and the chassis design, whilst BL would provide the 4-cylinder petrol engine and much of the electrical systems. The agreement also included that UK-market Honda Legends would be built at the Cowley Plant, and the presence of the Legend in the UK would be smaller than that of the Rover 800, with profits from the 800 shared between the two companies.

Launched on July 10th, 1986, the Rover 800 was welcomed with warm reviews regarding its style, its performance and its reliability. Though driving performance was pretty much the same as the Honda Legend, what put the Rover above its Japanese counterpart was its sheer internal elegance and beauty, combined with a differing external design that borrowed cues from the outgoing SD1. The 800 also provided the company with some much-needed optimism, especially following the gradual breakup of British Leyland by the Thatcher Government between 1980 and 1986.

Following her election in 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took a no nonsense attitude to the striking unions, and the best form of defence was attack. To shave millions from the deficit, she reduced government spending on nationalised companies such as British Airways, British Coal Board, British Steel and British Leyland by selling them to private ownership. For British Leyland, the slow breakup of the company started with the sale of Leyland Trucks and Buses to DAF of Holland and Volvo, respectively. 1984 saw Jaguar made independent and later bought by Ford, but when rumours circulated that the remains of British Leyland would be sold to foreign ownership, share prices crashed, and the company was privatised and put into the hands of British Aerospace on the strict understanding that the company could not be sold again for four years. With this move, British Leyland was renamed Rover Group, the Austin badge being dropped, and the only remaining brands left being the eponymous Rover and sporty MG.

In the light of this tumultuous period, many of Rover and MG’s projects had to be scrapped in light of turbulent share prices and income, these projects including the Austin AR16 family car range (based largely off the Rover 800) and the MG EX-E supercar. The Rover 800 however was the first model to be released by the company following privatisation, and doing well initially in terms of sales, hopes were high that the Rover 800 would herald the end of the company’s troubled spell under British Leyland. The Rover 800 was planned to spearhead multiple Rover ventures, including a return to the US-market in the form of the Sterling, and a coupe concept to beat the world, the sublime Rover CCV.

However, British Leyland may have been gone, but their management and its incompetence remained. Rather than taking the formation of Rover Group as a golden opportunity to clean up the company’s act, to the management it was business as usual, and the Rover 800 began to suffer as a consequence. A lack of proper quality control and a cost-cutting attitude meant that despite all the Japanese reliability that had been layered on these machines in the design stage, the cars were still highly unreliable when they left the factory.

Perhaps the biggest sentiment to the 800’s failure was the Sterling in America. The Sterling had been named as such due to Rover’s reputation being tarnished by the failure of the unreliable SD1. Initial sales were very promising with the Sterling, a simple design with oodles of luxury that was price competitive with family sedan’s such as the Ford LTD and the Chevy Caprice. However, once the problems with reliability and quality began to rear their heads, sales plummeted and the Sterling very quickly fell short of its sales quota, only selling 14,000 of the forecast 30,000 cars per annum. Sales dropped year by year until eventually the Sterling brand was axed in 1991.

With the death of the Sterling came the death of the CCV, a luxury motor that had already won over investors in both Europe and the USA. The fantastic design that had wooed the American market and was ready to go on sale across the States was axed unceremoniously in 1987, and with it any attempt to try and capture the American market ever again.

In 1991, Rover Group, seeing their sales were still tumbling, and with unreliable callbacks to British Leyland like the Maestro and Montego still on sale, the company decided to have yet another shakeup to try and refresh its image. The project, dubbed R17, went back to the company’s roots of grand old England, and the Rover 800 was the first to feel its touch. The R17 facelift saw the 800’s angular lines smoothed with revised light-clusters, a low-smooth body, and the addition of a grille, attempting to harp back to the likes of the luxurious Rover P5 of the 1960’s. Engines were also updated, with the previous M16 Honda engine being replaced by a crisp 2.0L T16, which gave the car some good performance. The car was also made available in a set of additional ranges, including a coupe and the sport Vitesse, complete with a higher performance engine.

Early reviews of the R17 800 were favourable, many critics lauding its design changes and luxurious interior, especially given its price competitiveness against comparable machines such as the Vauxhall Omega and the Ford Mondeo. Even Jeremy Clarkson, a man who fervently hated Rover and everything it stood for, couldn’t help but give it a good review on Top Gear. However, motoring critics were quick to point out the fact that by this time Honda was really starting to sell heavily in the UK and Europe, and people now asked themselves why they’d want to buy the Rover 800, a near carbon-copy of the Honda Legend, for twice the price but equal performance. Wood and leather furnishings are very nice, but not all motorists are interested in that, some are just interested in a reliable and practical machine to run around in.

