• Landmark Edwardian Rover • Restored in the USA in the 1970s • Present ownership in the UK since 1981 • Offered from a private collection • Eligible for VCC events What would eventually become the Rover company began by manufacturing one of the landmark designs in the history of human transportation: John Kemp Starley's 'Safety Bicycle'.

The firm's first venture into powered transportation, an electrically powered tricycle, came in 1888 but it would be another 16 years, by which time its founder had died, before the Rover Cycle Company began experimenting with the internal combustion engine.

In 1903, designer Edmund Lewis was recruited from Daimler and drew up Rover's first series-production automobile, an 8hp single-cylinder car with aluminium backbone frame, an adventurous design that despite its shortcomings remained in production until 1912.

Lewis followed up with a more conventional 6hp single-cylinder model with steel-reinforced wooden chassis, which earned itself the distinc...