market. In 1984, while in the final stages of developing the Rover 800 Series saloon, it was planned to sell the sell the hatchback version from its launch a year later as the Rover 600 Series, but these plans were abandoned and instead the hatchback became part of the 800 Series. Development Originally, the Austin Rover Group (ARG) had intended to replace the Montego with the AR16 and AR17 concepts - these were essentially the existing Montego underpinnings and core structure re-skinned with new outer body panels to mimic the design language of the Rover 800 (XX) and would have been called the Rover 400-series. AR16 was a saloon, whilst AR17 was to be a hatchback which would compete directly with the Ford Sierra and Vauxhall Cavalier. However, shortly after the restructuring of ARG and its parent company British Leyland into the Rover Group, the plan was cancelled due to a lack of funds, and as a stopgap, a facelifted and revised Montego (Project AR9) was released for the 1989 model year. In June 1989, Rover reached an agreement with Honda (its partner in a venture which had been running since 1980) to produce a new model which would share its base with the next generation Honda Accord, but would use Rover's own engines. It would be aimed further upmarket than the Montego, competing more directly with the likes of the BMW 3 Series than with the Ford Mondeo, which was launched at around the same time. Having been unveiled to the motoring press towards the end of 1992, the Rover 600 Series finally went on sale on 19 April 1993, two months before the new Accord on which it was based, although it had been well known within the motoring press that both cars were derived from the Japanese market Ascot Innova which had launched in March 1992, therefore the engineering and interior design elements of both the 600 and European-market Accord were essentially already in the public domain almost a year before their European launch. Its introduction saw the Montego saloon withdrawn from production after nine years, although production of the estate model continued until the end of the following year. Rover recalled 21,634 600 Series' built between December 1994 and December 1995 in May 1996, to check a potential steering rack fault. Versions The 600 was available in the following versions: 618i 618 Si 620i 620 Si