As such, the Rover 800’s sales domestically were very good, it becoming the best-selling car in the UK for 1992, but in Europe not so much. Though Rover 800’s did make it across the Channel, the BMW 5-Series and other contemporary European models had the market sown up clean, and the Rover 800 never truly made an impact internationally. On average, the car sold well in the early 1990’s, but as time went on the car’s place in the market fell to just over 10,000 per year by 1995. Rover needed another shake-up, and the Rover 75 did just that.

In 1994, Rover Group was sold to BMW, and their brave new star to get the company back in the good books of the motoring public was the Rover 75, an executive saloon to beat the world. With this new face in the company’s showrooms, the Rover 800 and its 10 year old design was put out to grass following its launch in 1998. Selling only around 6,500 cars in its final full year of production, the Rover 800 finished sales in 1999 and disappeared, the last relic of the British Leyland/Honda tie up from the 1980’s.

Today the Rover 800 finds itself under a mixed reception. While some argue that it was the last true Rover before the BMW buyout, others will fervently deride it as a Honda with a Rover badge, a humiliation of a Rover, and truly the point where the company lost its identity. I personally believe it to be a magnificent car, a car with purpose, a car with promise, but none of those promises fulfilled. It could have truly been the face of a new Rover in the late 1980’s, and could have returned the company to the front line of the motoring world, at least in Britain. But sadly, management incompetence won again for the British motor industry, and the Rover 800 ended its days a lukewarm reminder that we really didn’t know a good thing until it was gone.

This was meant to take on the world this was, but sadly it didn’t get very far! The Rover 800 had so many possibilities, so many variants could have been derived from it, but unfortunately the management was once again very quick to nip this beautiful car in the bud, and the Rover 800 would join that long line of ‘what-could-have-been’ motors that seem to pave British motoring history.

The origin of the Rover 800 goes back to the late 1970’s, when nationalised British car manufacturer and all around general failure British Leyland was absolutely desperate to fix its seemingly endless list of problems. The company had now garnered a reputation for creating some of the worst, most outdated cars of all time, the likes of the Morris Marina, the Austin Allegro and the Triumph TR7 being derided in both critical and customer reviews. A mixture of strike action by uncontrollable Trade Unions led by the infamous Red Robbo had meant that cars were only put together for a few hours per day on a three day week. As such, reliability was atrocious on a biblical scale, be it mechanical, cosmetic or electrical.

As such, in 1979, British Leyland began talks with Japanese car manufacturer Honda to try and help improve the reliability of their machines. The pioneer of this brave new deal was the Triumph Acclaim of 1980, BL’s first reliable car and not a bad little runabout. Basically a rebadged Honda Ballade, the Acclaim wasn’t meant to set the world ablaze, but it certainly helped get the company back onto people’s driveways, selling reasonably well thanks to its reliable mechanics (even if rust was something of an issue). As such, BL decided that from now on it would give its fleet a complete overhaul, basing their new models on Japanese equivalents. From 1984, the Rover 200 arrived on the scene, again, a rebadged Honda Ballade, while the Maestro and the Montego ranges also took on several tips from their Japanese counterparts, though they were primarily based on British underpinnings.

The Rover 800 however spawned quite early on, in 1981 to be exact. Following the catastrophic failure of the Rover SD1 in the American market, which only sold 774 cars before Rover removed itself from the USA altogether, the company was desperate to get another foothold across the pond. As such, the new project, dubbed project XX, would be the icing on the cake in terms of British Leyland’s fleet overhaul, a smooth and sophisticated executive saloon to conquer the world. However, plans were pushed back after the launch of the Montego and the Maestro, and thus project XX wouldn’t see the light of day again until about 1984.

Still in production and suffering from being long-in-the-tooth, the Rover SD1 was now coming up on 10 years old, and though a sublime car in terms of style and performance, it was now struggling in sales. Rover really needed to replace this golden oldie, and thus project XX was back on. In the usual fashion, Honda was consulted, and it was decided that the car would be based on that company’s own executive saloon, the Honda Legend. Jointly developed at Rover’s Cowley plant and Honda’s Tochigi development centre, both cars shared the same core structure and floorplan, but they each had their own unique exterior bodywork and interior. Under the agreement, Honda would supply the V6 petrol engine, both automatic and manual transmissions and the chassis design, whilst BL would provide the 4-cylinder petrol engine and much of the electrical systems. The agreement also included that UK-market Honda Legends would be built at the Cowley Plant, and the presence of the Legend in the UK would be smaller than that of the Rover 800, with profits from the 800 shared between the two companies.

Launched on July 10th, 1986, the Rover 800 was welcomed with warm reviews regarding its style, its performance and its reliability. Though driving performance was pretty much the same as the Honda Legend, what put the Rover above its Japanese counterpart was its sheer internal elegance and beauty, combined with a differing external design that borrowed cues from the outgoing SD1. The 800 also provided the company with some much-needed optimism, especially following the gradual breakup of British Leyland by the Thatcher Government between 1980 and 1986.

Following her election in 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took a no nonsense attitude to the striking unions, and the best form of defence was attack. To shave millions from the deficit, she reduced government spending on nationalised companies such as British Airways, British Coal Board, British Steel and British Leyland by selling them to private ownership. For British Leyland, the slow breakup of the company started with the sale of Leyland Trucks and Buses to DAF of Holland and Volvo, respectively. 1984 saw Jaguar made independent and later bought by Ford, but when rumours circulated that the remains of British Leyland would be sold to foreign ownership, share prices crashed, and the company was privatised and put into the hands of British Aerospace on the strict understanding that the company could not be sold again for four years. With this move, British Leyland was renamed Rover Group, the Austin badge being dropped, and the only remaining brands left being the eponymous Rover and sporty MG.

In the light of this tumultuous period, many of Rover and MG’s projects had to be scrapped in light of turbulent share prices and income, these projects including the Austin AR16 family car range (based largely off the Rover 800) and the MG EX-E supercar. The Rover 800 however was the first model to be released by the company following privatisation, and doing well initially in terms of sales, hopes were high that the Rover 800 would herald the end of the company’s troubled spell under British Leyland. The Rover 800 was planned to spearhead multiple Rover ventures, including a return to the US-market in the form of the Sterling, and a coupe concept to beat the world, the sublime Rover CCV.

However, British Leyland may have been gone, but their management and its incompetence remained. Rather than taking the formation of Rover Group as a golden opportunity to clean up the company’s act, to the management it was business as usual, and the Rover 800 began to suffer as a consequence. A lack of proper quality control and a cost-cutting attitude meant that despite all the Japanese reliability that had been layered on these machines in the design stage, the cars were still highly unreliable when they left the factory.

Perhaps the biggest sentiment to the 800’s failure was the Sterling in America. The Sterling had been named as such due to Rover’s reputation being tarnished by the failure of the unreliable SD1. Initial sales were very promising with the Sterling, a simple design with oodles of luxury that was price competitive with family sedan’s such as the Ford LTD and the Chevy Caprice. However, once the problems with reliability and quality began to rear their heads, sales plummeted and the Sterling very quickly fell short of its sales quota, only selling 14,000 of the forecast 30,000 cars per annum. Sales dropped year by year until eventually the Sterling brand was axed in 1991.

With the death of the Sterling came the death of the CCV, a luxury motor that had already won over investors in both Europe and the USA. The fantastic design that had wooed the American market and was ready to go on sale across the States was axed unceremoniously in 1987, and with it any attempt to try and capture the American market ever again.

In 1991, Rover Group, seeing their sales were still tumbling, and with unreliable callbacks to British Leyland like the Maestro and Montego still on sale, the company decided to have yet another shakeup to try and refresh its image. The project, dubbed R17, went back to the company’s roots of grand old England, and the Rover 800 was the first to feel its touch. The R17 facelift saw the 800’s angular lines smoothed with revised light-clusters, a low-smooth body, and the addition of a grille, attempting to harp back to the likes of the luxurious Rover P5 of the 1960’s. Engines were also updated, with the previous M16 Honda engine being replaced by a crisp 2.0L T16, which gave the car some good performance. The car was also made available in a set of additional ranges, including a coupe and the sport Vitesse, complete with a higher performance engine.

Early reviews of the R17 800 were favourable, many critics lauding its design changes and luxurious interior, especially given its price competitiveness against comparable machines such as the Vauxhall Omega and the Ford Mondeo. Even Jeremy Clarkson, a man who fervently hated Rover and everything it stood for, couldn’t help but give it a good review on Top Gear. However, motoring critics were quick to point out the fact that by this time Honda was really starting to sell heavily in the UK and Europe, and people now asked themselves why they’d want to buy the Rover 800, a near carbon-copy of the Honda Legend, for twice the price but equal performance. Wood and leather furnishings are very nice, but not all motorists are interested in that, some are just interested in a reliable and practical machine to run around in.

As such, the Rover 800’s sales domestically were very good, it becoming the best-selling car in the UK for 1992, but in Europe not so much. Though Rover 800’s did make it across the Channel, the BMW 5-Series and other contemporary European models had the market sown up clean, and the Rover 800 never truly made an impact internationally. On average, the car sold well in the early 1990’s, but as time went on the car’s place in the market fell to just over 10,000 per year by 1995. Rover needed another shake-up, and the Rover 75 did just that.

In 1994, Rover Group was sold to BMW, and their brave new star to get the company back in the good books of the motoring public was the Rover 75, an executive saloon to beat the world. With this new face in the company’s showrooms, the Rover 800 and its 10 year old design was put out to grass following its launch in 1998. Selling only around 6,500 cars in its final full year of production, the Rover 800 finished sales in 1999 and disappeared, the last relic of the British Leyland/Honda tie up from the 1980’s.

Today the Rover 800 finds itself under a mixed reception. While some argue that it was the last true Rover before the BMW buyout, others will fervently deride it as a Honda with a Rover badge, a humiliation of a Rover, and truly the point where the company lost its identity. I personally believe it to be a magnificent car, a car with purpose, a car with promise, but none of those promises fulfilled. It could have truly been the face of a new Rover in the late 1980’s, and could have returned the company to the front line of the motoring world, at least in Britain. But sadly, management incompetence won again for the British motor industry, and the Rover 800 ended its days a lukewarm reminder that we really didn’t know a good thing until it was gone.

From the Beebe Chamber of Commerce website:

On December 31, 2010, thousands of red-winged blackbirds mysteriously fell from the skies of our small town. The bizarre event made national headlines and happened again in 2011 on a smaller scale. Although the event was unfortunate and uncontrollable, it was an occurrence that created quite the buzz in Beebe!

Our days seem to gravitate around this room lately... notice potty seat:) But my real reasoning behind this is...

Every time I see any of these commercials here ... I laugh, uncontrollably!

More to the story... blogged

Who won your 'Great Debate'?

Under or Over?

Happy Bench Monday!

texture credit: pareeerica

The way I looked at the world was changed in a crazy way when the Blurry Vision came. It was almost a psychedelic experience. Movement around me would become blurry. Colors and motions ran before my eyes uncontrollably. Car rides, people passing a few steps by me, kids twirling, etc., anything involving movement affected me. I used to say that I have a 3D chip implanted in my eyes because of its intensity. I hated to have to deal with It with and the fact that I couldn't control it was exhausting. I wanted to just freeze the world to stop its constant motion.

Done in Ai, Finalized in Photoshop.

Life finds a way... to bark uncontrollably.

Disturbing appearances

Crippling depression

Triggering thoughts

Uncontrollable selfharm

They give me numbing shots to prepare me for the shocktherapy treatment

I've never felt such an overwelming fear. My mind is blurred, i cant even speak, my body is shivering, my sweat is cold and my blood is freezing. I know I wont make it this time. My heart is too weak. There is no heartbeat left anymore...

The photo is mostly about accepting that life is uncontrollable,the only way to live it is not caring.

Made with Cinder.

Stills from a weekend project. I wanted to try and recreate the scene from Cuarón's "Gravity" when Sandra Bullock's character tumbles uncontrollably away from the destroyed shuttle.

Panthera leo, Mana Pools, ZM.

This chap sunning himself at Mana Pools is a big brute…. notice that his face has been rearranged by an opponent’s claw / fang…his left nostril has a huge split and the cheek below the left eye is heavily scarred. Life in the wild is tough and unforgiving…

I was spread eagled on the ground about 20 yards from him for this shot….I think it’s a reasonable image, notwithstanding the uncontrollable twitching of my extremities!

Thank you for your visit... I am grateful for your Faves, and would be pleased if you were to comment on my work...

Visit my Flickr stream for other related images:

www.flickr.com/photos/momathew/

A special setup for 'Uncontrollable Urge'. Note that he is using 'Bob 1' guitar pics ;)

The guitar is a 'Tone-Rite' with the middle two strings removed, a specially wired Boss Distortion pedal and another effect down at the bottom.

I think all art is about control - the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.

Richard Avedon

None of my photographs may be reproduced without my permission. ©2010

Scientific Name: Pseudoarachnia armoralis

Family: Arachnorb

Olimar's Notes:

Although this creature is commonly associated with spiders, it is actually the result of a separate evolutionary line of insectoid creatures. Since the spherical body section supported by the creature's legs carries most of its internal organs, there appear to be no other features that would correspond to a head or abdomen.

Louie's Notes:

Poisonous. Consumption results in prolonged writhing and uncontrollable mirth.

Photo and Creation © 2009 Filip Johannes Felberg

Olimar and Louie's Notes © Nintendo

sldesignnotebook.blogspot.com/2016/02/oh-no-you-didnt.html

Avatars come in all shapes, horses, dogs, cockroaches, blah blah blah. However when posing as a human being, there are certain looks that send me into uncontrollable laughter.

I don't want to dis' anyone for their style taste, but really. This look was a conscience decision, bought and paid for with Filthy Linden Lucre. I wish I could have talked with her, got to know her and what influences her style.

Just for fun, i've posed in my Tooter Claxton avatars - absolutely HYSterical.

uncontrollable stillness

Run Rage

run rage (n) - 1. uncontrollable anger experienced by a dog when running in difficult positions, often leading to violent behavior 2. road rage quadruped style

Hard to imagine this was just a few months few months ago.

Mina sits in the corner left alone sobbing almost uncontrollably, Trey sits watching her with a smile and walks across the room to put his hand on her chin tilting her face up, "Don't cry little lady." Trey projects to Mina, "You're just gonna have to accept those days of pussy eatin' be over for you. You ain't no lesbian no more, nah, now... You just a dog... I'm fittin to go find you your collar..."

Mina looks up at Trey as he stands and says to him, "Why are you involved?"

"Excuse me?" Trey asks, Mina repeats, "Why are you involved in this? If this is all about that guy getting revenge for his brother... Then why do you hate me so much too?"

"Hate?" Trey questions, "Nah girl I ain't hate you, this is just business see... Brother... Wait what brother? What revenge?" Trey questioned Mina, both looking just as confused as the other.

it was below freezing

and we were waiting in line

to see santa clause

and some of his helpers

at the department store.

miss gabi happened

to stand still for a instant

so I took this photograph.

once inside santa's tent,

however,

it was a total disaster.

miss gabi was crying uncontrollably

and reaching for her mother.

and miss gabi's sister,

izabel,

was sticking to cely's leg like glue,

with her face buried in cely's coat.

there was no way that either one of them

was going to have anything to do

with the dude in the red suit.

they say that first impressions are everything,

and this one didn't go so good,

so I guess it's lumps of coal

in the stockings for both of them.

ho, ho, ho! merry christmas!

This is the present view of Wolcott Falls from the upper viewing platform. The town fathers (or maybe mothers) seem to be able to cut back the trees at the bottom but those coming in from the side would appear to be uncontrollable.

HERE is the last picture I could find with a clear view. Taken 4 years ago.

This is a painful and sad thing to post, espicailly after my Change picture that I posted (I will post more). Just to be clear, for those of you that have seen and read my description in my Change picture, I have changed in so many ways. I have grown, but it hasn't been a complete 180. Change takes time to be completed. In all realness, we never stop changing.

Coming from the mind of a self-harmer: Me.

Please read this. For so long I have tried make people understand, tried to put it in words that make sense, and now I think I have. Pease comment. I want to know your thoughts and feelings, the good and the bad. But please I don't want no, "This is completely shit, you shouldn't do this, you're so f*cked up!" bullshit. In other words, don't insult me.

My hands still shake, uncontrollably. They are shaking right now. My leg is shaking too. But my mind feels relatively calm. My body shakes, but my emotions are calm. My hands type faster than usual. My body is in frantic motion, but my mind stays calm. Maybe this is how it feels the first time somebody commits murder. Except I don’t possess the too loud beating of the heart, and the nervousness. The typing is helping calm my hands, so I can finish what I have started. It’s too late to turn back now. Good thing I don’t really want to turn back.

Sensitivity. That is what my skin feels, everywhere. I’m sure making love right now, would feel more amazing then in the past. My feeling of touch is heightened.

Pain. Physical. Red. Blood. It’s everywhere now. Emotion. Calm.

The shaking has stopped, and I am clean, sanitized. I can breathe, and I feel better. I have a very very slight headache, but it was worth it.

It’s like, an addict to something that makes sense, like alcohol, coke, meth. You feel frantic, fearful. You look for what you need, trying to walk, but you can’t stop yourself from running. Your hands shake, your eyes shift from side to side hysterically, and your breathing comes out as nothing more than small quick gasp for air. Then it’s in your hands, and you feel thankful, because you know what you need will soon be yours. Then you feel it, and although your hands are shaking and your breathing still isn’t normal, the calmness washes over you. You feel nothing but peacefulness now. You won’t think about your action till later, for now all you want is to feel. You don’t really feel the physical pain yet, because you can only feel the calmness, the relief. You no longer feel frantic, you no longer feel hysterical. Just peacefulness and overwhelming calmness. Even when you realize the minor pain your in, it really doesn’t feel like anything compared to the calmness.

Many of you can’t or won’t understand, and I get that, but read this. I wrote this during one of my “episodes” as I like to call them. This is exactly what I was feeling. People can’t realize how they feel (at least I didn’t) until they think about it. And this is it. It could be different for other people. But I know that with a lot of addictions (Although some of you would call it nothing more than a choice, something I choice to do, something sick and disturbed, and stupid), it begins with the need, the franticness, the fear (although fear of what, I’m not sure); they are some of the main emotions before the addiction is fulfilled, and the calmness washing over.

This isn’t something sick. One of my contacts once compared it to food disorders. She didn’t say they were the same at all, but she was just using an example, to try and show how self-harm is not something a person chooces. At first yes, but after a while, it’s no longer a choice. I like to compare it to addictions, more than to disorders. Like a smoker needs their cigarettes, like an alcoholic needs their alcohol, like a user needs their drugs, like a sex addict needs sex, I am a cutters who need to cut. Yes, we all took the first step by lighting the lighter, by opening the bottle, by trying the drug, by taking off the clothes, by picking up the razor. But after a while, after your have done it a few times, it becomes a necessity, something you need to do. Yes, we did start it, but we didn’t really choose to keep doing it. Yes, we could stop. Tell the smoker to wear a patch, the alcoholic to go to AA, the user to go to rehab. How many actually do it? Yes it may kill us in the end, even if we don’t mean for it to, even if we don’t want to die, but we don’t think about the future while we’re doing it. We think about now. We’re thinking about the calmness.

Dérive

adj. Crystalline

1. Transmitting light; able to be seen through with clarity

2. Resembling crystal, as in transparency or distinctness of structure or outline.

3. Distinctly or sharply outlined.

Cold Crystalline Water, Rawdon, Quebec, Canada.

PixQuote:

"I think all art is about control - the encounter between control and the uncontrollable."

-Richard Avedon

Japan Airlines Flight 123 Traveling Tokyo International Airport to Osaka International Airport

Wanted to do this flight as it should have been in Aug 1985, but as you know this flight crashed into a mountain killing all 15 crew members and 505 out of 509 passengers.

"I ride because of an uncontrollable passion. I ride because its a solitary action - a self medicating stimulator, motivator. It's something I set my goals to, do my best, race myself. It's all about me being in control. In NYC I ride to ride fucking fast. To get there - test myself, beat the subway, kick the shit outta cars. Its an uncontrollable passion that cannot be looked at objectively. 'I ride a bike in traffic' and it's the best thing I've ever done."

today was full of torrential rain, lunchables, aimless driving, uncontrollable laughter.

blowing off homework, watching pointless tv shows, enjoying the weekend.

so what do you say we let life live itself.

Life is short, break the rules,

forgive quickly, kiss slowly,

laugh uncontrollably, and

never regret anything

that made you smile...

Commander Feillen

We were going on our next mission when something hit us. The blast hit our ships engines so it was like we were in a grenade about to explode. My team and I were in our beds near the escape pods so a few others and us were able to get to the pods and survive the attack. Unfortunately we saw the horror of most of our brothers blown up by an unknown ship. We tried to take control of the pod, but the atmosphere of Kashyyyk sucked us into the planet. At uncontrollable speeds, we crash-landed into a swamp on Kashyyyk. We were fine but a little dizzy. Trace looked for any Wookie villages near by, Teck tried to fix the pod, Snipe tried to communicate with the republic, and Charger and I tried to find some food. I don’t know much about Kashyyyk, but I do know that it’s not a place to get stranded on…

To be continued…

This was meant to take on the world this was, but sadly it didn’t get very far! The Rover 800 had so many possibilities, so many variants could have been derived from it, but unfortunately the management was once again very quick to nip this beautiful car in the bud, and the Rover 800 would join that long line of ‘what-could-have-been’ motors that seem to pave British motoring history.

The origin of the Rover 800 goes back to the late 1970’s, when nationalised British car manufacturer and all around general failure British Leyland was absolutely desperate to fix its seemingly endless list of problems. The company had now garnered a reputation for creating some of the worst, most outdated cars of all time, the likes of the Morris Marina, the Austin Allegro and the Triumph TR7 being derided in both critical and customer reviews. A mixture of strike action by uncontrollable Trade Unions led by the infamous Red Robbo had meant that cars were only put together for a few hours per day on a three day week. As such, reliability was atrocious on a biblical scale, be it mechanical, cosmetic or electrical.

As such, in 1979, British Leyland began talks with Japanese car manufacturer Honda to try and help improve the reliability of their machines. The pioneer of this brave new deal was the Triumph Acclaim of 1980, BL’s first reliable car and not a bad little runabout. Basically a rebadged Honda Ballade, the Acclaim wasn’t meant to set the world ablaze, but it certainly helped get the company back onto people’s driveways, selling reasonably well thanks to its reliable mechanics (even if rust was something of an issue). As such, BL decided that from now on it would give its fleet a complete overhaul, basing their new models on Japanese equivalents. From 1984, the Rover 200 arrived on the scene, again, a rebadged Honda Ballade, while the Maestro and the Montego ranges also took on several tips from their Japanese counterparts, though they were primarily based on British underpinnings.

The Rover 800 however spawned quite early on, in 1981 to be exact. Following the catastrophic failure of the Rover SD1 in the American market, which only sold 774 cars before Rover removed itself from the USA altogether, the company was desperate to get another foothold across the pond. As such, the new project, dubbed project XX, would be the icing on the cake in terms of British Leyland’s fleet overhaul, a smooth and sophisticated executive saloon to conquer the world. However, plans were pushed back after the launch of the Montego and the Maestro, and thus project XX wouldn’t see the light of day again until about 1984.

Still in production and suffering from being long-in-the-tooth, the Rover SD1 was now coming up on 10 years old, and though a sublime car in terms of style and performance, it was now struggling in sales. Rover really needed to replace this golden oldie, and thus project XX was back on. In the usual fashion, Honda was consulted, and it was decided that the car would be based on that company’s own executive saloon, the Honda Legend. Jointly developed at Rover’s Cowley plant and Honda’s Tochigi development centre, both cars shared the same core structure and floorplan, but they each had their own unique exterior bodywork and interior. Under the agreement, Honda would supply the V6 petrol engine, both automatic and manual transmissions and the chassis design, whilst BL would provide the 4-cylinder petrol engine and much of the electrical systems. The agreement also included that UK-market Honda Legends would be built at the Cowley Plant, and the presence of the Legend in the UK would be smaller than that of the Rover 800, with profits from the 800 shared between the two companies.

Launched on July 10th, 1986, the Rover 800 was welcomed with warm reviews regarding its style, its performance and its reliability. Though driving performance was pretty much the same as the Honda Legend, what put the Rover above its Japanese counterpart was its sheer internal elegance and beauty, combined with a differing external design that borrowed cues from the outgoing SD1. The 800 also provided the company with some much-needed optimism, especially following the gradual breakup of British Leyland by the Thatcher Government between 1980 and 1986.

Following her election in 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took a no nonsense attitude to the striking unions, and the best form of defence was attack. To shave millions from the deficit, she reduced government spending on nationalised companies such as British Airways, British Coal Board, British Steel and British Leyland by selling them to private ownership. For British Leyland, the slow breakup of the company started with the sale of Leyland Trucks and Buses to DAF of Holland and Volvo, respectively. 1984 saw Jaguar made independent and later bought by Ford, but when rumours circulated that the remains of British Leyland would be sold to foreign ownership, share prices crashed, and the company was privatised and put into the hands of British Aerospace on the strict understanding that the company could not be sold again for four years. With this move, British Leyland was renamed Rover Group, the Austin badge being dropped, and the only remaining brands left being the eponymous Rover and sporty MG.

In the light of this tumultuous period, many of Rover and MG’s projects had to be scrapped in light of turbulent share prices and income, these projects including the Austin AR16 family car range (based largely off the Rover 800) and the MG EX-E supercar. The Rover 800 however was the first model to be released by the company following privatisation, and doing well initially in terms of sales, hopes were high that the Rover 800 would herald the end of the company’s troubled spell under British Leyland. The Rover 800 was planned to spearhead multiple Rover ventures, including a return to the US-market in the form of the Sterling, and a coupe concept to beat the world, the sublime Rover CCV.

However, British Leyland may have been gone, but their management and its incompetence remained. Rather than taking the formation of Rover Group as a golden opportunity to clean up the company’s act, to the management it was business as usual, and the Rover 800 began to suffer as a consequence. A lack of proper quality control and a cost-cutting attitude meant that despite all the Japanese reliability that had been layered on these machines in the design stage, the cars were still highly unreliable when they left the factory.

Perhaps the biggest sentiment to the 800’s failure was the Sterling in America. The Sterling had been named as such due to Rover’s reputation being tarnished by the failure of the unreliable SD1. Initial sales were very promising with the Sterling, a simple design with oodles of luxury that was price competitive with family sedan’s such as the Ford LTD and the Chevy Caprice. However, once the problems with reliability and quality began to rear their heads, sales plummeted and the Sterling very quickly fell short of its sales quota, only selling 14,000 of the forecast 30,000 cars per annum. Sales dropped year by year until eventually the Sterling brand was axed in 1991.

With the death of the Sterling came the death of the CCV, a luxury motor that had already won over investors in both Europe and the USA. The fantastic design that had wooed the American market and was ready to go on sale across the States was axed unceremoniously in 1987, and with it any attempt to try and capture the American market ever again.

In 1991, Rover Group, seeing their sales were still tumbling, and with unreliable callbacks to British Leyland like the Maestro and Montego still on sale, the company decided to have yet another shakeup to try and refresh its image. The project, dubbed R17, went back to the company’s roots of grand old England, and the Rover 800 was the first to feel its touch. The R17 facelift saw the 800’s angular lines smoothed with revised light-clusters, a low-smooth body, and the addition of a grille, attempting to harp back to the likes of the luxurious Rover P5 of the 1960’s. Engines were also updated, with the previous M16 Honda engine being replaced by a crisp 2.0L T16, which gave the car some good performance. The car was also made available in a set of additional ranges, including a coupe and the sport Vitesse, complete with a higher performance engine.

Early reviews of the R17 800 were favourable, many critics lauding its design changes and luxurious interior, especially given its price competitiveness against comparable machines such as the Vauxhall Omega and the Ford Mondeo. Even Jeremy Clarkson, a man who fervently hated Rover and everything it stood for, couldn’t help but give it a good review on Top Gear. However, motoring critics were quick to point out the fact that by this time Honda was really starting to sell heavily in the UK and Europe, and people now asked themselves why they’d want to buy the Rover 800, a near carbon-copy of the Honda Legend, for twice the price but equal performance. Wood and leather furnishings are very nice, but not all motorists are interested in that, some are just interested in a reliable and practical machine to run around in.

As such, the Rover 800’s sales domestically were very good, it becoming the best-selling car in the UK for 1992, but in Europe not so much. Though Rover 800’s did make it across the Channel, the BMW 5-Series and other contemporary European models had the market sown up clean, and the Rover 800 never truly made an impact internationally. On average, the car sold well in the early 1990’s, but as time went on the car’s place in the market fell to just over 10,000 per year by 1995. Rover needed another shake-up, and the Rover 75 did just that.

In 1994, Rover Group was sold to BMW, and their brave new star to get the company back in the good books of the motoring public was the Rover 75, an executive saloon to beat the world. With this new face in the company’s showrooms, the Rover 800 and its 10 year old design was put out to grass following its launch in 1998. Selling only around 6,500 cars in its final full year of production, the Rover 800 finished sales in 1999 and disappeared, the last relic of the British Leyland/Honda tie up from the 1980’s.

Today the Rover 800 finds itself under a mixed reception. While some argue that it was the last true Rover before the BMW buyout, others will fervently deride it as a Honda with a Rover badge, a humiliation of a Rover, and truly the point where the company lost its identity. I personally believe it to be a magnificent car, a car with purpose, a car with promise, but none of those promises fulfilled. It could have truly been the face of a new Rover in the late 1980’s, and could have returned the company to the front line of the motoring world, at least in Britain. But sadly, management incompetence won again for the British motor industry, and the Rover 800 ended its days a lukewarm reminder that we really didn’t know a good thing until it was gone.

“I think all art is about control—the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.” — Richard Avedon

The Royal Aircraft Establishment's red, white and blue Aerospatiale/Westland Puma HC.1 ZA941 providing SAR cover during the 1982 Farnborough International Airshow.

Unfortunately, during a post maintenance flight while on anti-tank weapon trials at the French Camp de Canjeurs Air Base, she entered an uncontrollable left-hand turn crashing nose down into trees into a valley south of the base.

Two ground engineers who were aboard her were lost on impact and the two pilots were severely injured.

Scanned 35mm Transparency

Algorithmic Drive | Conduite algorithmique

“Life is short, Break the Rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably, and never regret ANYTHING that makes you smile.”

~Mark Twain

(panel1)me: So this mushroom walks into a party

(panel2)me: and the host says hey we dont like your kind here

(panel3)me: and the mushroom says "why not? i'm a fungi!"

(panel4)me: get it get it? fungi? fun guy?! (insert uncontrollable laugh here)

always start out with a good joke to loosen em up.

15of 365

I have an uncontrollable need to be the best damn cake maker ever. Or at least... to be able to pull off a decent layered cake. Gotta start somewhere. This is my second attempt. Salted caramel cake with caramel cream cheese layers and vanilla bean butter cream burgundy ombre frosting and fresh flowers. Still have so much to figure out about baking the cake and dealing with frosting, but pretty pleased with how it's going so far.

Ryan Reynolds sobbing uncontrollably. Im not sure why..

Chaos Theory im guessing.

see all sizes

enjoy news on Ryan as well as 7000+ photos at ryanreynoldsfan.net/

The ultimate Ryan Reynolds fansite.